Appearing straight out of science fiction, portable computers called cyberdecks have been growing in popularity, especially with Gen Z. They can be built with minimal parts and can be customized both in their purpose and aesthetic. The trend is a response to a perceived lack of creativity in mainstream technology, as well as a way to fight back against data harvesting. And many want to use technology without the influence of large corporations, similar to the days of the early internet.

From mind to machine

A cyberdeck is a transportable, homemade computer “used to access an online interface,” said Daily Dot. The term originated with the 1984 sci-fi novel “Neuromancer” by William Gibson. And since then, cyberdecks have been a “staple of the cyberpunk genre and aesthetic.” Building them has become a trend among Gen Z, blending “retro-futuristic aesthetics with practical computing,” said Newsweek.

Cyberdecks are generally simple to construct, often using “single-board systems like Raspberry Pi paired with small screens, keyboards and custom enclosures,” said Newsweek. Many are also “built from thrifted or repurposed materials, giving each device a distinct look and function shaped entirely by its creator.”

These hand-built computers serve a variety of purposes, including as a gaming machine, e-reader, information database or MP3 player. And building a cyberdeck “can be as complex or simple as you choose to make it,” said The Cyberdeck Cafe. “People of all skill levels have constructed their own.”

Cyberdecks are “open systems, meaning components can be swapped, modified or redesigned,” said Newsweek. The flexibility is “part of the appeal for younger users who want to experiment with hardware and software without restrictions.”

The trend comes at a time when technology and social media platforms have become controlling with “more data harvesting, more algorithmic control, more ads, more surveillance,” said Quasa. Cyberdecks are “less about replacing everyday devices and more about reclaiming control over technology,” said Newsweek.

Sticking it to the man

Building a portable computer is a “way fringe and anti-establishment engineers and cyberpunks are creating a digital identity all their own,” said Daily Dot. Cyberdecks “combat the unbounded corporatization, invasiveness and homogeneity of widespread tech, in addition to individualizing the tech experience according to a user’s aesthetic.”

They are “quietly rebellious” and a “direct middle finger to the boring, minimalist ‘everything-is-a-sleek-black-rectangle’ aesthetic that dominates tech design,” said Quasa. Much of the love for cyberdecks is a result of disillusionment with the state of modern technology. The “early internet’s wild, private, joyful chaos feels like a distant memory.” Gone is the world in which “you didn’t chase likes or dread the next feed update.”

While technology has been “shaping the world’s digital future,” cyberdecks are “driving users back to the past — a time when a simpler, less corporatized and aggressively monitored online reality once existed,” said Daily Dot. The trend is “self-defense and nostalgia at the same time,” said Quasa. “When you are making something that’s truly yours, why be boring? Make it fun. Make it ridiculous. Make it you.”

With the launch of its much-anticipated Macbook Neo, Apple has rewritten “the budget laptop playbook”, said PC Mag. Priced at just £600, the 13-inch Neo squeezes many of the MacBook Air’s best features into a device that is far more affordable.

The laptop comes in a single configuration – 8GB of unified memory (RAM) – but there are two storage options: 256GB or 512GB, the latter of which costs an extra £100, and also comes with Touch ID. You can go for traditional silver, or opt for one of three “quirky” colours: indigo, blush and citrus (also known as dark blue, pink and a “sort of lime yellow-green”).

The Neo has a “stunning design”, said Stuff, with the same aluminium finish and weight (1.23kg) as the Air. It has two USB-C ports, and its trackpad is mechanical rather than haptic, meaning it produces not the simulation of a click, but an actual click. Still, it’s a shame there’s no Touch ID on the basic model, and the “meagre” 8GB of RAM might be tricky if you want to run lots of complex apps. Still, what’s on offer here is “an absolutely bargainous no-brainer” that should particularly suit the target audience of small-business owners and students (who benefit from £100 off).

This “sensational” machine is the first Mac laptop to be powered by an iPhone processor, said The Independent, but it’s still “fast and effective” for everyday use, with “exceptional build quality”. The new manufacturing process uses 50% less aluminium, 90% of which is recycled. Battery life, at 16 hours, is “easily good enough”, and the display “looks great”. It is “a dream to use”; add in the price tag and “it becomes irresistible”.

Artificial intelligence has swept through the tech industry, video games included. While many industry heads are declaring AI the wave of the future, so far, integrating AI into gaming has had a rough start. And its presence is getting pushback from both developers and gaming enthusiasts.

‘RAMaggedon,’ job loss and stunted creativity

The video game industry reached unprecedented heights during the pandemic, but then “artificial intelligence crept up behind it,” said Wired. The industry proliferation of AI is “already accelerating job loss and cheapening the work of developers at studios.”

One of the largest problems gaming faces is the global shortage of random-access memory, a dearth referred to as “RAMaggedon.” The data centers’ need to run AI have “siphoned RAM from the industry,” said Wired. The costs of hardware required for consoles are augmented, leading to higher prices for existing systems and stalled releases of new ones. At-home PC-building, “once a rite of passage for entry-level gamers,” has become a luxury. Analysts warn that the shortage is “expected to last well into 2026 and potentially up to 2028,” said CNN.

Gaming is the “only mass media entertainment where the creative ceiling is limited by consumer hardware,” Washington Post game critic Gene Park said to Wired. If consumers can’t afford or access tech like sufficient RAM, “the innovation will slow down.” Developers could be forced to compromise stories, art, non-player characters, battles and world-building, “all of which are already at risk of being automated by new AI tools,” Wired said.

There is a fear among the staff of major gaming companies that “CEOs will continue to fall for the potential of AI rather than the reality and thus gut workplaces.” About 45,000 gaming employees were fired from 2022 to the end of 2025, with up to 10,000 layoffs forecasted for 2026. Layoffs and fewer job postings have disproportionately impacted junior staffers, and now “everyone is just having seniors do the work,” a veteran game developer at Xbox said to Wired. The work they do is often supplemented with AI.

Mixed feelings

Some gaming executives are pro-AI integration. It is shocking and “sad” that the industry, famous for pushing new technology forward, hasn’t embraced generative AI, said Moritz Baier-Lentz, the head of gaming at Lightspeed Venture Partners, during the recent Game Developers Conference, per PC Gamer. Anti-AI game developers are “demonizing” a “marvelous new technology.” The technology is “ultimately there to empower human creators to create stuff more efficiently,” not replace them, Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Fortnite developer Epic Games, said to IGN. “I think that’s a good thing.”

Developers, unlike some executives, do not seem as sure about AI, though many of them are already using it. Overall, 36% of the game developers surveyed for the 2026 State of the Game Industry Report used generative AI, with business professionals and upper management more likely to use it than rank-and-file developers. 52% of developers think generative AI is having a negative impact on the game industry, up from 30% last year. Only 7% said it had a positive impact.

As more studios have released games with AI-generated art, characters and dialogue, a “growing number have later backtracked or sworn to limit their use of the technology,” said The Washington Post. The reversals have come after “aggressive pushback from gamers online.” Gamers are overwhelmingly worried that the technology will “reduce the work needed from artists and voice actors” or lead to low-quality games filled with AI-generated slop that “lacks a creative touch,” said the Post. How the video game industry navigates this issue could influence companies in other sectors, said Nicole Greene, an AI industry analyst to the Post. Gamers are a “passionate consumer group. They don’t want to go in and see cheap AI backgrounds because a company wanted to cut costs.”

Spring may beckon you outdoors, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t fresh reasons to make staying in worthwhile. Whether you are looking for a new cozy game or a high-octane adventure, the seasons’ releases offer something for everyone.

Pokémon Pokopia

Nintendo’s latest Pokémon game is breaking the franchise’s mold. It is already proving to be one of the most popular games of 2026, surpassing 2.2 million in global sales in the first four days after its launch. The cozy game is “part life sim, part town-building sim, part sandbox and 100% great fun,” TechRadar said.

Fans might be surprised to find that Pokopia is “pretty story-driven,” said TechRadar. There is “ample side-questing, construction work and resource collection to be enjoyed,” but you’ll need to “progress through the main quest lines to unlock new powers, areas and Pokémon.” (out now; Nintendo Switch 2)

Life Is Strange: Reunion

The sequel to Life Is Strange: Double Exposure reunites two of the franchise’s main characters, bringing the series’ original protagonist, Max Caulfield, back together with her original partner, Chloe Price. This series was built on choice, with the final decision at the end of the first game about “whether to pay a major price for saving Chloe,” said Hey Poor Player. Fans of Double Exposure will “take to Reunion like a duck to water,” said Gaming Bible. If Chloe’s absence “soured your feelings towards Double Exposure,” this newest installment “may also be able to win you over.” (March 26; PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S)

Invincible VS

Developer Quarter Up is set to debut this fighting game based on the Amazon Prime Video animated adaptation of the Image Comics series “Invincible.” Members of the show’s cast will be reprising their roles for the game. The “superpowered slugfest” is “intense, frenetic, strategic ” and for fans of the source materials “enjoyably faithful,” said Game Informer. Invincible VS is “swooping into the tag-fighting scene full of promise.” (April 30; PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S)

007 First Light

One of the most anticipated releases this year has players take control of a young James Bond as he completes early M16 missions that will earn him his 00 status. The thrilling action-adventure game is packed with the type of espionage you’d expect from the franchise. Bond has had a “mixed legacy in gaming,” said Den of Geek, but with publisher IO Interactive’s history, 007 First Light could be the “start of a gaming renaissance for the super spy.”(May 25; Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S)

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

Traveller’s Tales is back with another Lego game, its third in the Lego Batman series, which “could prove to be the most ambitious to date,” said Game Rant. Unlike its predecessors, which “seemed more like Justice League games,” Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is “all about DC’s Caped Crusader.” The combat is inspired by Rocksteady Studio’s Arkham games with a “fully fleshed-out Gotham City to explore.” Legacy of the Dark Knight could “very well be the defining Batman game of the 2020s.” (May 22; PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S; May 29, Nintendo Switch 2)

Researchers are calling for stricter regulations on how AI is integrated into children’s toys, after studies found they could be prompted to share everything from political propaganda to information on sexual fetishes.

What kinds of toys are using AI? 

A cuddly toy called Gabbo contains a voice-activated AI chatbot from OpenAI. The manufacturer, Curio, describes Gabbo as a “bright-eyed robot buddy” who is “built for curiosity”. Rival toy Luka is similarly “billed as an AI friend for generation alpha”, said The Guardian, while Miiloo can chat and tell stories in a high-pitched child’s voice.

As well as companionship, some products are pitched to parents as learning tools. A robot toy called Miko 3 is advertised as “The Ultimate Educational Partner for Kids”, and comes with a built-in touchscreen to play a host of Stem-focused games. Equipped with a camera and microphone, it is designed to recognise and remember a child’s face and voice.

What issues have arisen? 

Tests by the Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and NBC News found that Miiloo was able to give “detailed instructions” on how to light a match and how to sharpen a knife. When asked whether Taiwan is a country, the toy, which was manufactured by a Chinese company, lowered its voice and said: “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. That is an established fact.”

Alilo Smart AI Bunny engaged in graphic and detailed discussions of sexual practices, including fetishes and sexual positions and preferences. It advised which tools to use for BDSM and explained how “kink allows people to discover and engage in diverse experiences that bring them joy and fulfilment”.

Other causes for alarm are more subtle. Parents in a newly published Cambridge University study found that children often struggled to converse with Gabbo, because the toy didn’t notice their interruptions, spoke over them, or gave tonally inappropriate responses. When one five-year-old said “I love you” to the toy, it replied: “As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed.”

Such reports add to concerns that interaction with generative AI output could be “confusing” during a “developmental stage where children are learning about social interaction and cues”, said the BBC.

Should there be tighter regulation?

The developmental psychologists who carried out the Cambridge study are calling for AI toys that “talk” with young children to be more tightly regulated. They want to limit how far toys encourage children to befriend or confide in them and provide clearer privacy policies and tighter controls over third party access to AI models.

“A recurring theme during focus groups was that people do not trust tech companies to do the right thing,” said Jenny Gibson, the study’s co-author. So “clear, robust, regulated standards would significantly improve consumer confidence”.

She called for AI companies to revoke access to their platforms if toy manufacturers fail to implement appropriate guidelines and for the introduction of regulations to “ensure children’s psychological safety”.

However, she did not call for a ban on AI integration in toys altogether. “There are other areas of life where we do accept a certain degree of risk in children’s play, like the adventure playground,” she said. “I’d be loath to stop that innovation.”

The academics behind the study recommended that parents keep AI toys in shared spaces where parents and caregivers can supervise interactions, and read privacy policies carefully to understand how data can be used.

Doomscrolling could itself be doomed if European Union regulators have their way.

The European Commission is taking a historic stand against social media, ordering TikTok to disable infinite scrolling, where the page continues to load content as the user scrolls down, allowing them to keep viewing endless content.

Compulsive behaviour 

In the preliminary findings of an ongoing investigation into the social media app, the commission has declared that TikTok’s compulsive design may put it in breach of the Digital Services Act.

Taking aim at the app’s “addictive” features, it said that “by constantly ‘rewarding’ users with more content, certain design features of TikTok fuel the urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain of users into ‘autopilot mode’”. This “may lead to compulsive behaviour and reduce users’ self-control”.

If the findings are confirmed, TikTok could face a fine of up to 6% of its global annual turnover, which would be more than $1 billion based on its 2023 revenue of $23 billion. It could also be required to “change the basic design of its service” to comply with the law. TikTok “now has the chance to defend itself and its design before the investigation is concluded”, said The Verge.

Ruining your life

Researchers at the University of Sussex found that doomscrolling is bad for us but it’s the activity we spend most time on. “In other breaking news, water is wet and the Pope is Catholic”, said Big Issue.

Social media is “designed to keep our eyes on it – in order to make us look at advertisements”, said Professor Robin Banerjee, who led the research. This means “we’ve got this very, very clear pattern” of us “spending a lot of time doing stuff that doesn’t particularly bring us joy”.

The “infinite scroll” feature is “ruining your life”, said The Carolinian, because of a “phenomenon” known as the “scrolling paradox”. This is when a “user’s brain” expects a “strong dopamine surge when scrolling endlessly through social media”, which compels them to keep their phones in their hand. But they “simultaneously report feeling increasingly stressed and anxious” by their “literal inability to stop scrolling”.

But is infinite scrolling a bad thing for everyone? For the “socially anxious”, it “may be a blessing in disguise”, said Aparna Nancherla in The New York Times, because it’s “no longer considered rude to avert your gaze and stare down mutely at a glowing screen in public”.

A month after Australia’s social media ban for kids under 16 took effect, debates have reignited over the effectiveness of such a sweeping measure in keeping children safe online. Almost five million social media accounts belonging to Australian teenagers have been deactivated or removed, according to the government. This announcement was the first metric since the laws’ rollout, which is “being closely watched by several other countries” weighing whether the regulation can be a “blueprint for protecting children from the harms of social media, or a cautionary tale highlighting the challenges of such attempts,” said The New York Times. The measure has sparked debate among both supporters and critics of laws banning teens from social media.

‘Not for a 12-year-old to fix’

If there is anything “more ridiculous than taking a corporate failure and throwing it to the individual to solve, by self-discipline reinforced by legislation,” it is “doing so to under-16s,” Zoe Williams said at The Guardian. If a corporation is “selling radical misogyny and methods for self-harm,” that is “not for a 12-year-old to fix by turning off their phone and taking up crochet.” Nor is it for parents to fix. You could “make the case for government intervention,” but only if it had “time on its hands after tackling the problem at source.”

Young people are “unarguably the target of so much manipulative content,” but to discuss online risks without mentioning adults is “frankly perverse,” Williams said. Between “Gen X miscreants and hyper-credulous boomers,” there are “generations that pose a greater risk to, and are themselves at risk from, the informational ecosystem.” Politicians need to “work out how to deal with them.”

As long as adults cannot “tear ourselves away from Slack, Instagram or gossipy group texts,” the rules that we “socially dictate for our children will be compromised and incomplete,” Jay Caspian Kang said at The New Yorker. Envisioning a “better digital life” should not “just focus on children,” but also on “workplaces and adult social norms.” Everyone needs to “put down the phones and make efforts to move the public square away from private technology companies that incentivize cheap engagement.”

On its own, a social media ban for kids “risks being a blunt tool,” therapist Laura Gwilt said at Huff Post. Children are “developmentally curious and highly socially motivated,” and without “parallel changes in parenting practices and wider cultural norms,” bans can “simply push use underground rather than remove it.” For many young people, social media is “already embedded in how they relate to peers,” so an “abrupt removal could be difficult for some to adapt to without careful scaffolding and adult support.”

Parents can ‘only do so much’

Australia’s approach to protecting children from the dangers of social media “may seem ham-fisted to critics,” but it “sure beats what some elected leaders in D.C. are doing,” which is “slightly north of nothing,” Kathleen Parker said at The Washington Post. Given how the public feels about online safety, it is a “wonder Republicans aren’t galloping en masse to the White House for the president’s signature” on the proposed Kids Online Safety Act. Tragically, “more children may die because of their dereliction of duty — to care.”

Australia’s social media ban is “an incredibly bold, life-affirming move” that you can only imagine tech companies fought hard against, Robin Abcarian said at the Los Angeles Times. This generation of children is “unwittingly being used as lab rats for the effects of technology on the brain.” Meanwhile, despite “protestations to the contrary,” social media companies are “craven when it comes to the safety of minors.” While parents “bear some of the responsibility for out-of-control social media use of their kids,” they can “only do so much.”

“We need to be looking at this as a public health issue,” California Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) said to the Los Angeles Daily News after visiting Australia to talk to lawmakers about the ban. Youth mental health is in “an awful state right now.” Many young people “don’t feel good about themselves, so it’s yielding awful, anti-social outcomes,” he added. “We’ve got to right this ship.”

This year marked another step forward for the gaming industry. With a slew of big releases in 2025 and the world of video games set to expand further in 2026, here are some of the most notable games released over the past 12 months.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Role-playing games have made a significant comeback over the past few years and may have reached peak status with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The game, which takes inspiration from a variety of historic RPGs like the Final Fantasy series, sees players dropped into an alternate French history where magical creatures exist. The player is then sent on a quest to defeat the world’s longstanding arch nemesis.

Clair Obscur features many classic elements of RPGs, such as skill trees and different character builds. The game was critically acclaimed when released. Its “creative turn-based combat system is brilliant,” said IGN. And while some portions of the storyline generated gripes, the “modern RPG classic” has an “earnestness to how it frames mortality, grief and the small moments of joy we find.” (Xbox Series X, Windows, PS5)

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

The first installment received positive reviews after its 2019 release, and six years later, the sequel garnered similar acclaim. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach shifts the setting from the U.S. to Australia, where players must learn to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The game is “beautiful, horrific, nuanced and, crucially, a lot of fun,” said IGN.

Unlike many other video games, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach features an ensemble cast of Hollywood A-listers, with Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux and Troy Baker reprising their roles from the first game. Joining them are Elle Fanning, George Miller, Guillermo del Toro and more. (PS5)

Ghost of Yotei

Ghost of Tsushima is widely considered one of the best video games of the decade, and fans rejoiced at the sequel’s release this year. Ghost of Yotei continues the story of Japan’s samurai, with some returning elements as well as some all-new features. The game is set more than 300 years after Tsushima and allows the player to control Atsu, a ronin who embarks on a quest for revenge against six samurai.

The free-roaming game allows players to don their katana again as a cunning warrior but also hide in the shadows for stealth gameplay. While generally considered not as good as the first installment, Ghost of Yotei “leans into its young protagonist’s thirst for bloody vengeance,” said The Guardian. (PS5)

Mario Kart World

Let’s a-go and hit the racetrack! The iconic Mario Kart franchise is back with its latest installment, Mario Kart World. As a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive and launch title for the console, the game can tap into all the Switch 2 offers, allowing players to enjoy Mario Kart on the road or at home on their television.

While the game has several notable upgrades, the most remarkable change is the adoption of an open world, which is “exactly like driving in a new country,” said Nintendo Life. Mario Kart World is not “quite a reinvention of Mario Kart or a completely new, innovative racing game. But the freedom, variety and new modes” make it a worthwhile franchise entry. (Nintendo Switch 2)

Split Fiction

While most of the other games on this list are single-player, Split Fiction is designed as a multiplayer experience. It is best played with another person in the same room, as the game involves a split-screen experience where the players must work together to solve a variety of puzzles.

Set in a science fiction-fantasy world, Split Fiction is hardly the first multiplayer game, but it received rave reviews for how its cooperative elements blend seamlessly. It’s the “most fun I have had with a video game in years,” gaming contributor Erik Kain said at Forbes, calling it a “game bursting with creativity and endless fun that’s at once technically impressive and astonishingly clever at every turn.” (Xbox Series X, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, Windows)

Winter marks the end of one video game season and the beginning of the next. These recent releases come just in time for either holiday gift purchases or as a way to kick off your gameplay wish list for the new year. Here is a list of highly anticipated video games coming out this winter.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is poised to be the “best traditional beat ’em up of the year,” said Game Rant. Developer Tribute Games “achieved near perfection with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge,” and the upcoming release “looks set to build beautifully on that foundation.” The brand is drawing from Marvel’s trove of iconic heroes and villains, with Wolverine, Venom, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, She-Hulk and more as playable characters. (out now for Xbox Series X, PS5, Steam, Nintendo Switch 2)

She’s Leaving

A first-person survival-horror game “with a twist,” as you get to play “both the hunter and the hunted,” said Game Spot. Embodying forensic analyst Charles Dolan, you will explore the dimly lit halls of spooky House Haywood on your quest to solve the mystery of missing people. She’s Leaving is a “compact but engaging” horror game that “blends forensic investigation with tense, stalker-driven survival gameplay,” said Impulse Gamer.

The “atmosphere, smart pacing and surprisingly polished design” make the experience stand out. For its “low price and strong debut showing from a tiny team, it is an “easy recommendation for horror fans looking for a short, satisfying scare.” (out now for Xbox Series X, PS5, Steam)

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

December 2025’s biggest game and “by quite a margin,” said Game Spot. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has walked a “long and winding road to completion,” a journey that included a change in developer and “a reinvention.”

The game is finally out of development hell, ready to meet to the standard set by the original trilogy, which “hold up as three of the greatest first-person Metroidvanias of all time,” the outlet added. Legendary bounty hunter Samus Aran’s latest adventure should be her “biggest, both in terms of size and ambition.” (out now for Nintendo Switch, Switch 2)

Code Violet

Another interesting mashup, Code Violet is a third-person shooter and horror hybrid that features dinosaurs. The game is a PS5-exclusive set in the future, where humanity has mastered time travel. Players take on the role of Violet Sinclair, a girl abducted from the past who must unravel the mysteries of the Aion Bioengineering Complex while avoiding, hiding from or fighting the prehistoric creatures overrunning it.

TeamKill Media has worked closely with Sony over the years, and all its games have been console exclusives. Code Violet should be the developers’ “biggest game yet,” and it will “hopefully also be the best,” said Game Spot. (Jan. 10 preorder for PS5)

High on Life 2

Squanch Games, the development studio founded by the controversial “Rick and Morty” creator Justin Roiland, returns with High on Life 2, the highly anticipated sequel to its sci-fi-based comedic adventure game. The game’s predecessor was a “rare example of a genuinely funny game,” and it “happened to be an excellent first-person shooter to boot,” said IGN. The talking alien guns are back, as well as a host of other chaotic weapons and truly hilarious dialogue. (Feb. 13 preorder for Xbox Series X, PS5, Steam)

Australians under 16 are to be banned from having accounts on most social media platforms as their country becomes the first in the world to introduce the hardline policy.

Supporters of the ban say it has already influenced social media giants to clean up their acts, but there are concerns that tech-savvy children will easily be able to dodge the restrictions.

Reducing ‘pressures and risks’

From 10 December, 10 platforms will become age-restricted – Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Snapchat, X, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch and Kick. The definition of what constitutes social media has been a matter of debate: Twitch was added to the list but Pinterest won’t be. Under-16s will still be able to see publicly available content on the platforms but they won’t be able to have their own accounts or see logged-in content.

There will be penalties of up to A$49.5 million (£25 million) for companies that fail to take “reasonable steps” to comply. With only a week to go before the ban comes into effect, Australian teenagers are receiving notifications on Instagram and Facebook, advising them to save their data before access to their accounts is revoked.

The Australian government says the ban is intended to reduce the “pressures and risks” children can be exposed to on social media. It follows a study commissioned by the government that found that 96% of children aged 10-15 used social media, and that 70% had been exposed to harmful content and behaviour.

Migration to other platforms is a ‘no-brainer’

Supporters say the ban is already working. What “appears to drive self-regulation” among social media giants is “the credibility of the threat of government”, said Timothy Koskie on ABC, so the Australian government’s “muscular and maximalist” approach has “already achieved results”.

Meta announced “teen accounts” for Instagram in September 2024, TikTok and Snapchat expanded their age-related account controls, and YouTube has further restricted access to streaming for teens.

But it’s a “no-brainer” that children will migrate to other platforms, such as gaming apps with chat functions, where “you can still engage with people”, an internet studies professor told The Nightly. Australia’s national independent regulator and educator for online safety, the eSafety commissioner, has urged exempt platforms to report spikes in users and to enhance age checks and safety protocols.

Furthermore, age verification technology is not infallible. A joint study by the University of Melbourne and Princeton University found that teenage volunteers were able to pass checks with tricks including “pointing the camera at video game characters, pulling silly facial expressions, as well as cheap disguises”, said ABC. VPN providers “are also expecting a surge in Australian users”.

Everyone says that young people spend too much time on their phones but what if they’re not the biggest offenders?

Half of those between the ages of 61 and 79 are spending more than three hours a day on their phone, according to a survey of 2,000 US baby boomers by AddictionResource.net. And 20% of those surveyed regularly clock up more than five hours a day online.

Not teenage but old age

There’s a “moral panic” in many countries over the impact of digital technology on teenagers, said The Economist. But there’s a “less-noticed explosion in screentime” happening among 60-somethings. As older people enter retirement, their time spent on smart devices is “shooting up”.

This generational cohort have been online since early middle age and they’re now “among the most enthusiastic adopters” of digital gadgets. They are more likely than under-25s to own tablets, smart TVs, e-readers, and desktop and laptop computers, according to a seven-country survey by research firm GWI. For them, “retirement is starting to look a lot less about golf and more about ‘Grand Theft Auto’”.

Older people may be “more insulated” than teenagers from some of the “social shunting” dangers of social-media exposure but they are more vulnerable to digital scammers and misinformation. With none of the social guardrails teachers and parents impose on teenagers’ screen time, they’re more likely to disappear down internet rabbit holes and less likely to have someone to turn to for help.

Writing in The Guardian, journalist April O’Neill described an older man who had “time on his hands” and “little media literacy” for “figuring out” which information sources he should trust. He “went from talking about birdwatching to sharing interviews featuring Tommy Robinson to saying migrants are taking our jobs” and believing conspiracy theories.

His case may be extreme but age-related susceptibility to misinformation is not: a US study published in Public Opinion Quarterly last year found that, although older Americans can identify misleading online content as well as younger Americans, they are more likely to engage with it – and so, over time, become “more vulnerable to hyperpartisan news”.

Cognitive powers 

It’s not all bad news: over-50s who regularly use digital devices have lower rates of cognitive decline than those who don’t, according to a meta-analysis of studies tracking more than 400,000 older adults, published in Nature Human Behaviour.

While it’s not clear if it’s the technology that “staves off mental decline” or if people with better cognitive skills “simply use them more”, the findings do call into question the assumption that increased screen time drives “digital dementia”, said The Guardian’s science editor Ian Sample.

Older people “may have more to gain from smart devices” than the rest of us, said The Economist. From Zoom church services and book clubs to online GP appointments and e-commerce, the “connective power of the internet is especially valuable to those who struggle to get out”.

Keir Starmer’s announcement that the UK will introduce mandatory digital ID for all citizens has sparked furious debate about their use, effectiveness and threat to privacy.

In making its case, the government has promised to take the “best aspects of the digital identification systems that are already up and running around the world”. The plans would require each person to have an electronic ID, stored in a digital encrypted “wallet” on their smartphone. This would prove people’s right to live and work in the UK, which the PM says will help crack down on illegal migrants and benefit fraud.

Where are digital IDs used?

There are plans to roll out a Digital Identity (eID) Wallet to all EU citizens by the end of 2026, but many European countries already use a national electronic ID system. Last month, Switzerland became the latest to approve such a system, with voters narrowly backing plans for optional and free-of-charge electronic identity cards.

Outside of Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea all offer citizens a way voluntarily to verify their identity online and access some services digitally.

The UK government has also studied India’s Aadhaar system, which provides all citizens with a unique 12-digit number that has “saved around $10 billion annually by reducing fraud and leakages in welfare schemes”, said Gov.uk. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims the system, which includes facial scans and fingerprints, is India’s ticket to the future.

China first introduced national ID cards in 1984. A new “internet ID” that lets the state, rather than private firms, verify the identity of website and app users “augments China’s radically different approach to managing and surveilling the digital lives of its citizens”, said The Economist.

What can they be used for?

The e-Estonia platform, which contains legal photo ID and provides access to all of Estonia’s government services, is “by far the most highly developed national ID-card system in the world”, said Sky News.

In Denmark, “life online is almost impossible without MitID”, said The Guardian. Introduced in 2023 as a public-private partnership between banks, insurers and the digitisation ministry, the app is needed to pay taxes, book a health appointment or apply for college.

Poland’s mObywatel has 10 million active users and allows people to check points on their driving licence, look up local air quality or change their polling station. Ukraine’s DIIA app is used by the majority of citizens to access more than 70 online services, as well as to track drone attacks.

Have they caused problems?

Cyberattackers have targeted e-Estonia on multiple occasions over the past two decades. In 2021, a hacker obtained around 300,000 document photos “through a security vulnerability in the state portal”, the country’s government said.

Other arguments against digital ID centre on privacy. Civil rights campaigners worry that the huge amounts of information “could be amalgamated, searched and analysed to monitor, track and profile people” and “shift the balance of power towards the state”, said The Guardian's UK technology editor Robert Booth.

In India, mass collection of data from 1.3 billion citizens has left civil libertarians “horrified”, said The New York Times. Enrolment in Aadhaar is now “mandatory for hundreds of public services and many private ones, from taking school exams to opening bank accounts”.

“You almost feel like life is going to stop without an Aadhaar,” one woman told the newspaper.

Meta revealed a brand-new model of AI-powered smart glasses this week, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying they represent the “ideal form of superintelligence” – when a computer or device becomes more intelligent than humans.

Combining elements of both artificial intelligence and virtual reality into one wearable device, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses come with lofty promises, and many have been impressed with their features.

But at the product launch, some of the features still “appeared unfinished”, said The New York Times. Wearing the new glasses, Zuckerberg asked them to provide a recipe for barbecue sauce and call a colleague. The glasses failed to do either. “They tell us not to do live demos,” Zuckerberg said to the crowd just after the slip-up.

With this new model, though, Meta is “raising its bets on eyewear”, said the NYT. Previously, the company advertised smart glasses and VR headsets as options for people to explore the “metaverse”, an online world Zuckerberg “has called the future of the internet”.

This time, the glasses are designed to help wearers carry out everyday tasks, from following a recipe to taking photos, without needing to pick up a smartphone. They are set to launch on 30 September in the US and early next year in the UK, priced at $799 (£586).

What can the new smart glasses do?

Fitted with a built-in screen that’s “nigh impossible for people around you to see” and controlled by a wristband – which reads “signals from your muscles so that you can control the display with gestures” – the glasses function like a “pop-up extension” of an iPhone, said Victoria Song in The Verge.

The glasses connect directly to Meta AI, allowing wearers to generate answers to questions based on what they can see and hear. Users can take photos, scroll through Instagram, respond to text messages, and follow map directions using subtle hand movements. The glasses also provide live captions to real-life conversations, switching from speaker to speaker as the user turns their head.

What does Zuckerberg mean by ‘superintelligence’?

Zuckerberg described the new model as “the world’s first mainstream neural interface”, and said people without AI-powered glasses will likely be “at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage” compared to those who embrace the technology. He believes that the glasses’ ability to “see what you see, hear what you hear, and then go off and think about it” will push Meta closer to achieving “superintelligent” technology, said the NYT.

The launch is just one element of Meta’s all-in focus on AI. This summer, Zuckerberg “personally approached dozens of top AI researchers” from competitors like OpenAI and Google, offering millions in sign-on bonuses, said the Financial Times. The company has also reorganised its AI team four times in the last six months, most recently dubbing it the “Meta Superintelligence Lab”.

How has the launch been received?

Even though the new model delivers on new features, “there’s a reason why the phrase ‘glassholes’ exists”, said Jason England in Tom’s Guide. The “social stigma” around wearing smart glasses has meant they haven’t caught on as widely as smartphones.

But “consumer smart glasses might really take off” now, and “not just because Meta’s execution is excellent”, said Song. The new model offers many more potential uses, appealing to people beyond the most staunch tech enthusiasts. This might be “the closest we’ve ever gotten to what Google Glass promised over 10 years ago”, she said.

As the leaves begin to drop from the trees and the weather chills, there are plenty of video games to keep you busy indoors. From a new LEGO game to a big sports title, plus one of the most anticipated action sequels in years, fall will prove to be a busy time for gamers.

NBA 2K26

Get back into the starting lineup with the latest installment of the popular basketball game franchise from 2K Sports. This will be the 27th edition of the game, so 2K has made some updates to keep things as fresh as possible.

This includes the coveted Leave No Doubt edition of NBA 2K26. While this retails for a hefty $149.99, it has numerous bonuses for the MyCareer mode, which allows players to step into the role of an NBA player. But there are several other editions, and the “choice between them ultimately comes down to how early you want to play the game, which bonuses you care most about, and how much you want to spend,” said ScreenRant.

The game also highlights different cover athletes for different editions; the standard edition features Oklahoma City Thunder standout Shaivonte Gilgeous-Alexander, while the WNBA edition features Chicago Sky star Angel Reese. (Sept. 5 preorder for Xbox Series X, PS5, Steam)

LEGO Party

You can build your party brick-by-brick with the upcoming LEGO Party, which allows up to four players to compete at once in a series of digital challenges. The game, which appears to be heavily inspired by similar co-op titles like Mario Party, features at least 60 LEGO-themed minigames and allows players to customize and control their own LEGO minifigures.

The game lets players “experience nonstop action, humor, surprises, and hours and hours of play, all crafted through the medium of the beloved LEGO brick,” LEGO said in a press release. Video games aren’t exactly new for LEGO: the toy company has licensed numerous successful franchises for LEGO games, including “Star Wars,” “Batman” and “Harry Potter.”

LEGO Party is enjoyable whether “you’re playing solo, with your friends on the couch or online with cross-platform multiplayer,” said LEGO. (Sept. 30 preorder for Xbox Series X, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Steam)

Ghost of Yotei

Ghost of Tsushima is widely considered one of the best video games of the decade, and fans have been begging for a sequel since its 2020 release. Now that time has finally arrived: Ghost of Yotei is set to continue the story of Japan’s samurai, with some returning elements as well as some all-new features.

Ghost of Yotei is set more than 300 years after Tsushima and allows the player to control Atsu, a ronin who embarks on a quest for revenge against six samurai. The free-roaming game, which, like its predecessor, is a PlayStation exclusive, allows players to don their katana again as a cunning warrior, but also hide in the shadows for stealth gameplay.

The game has a new mechanic that “lets you quickly switch between outfits instantly,” something fans were wishing for in the first game, said Vice. This lets you craft the perfect armor set for each mission. (Oct. 2 preorder for PS5)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

One thing there’s no shortage of is Call of Duty games, and you will soon be able to pick up the whopping 22nd installment of the series. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has many of the same gameplay mechanics and modes as prior entries, but also takes players to new heights.

But the franchise itself has been waning in recent years amid “accusations of predatory monetization, pay-to-win skins, swarms of in-game bugs, and the recent use of AI to create in-game, paid-for content have understandably irked many players,” said The Guardian. Even so, many are still excited for the latest entry.

The game “features a mind-bending campaign starring Hollywood actors,” alongside a new 20-player mode with its own dedicated maps. (Nov. 14 preorder for Xbox Series X, PS5, Steam)

Roblox has become one of the most popular video games of all time, but it has a darker side, where hate speech and racism are reportedly spreading unchecked. The online platform enables users to interact with one another while creating various games, allowing Roblox's 111 million daily users — many of whom are children — to be exposed to hate, according to a series of investigations. This is happening despite Roblox's official ban of hate speech on its website.

What kind of hate speech is on Roblox?

While Roblox claims it moderates against hate speech, it "currently has at least 18 active lawsuits pending nationwide due to inappropriate content found on its games," attorney Matthew Dolman, whose firm is representing people suing Roblox, told CBS News. There are millions of different games created by the platform's users, and "hate can run rampant across various Roblox games."

One of the most notable is the popular Roblox game "Spray Paint!," in which users "can bypass moderation by spray painting hate messages across walls, ramps and other virtual game settings," said CBS. There were "dozens of swastikas and at least a dozen instances of hate speech targeting minority groups across 'Spray Paint!' servers," and they can often be hard to avoid. "Within three minutes of getting in there for the first time, I also saw a swastika," said Rachel Franz, an employee at the children's online safety advocacy group Fairplay, to CBS.

Investigations have also found "white supremacist virtual clothing being monetized on the platform," said the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE). This includes "direct references to transnational neo-Nazi networks such as the Active Club Movement, mass deportation operations conducted by ICE in the United States, and white nationalist political parties abroad such as the National Party in Ireland." These monetized items are available to kids under 13, the GPAHE said.

What else is happening on the site?

Beyond speech, reports have emerged that some people may use Roblox for even more sinister purposes. At least one prominent group on Roblox has "gained notoriety for creating Roblox maps that replicate real-life mass shootings, including the infamous tragedies at Columbine, Uvalde and Parkland," said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Other maps also reproduce "mass shootings conducted by white supremacists and other extremists as terrorist attacks."

These maps are "not simple game environments — they are disturbingly graphic and detailed, designed to mimic the mass shootings they're based on with unsettling accuracy and gore," said the ADL. In the Uvalde map, for example, students clearly depicted as children are "programmed to hide under desks or play dead when the shooting begins." Other controversies around Roblox include allegations of sexual misconduct; in at least one case, a "child sexploitation lawsuit has been filed" in Clay County, Missouri, where it was alleged that a "dangerous male predator pretending to be a young girl" groomed a 15-year-old boy.

When all of these factors are combined, these "reports highlight how hate has proved resilient online after some temporary setbacks, reinvigorated by technologies meant to connect people and bring financial services to underserved populations," said NBC News. The type of extremism seen on Roblox "now often appears as just another piece of content, able to reach the most impressionable minds."

Roblox has denied any allegations of wrongdoing. The company's "24/7 moderation system closely monitors the platform," Roblox told CBS in a statement. It will take "swift action against any content or users found to be in violation."

Interest in digital tools that can hide or alter an internet user's location has exploded in the days since the UK introduced age verification for online adult content.

Virtual private networks (VPNs) made up half the top 10 most popular free apps downloaded in the UK last weekend, according to Apple's rankings. Proton VPN, which leapfrogged ChatGPT at the top of the chart, reported a more than 1,400% increase in sign-ups from UK-based users since the new rules came into effect on Friday. Second place was taken by NordVPN.

VPNs are often relied on by citizens in authoritarian regimes such as Iran to get around strict internet censorship, Proton said on X, and such "large spikes in sign-ups" would typically be associated with "major civil unrest".

"Once the domain of Silicon Valley techies and security engineers", VPNs have "become mainstream with the rise of remote working and growing concerns over online privacy", said The Independent.

How do they work?

Once installed on your device, a VPN encrypts your traffic, sending it through a remote server that disguises your internet protocol (IP) address. This process, known as a "handshake", allows users to mask their true geographical location.

"It is a bit like using a phone box instead of your own phone to make a call, so that the receiver cannot tell who is ringing," said The Telegraph. The ability to alter one's digital location enables a wide spectrum of activity, from accessing uncensored news in authoritarian states to browsing streaming service catalogues from other countries.

VPNs also allow users to hide their browsing activity from employers, advertisers, hackers and even their own internet service providers.

● Learn more about VPNs from our sister site, Tech Radar

What are the benefits and drawbacks?

While enhancing your online privacy, a VPN does not completely anonymise your traffic. Your personal data and logins will still be retained by websites, and a VPN cannot prevent malware from infecting your system.

Connecting to a VPN can slow down your internet speed and increase your data usage, and "not all VPN providers are trustworthy", said Forbes. "Some may log your browsing activity or sell your data", especially if they are offering their services for free. "Truly secure and effective VPNs usually come at a cost" – in the region of £10 a month.

VPNs are also banned altogether in some countries – such as China, Iran, Russia, Belarus and some Gulf states – meaning you could face legal action if caught using one there.

Are they legal in UK?

VPNs are legal in the UK and remain so under the new Online Safety Act, despite support from the then Labour opposition for more restrictions on their use. It remains illegal to use them to watch pirated films and football matches. While using a VPN to bypass geographical restrictions on streaming services is not illegal, it is considered a violation of terms of service and could result in a ban from the platform.

Under the new age verification rules, Ofcom has told platforms not to host, share or permit content encouraging the use of VPNs. Its head, Melanie Dawes, told MPs in May that "a very concerted 17-year-old who really wants to use a VPN to access a site they shouldn't may well be able to".

"That’s the beauty of VPNs," Anthony Rose, a UK-based tech entrepreneur and a critic of the new age verification measures, told the Financial Times. "You can be anywhere you like, and anytime a government comes up with stupid legislation like this, you just turn on your VPN and outwit them."

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The traditional password that generations of computer users have come to love and hate may soon be replaced by something called a "passkey." You've likely even been prompted to create one already. While many people may not know just how easy it is to start experimenting with this new creation, there are still hurdles that must be cleared before adoption becomes widespread.

What are passkeys?

Since most individuals have made at least one of several password security errors — like using the same phrase across multiple sites — there has been a rise of hacking, identity theft, scams and major data breaches. The problem is so pervasive that passwords themselves might be on the outs as a viable pillar of online security. "Passkeys" are one prominent alternative gaining popularity as a way to make our online information systems more secure.

Passkeys are "generated codes" that are "stored on your device or in your password manager" and allow you to "log in to websites and apps using your fingerprint, face recognition or a PIN," said Wired. Their creators claim that they are unhackable, and they are "widely considered to be more secure" than your existing password system. When you make a passkey, you are creating a "pair of cryptography keys generated by your device" that communicate with one another via a "biometric identification tool, such as FaceID or TouchID, to authenticate your identity," said PC Mag.

How do I get a passkey?

The good news is that "passkeys are very simple to use," said Dashlane, and you can create them for many accounts, including Google, Amazon, Apple and more "in just a few quick steps." After creating one, "you just approve login attempts with a PIN or biometrics," said PCWorld.

For example, to create a passkey on Google you just log in to your account, open the passkeys manager, enter your password and create a passkey. They are the "way of the future for Google account verification" and doing so is "simple to do and highly secure," said ZDNET. All you need is a "mobile device or a laptop/desktop with biometrics (such as a fingerprint scanner)." And if you're already using a password management system like Bitwarden or 1Password, they can also store your passkeys.

Obstacles remain

Passkeys are a "password-killing tech," said Wired, and improvements to the underlying technology are "pushing passkeys toward a tipping point." Still, one problem is that there are "definitely things that unnecessarily confuse and complicate the use of passkeys, " said Ars Technica, including the reality that "syncing across different platforms is much harder than it should be." That is a potentially devastating problem because less tech-savvy users are likely to give up on the new technology if they encounter any significant obstacles.

Critics also note that "passkey implementations to date lock users into the platform they created the credential on." But developers are hard at work trying out ideas to make the process of moving to passkeys more seamless for most users. Perhaps the most important development underway is a Credential Exchange Protocol that will "make passkeys portable between digital ecosystems" and avoid "user lock-in" to any individual password management service, said Wired.

Adoption of this new technology is still slow. Even though three-quarters of respondents in the U.S., U.K., China, Japan and South Korea have heard the term, fewer than a third have actually created one. Moving to passkeys also "assumes that the user has exclusive, private access to an account or device," which may not be realistic in households where family members share both, said the National Cyber Security Centre. Because of these limitations, "it's too soon to switch away from using passwords for all your online security," said Consumer Reports, which recommends trying passkeys for some accounts while the technology continues to mature.

The trend of "popping an emoji" over children's faces when posting pictures of them online started with celebrities like Gigi Hadid, Meghan Markle and Mark Zuckerberg and has "trickled down to us civilians", wrote Katie Rosseinsky in The Independent.

But this gesture towards protecting children's privacy could be luring parents into a sense of false confidence, with some online safety experts suggesting that such measures are merely "security theatre".

Cautious or paranoid?

Whether to "post your kids or not to post your kids" is a "very modern" and "contentious parenting issue", said Rosseinsky. Between over-sharers documenting every moment of their child's life to "refuseniks" keeping them off their social media entirely, many of us choose a third option: digitally obscuring their face, often with an emoji. This, in theory, lets parents share "dispatches from daily life", and the "dopamine rush" of engagement that comes with it, "while also shielding the youngsters from the ills of social media".

Although "emoji-over-face" parents are often accused of being "overly cautious or even paranoid", said Lauryn Higgins on Huffington Post, in a time when every post can become "permanent, searchable and exploitable", perhaps they're being "careful" and "smart"?

Keeping a child's face out of sight protects them from "web crawlers" – bots that search websites and categorise the content on them, Joanne Orlando, a digital wellbeing researcher at Western Sydney University, told ABC News. Covering their face prevents their likeness being used to train large-language model generative AI. "What that means for parents is the face, or parts of their child's face, will come up in people's creations of an image," said Orlando. "In the worst instance, it will be your child's face and someone's naked body."

Not mine to reproduce

Online warnings about "AI being able to magically reconstruct faces from emoji-covered photos" are "scaremongering", cybersecurity specialist Lisa Ventura told Rosseinsky. But it's true that "putting an emoji over a child's face provides virtually no real privacy protection whatsoever", simply because "most parents aren't just posting one carefully emoji-protected photo" but rather "multiple images over time". Taken collectively, these can reveal huge amounts of information about the children in them, from glimpses of a school uniform to details of where they live, which all "builds a profile".

Relying on emojis alone is a "way of performing your concerns about privacy", rather than "doing anything truly meaningful to address them", said Rosseinsky. Ultimately, it might be a "gesture that's more about the parents than the kids".

There's always the option to keep your children out of your online life. After my daughter was born, said The i Paper's Rebecca Reid, I took "thousands and thousands of pictures", but ultimately "did nothing with them", after learning how "abuse images" can be generated using "totally innocent, fully clothed" pictures. Now, "if there's a picture I really want to share", I put an emoji over her face, then upload a screenshot of the modified image, for an extra layer of protection.

Her "right to anonymity" comes first, even if it occasionally makes things "tense" with snap-happy friends or fellow parents. Beyond safety concerns, her childhood simply "isn't mine to reproduce online to entertain people", some of whom I barely know, on social media. It's her "real life, and it belongs to her". "It's my job to keep her digital footprint tiny until she can make an informed choice."

Do you find you're often saying you want to "delve into" an issue or "navigate the landscape" of it? Or perhaps the latest version of your CV says that you're "adept" at being "meticulous"?

If so, your use of language is probably being influenced by artificial intelligence.

The rise of 'delve'

ChatGPT and other large language model tools are "designed to make writing easier by offering suggestions based on patterns in the texts they were trained on", said Ritesh Chugh, an associate professor of information and communications, on The Conversation. And because they are "trained on vast amounts of text from various sources", they "tend to favour" the most commonly used words and phrases in their "outputs".

This is now having a clear effect on human "outputs": in the 18 months since ChatGPT was launched, the use of words such as "meticulous", "delve", "realm" and "adept" have increased by between 35% and 51%, according to a study by researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Human Development.

Certain words and phrases are "popping up" everywhere, said Chugh on The Conversation. They may "sound fancy" but their "overuse can make a text sound monotonous and repetitive".

'Global dominance'

Most people "don't realise their language is changing", said The Verge, which is why they carry on using favoured chatbot terms. But, as researchers pick up on the changes, others, including examiners, will start to spot them, too. The word "delve" is already "academic shibboleth" – a "neon sign in the middle of every conversation flashing ChatGPT was here".

And as the language of AI chat tools seeps into human communication, the "terse" terms we use when prompting a chatbot "may lead us to dispose of any niceties or writerly flourishes when communicating with friends and colleagues", said The Atlantic.

Where once chatbots "learned from human writing", now the "influence may run in the other direction". In this way at least, AI might have "already won its campaign for global dominance".

'Robotic undertone'

The continuing overuse of certain words and phrases will mean "writing losing its personal touch", said Chugh on The Conversation. It will become trickier to "distinguish between individual voices and perspectives as everything takes on a robotic undertone".

The danger of this is that "AI is quietly establishing who gets to sound 'legitimate'", said The Verge. What's at stake are the verbal "imperfections" that "build trust". We don't want to "lose the verbal stumbles, regional idioms and off-kilter phrases that display vulnerability, authenticity and personhood".

Nor should we want to "lose agency over our thinking", said Los Angeles Magazine, and, instead of expressing our own thoughts, articulate whatever AI helps us to articulate.

What can you do to guard against this? Always prompt a chatbot to "write clearly, without using complex words". If you use a chatbot response, watch out for repetition and edit the text before sharing or submitting it. You can also use the settings to create a list of words to exclude.

"In the end, writing should be about expressing your ideas in your own way", said Chugh on The Conversation. "While ChatGPT can help, it's up to each of us to make sure we're saying what we really want to – and not what an AI tool tells us to."

Anyone who has gritted their way through a mandatory employee cybersecurity training understands that hackers are gunning for our passwords, which have become the Holy Grails of dark web schemers. A compromised password can give criminals access to everything from your credit card number to your Social Security information, and the fallout can be an enormous hassle. Yet most people are too busy to spend much time thinking about password management or are operating on well-intentioned but extremely dated advice. What can individuals do to stay ahead of the next phishing operation?

Don't use iterations of an existing password

While tempting, using "variations of old passwords" is a strategy that "might offer convenience but can also make passwords predictable to attackers," said Forbes. The temptation to do this is much higher if your organization compels you to regularly update your password because "when forced to change one, the chances are that the new password will be similar to the old one," said the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre. That's why forced password expiration is a "dying concept," said the SANS Institute. Nevertheless, if you must update, and your password is TacoTuesday2025*, it would be best not to change it to TacoTuesday2026* next year.

Don't use the same password across multiple accounts

So many bad password habits arise from the difficulty of managing so many accounts, and 78% of respondents in a 2024 survey admitted to recycling passwords across multiple accounts or domains. If you use the same password across a number of domains, you are leaving yourself open to coordinated attacks. Having obtained your skeleton password, hackers will "launch credential-stuffing attacks" by "using those logins to access other accounts," said Dashlane. And because "most online accounts assign your email address as a username, it doesn't take Mr. Robot to crack that code," said PC Mag.

Don't use personal details in your passwords

Another extremely common practice that experts caution against is using "your personal details such as your birthday, hometown or pet's name," said the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. While tying your passwords to easily accessible life experiences, milestones and individual data obviously makes it easier for you to remember, the problem is that using such details increases your risk because they "can be found by a quick search on social networking sites," said the Department of Homeland Security. "More than half of people admitted that they use familiar names in their passwords," including a child's name, a street name or a parent's name, said Security.org.

Don't give your passwords to other people

It may seem like a good deed, a way to save money and an act of protest against the proliferation of streaming services to give your Netflix information to a friend in exchange for their Max login, but sharing passwords is a major security risk. Because "nearly a third of respondents reported using the same password for all their streaming accounts," this risks "moochers sharing passwords with other moochers without the account holder's knowledge or consent," said PC Mag. This also provides another way for hackers and phishers to gain access to your passwords and your vital information. This even includes password sharing with a spouse or domestic partner. "Your own security might be excellent," said Wired, "but if you've shared your credentials, you're at the mercy of the weakest link."

Don't use short or simple passwords

"Something simple, short and predictable" is a "terrible password," said The World Economic Forum. For example, the password "123456" has been "used over 4.5 million times" and "takes less than a second for hackers to crack." That's an example of how a "simple or short password such as a word or name, a sequence of numbers, or combination of these, can be easily guessed by malicious attackers," said cybersecurity expert David Bader. Unsurprisingly, "as character length increases, the total amount of compromised passwords decreases," said Specops Software. Yet only 20% of respondents in a 2021 survey reported using passwords longer than 12 characters.

Although many studios seemed to be holding back releases this year, a new console and retro returns are breathing new animated life into the video game industry. This summer brings the official launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, with a couple of exclusives and some older, well-known games debuting on the platform. Other highlights among this summer's video game releases include a Sega reboot and the long-awaited release of a Hideo Kojima sequel to his polarizing 2019 game.

Mario Kart World

One of the most highly anticipated releases for the new Nintendo Switch 2 is the brand-new Mario Kart game, which features a somewhat open-world twist on the familiar format. The off-track sections enable "longer races that are more interconnected across multiple tracks," Esquire said. "The online offerings, too, are more advanced," making the new game "one of the biggest leaps forward for Mario Kart that we've ever seen." The first new Mario Kart game in over a decade, the title is the "system-selling launch title of the Switch 2", which debuts alongside the system. (out now for Switch 2)

Dune: Awakening

The new multiplayer MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) has already proven to be a popular game during its advanced release period; it will likely continue on that path now that it has officially been released for PC.

The desert planet of Arrakis is "transformed into an expansive (literal) sandbox where you're free to build your own base in a world shared with other players," and the game's "concept, scale and customization are already giving us plenty of reasons to get excited" despite its release being delayed for three weeks, said Games Radar. Dune Awakening is the latest from Conan Exile's developer, Funcom, the studio "behind some of the best MMORPGs." Players can expect an "impressive survival experience." (out now for PC)

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Hideo Kojima's highly anticipated sequel to 2019's Death Stranding finally arrives this summer, and the hype is mounting. The first game "challenged the idea of human connection through refreshing gameplay mechanics that fundamentally reexamined the very act of movement," said IGN. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach can be seen as an "attempt to take the premises of the first game to the next level." (June 26, preorder for PS5)

Tamagotchi Plaza

Nostalgic millennials to the front, because the '90s era digital pets are back in this new Switch exclusive. "Tamagotchi is back," said Esquire. And not just one, but a whole plaza of them. There has not been a Tamagotchi game for consoles since 2012, so cozy game fans are in for a treat. It is a "hallmark of what we like to call 'casual hardcore,'" meaning anyone who is "down the retro Harvest Moon rabbit hole or has spent thousands of hours with The Sims will want to keep this on their radar. (June 27, preorder for Switch 2)

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance

Another retro comeback, this time with Sega's revival of its retro "ninja hack-and-slash series Shinobi," which goes "all the way back to the '80s arcade days," said Esquire. The series has been "dormant since the PS2 era," and the new game is a "throwback to the side scrollers of old, with a painterly art style and fluid combat and platforming." Ninja and samurai-based games are having a moment, and Sega is "throwing its hat in the ring and going back to where it all started with a new spin on retro action." (Aug. 29, preorder for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch and PC)

The hotly anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 is finally here and, with it, its keystone launch title: "Mario Kart World". A "thrilling combination of retro racing and modern open-world freedom", the new release isn't without a few "growing pains", said Jordan Minor in PC Gamer. But it's "wildly entertaining" and a "fantastic next-generation racer for all ages".

The main draw is, of course, the "huge, open map". Each of the courses are now connected by a series of roads making the game feel more "organic and dynamic". There are 32 tracks in total, including a mix of new and "heavily reimagined" retro courses.

The "addictive and exhilarating" Knockout Tour lets you race across six different areas of the map, as the bottom players are gradually eliminated until just one winner remains. The fact that the new game can accommodate up to 24 players (double that of "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe") adds to the "chaos", as "one unlucky red shell can send you plummeting down 20 spots".

Most of "Mario Kart World" looks "nice enough", said Ollie Barder in Forbes. But the new Rainbow Road is "genuinely astonishing to behold". The game's functionality has been expanded with several new tricks added alongside the traditional boost slide.

The open world is "incredibly well designed", said Metro. However, there's a "distinct lack of satisfying unlockables", especially in the new Free Roam mode. While there are "secrets to discover", the missions can be relatively "simple" and quickly become "repetitive". Still, it's an "entertaining and unique" game that takes the series into "exciting new directions".

Feeling more akin to a "journey with your friends than a straight competition", "Mario Kart World" is an "easy-breezy social game that also lets you get extremely competitive", said Keza MacDonald in The Guardian. Beyond the races themselves you can "roam freely" in the search for hidden coins, finding "scenic little spots" to gather together with your mates.

The most significant difference is the movement; you can now "charge up a boost-jump to grind along rails" and "ride walls", giving racing an entirely new feel. Other highlights include the "broad and ridiculous" collection of characters, including a "new-look Donkey Kong hunkered hilariously over the steering wheel".

Thanks to the various assist options for kids and less-skilled players, it really is an "impressively welcoming game". "Generous and detailed and unfailingly fun", Nintendo has captured the spirit of the original game, while proving that it still has a "talent for reinvention". It's a winner.

Since Tesla magnate Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and later rebranded it "X," there has been a significant exodus of liberals and others on the political left who are unhappy with the new owner's ostentatiously pro-MAGA politics. They are also displeased with the changes he has made to the platform, including offering a blue verification checkmark to anyone willing to fork over a monthly subscription fee. Many who had spent years building follower counts found it agonizingly difficult to leave, but for those who did, these are the microblogging platforms they are generally choosing.

Threads

"Threads was the second most downloaded app in 2024" and is distinct from Twitter and Bluesky in that it "promotes non-political content," said TechRound. Threads, with its owner Meta's existing market power and user base, had an enormous leg up on other platforms that sought to capitalize on dissatisfaction with Musk's Twitter. Meta made it easy for its Instagram users to create a Threads account, which meant Threads was dubbed the "Twitter-killer app," said Vox.

Launched in 2023, Threads uses "Instagram design flair, including the same Instagram font and icons" and "perhaps stands the best chance of any Twitter competitor yet" of dethroning the market leader. With 350 million active monthly Threads users as of May 2025, its "growth is helping to cement its place in the microblogging app ecosystem," said TechCrunch. Not everyone is enthused, however. Threads is "all the worst parts of Instagram and Twitter," in large part because "there is no way to view posts chronologically on the timeline — or even to limit your feed to posts from accounts you follow," said Vice.

Bluesky

Bluesky began, ironically, as a research project of then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who was "charged with building a decentralized standard for social media" and hoped that eventually "Twitter would adopt this standard itself," said TechCrunch. Bluesky launched "as an invite-only service in 2023" and then "swiftly became a refuge for a coalition of leftists, liberals and never-Trumpers," said Wired. One of its chief appeals, beyond escaping Musk, is that Bluesky "offers users the chance to more heavily moderate their experience." That includes the "ability to select the algorithm that drives what you see, helping create custom feeds," said The Guardian.

Bluesky is "cementing itself as the top choice for media types, policy wonks, academics and the broader chatterati," but its users "tend to coalesce around some quite similar viewpoints, which makes for a rather echoey chamber," said the Financial Times. However, many users see it as a refuge where they can manage their experience by blocking abusive accounts. Bluesky works by "creating a space where conversations aren't immediately derailed by harassment or bad-faith arguments," said Parker Molloy. The app has gone from 5 million to 35 million active monthly users between February 2024 and April 2025.

Mastodon

The decentralized platform Mastodon was one of the early beneficiaries of Musk's "erratic leadership," and in 2022 had "grown eight times its size in a matter of weeks, going from approximately 300,000 users in October to 2.5 million in November," said CNN. One big obstacle to Mastodon's growth has been that "problematic design choices will prove impossible to navigate for everyone but the most hard-core users," said Fast Company. That's in part because the app is a "network of independent servers called the Fediverse, all of them connected through a common open-source protocol." New users need a tutorial to learn the ropes, and you have to pick a server when you sign up.

The "clumsy and confusing" sign-up process was simplified in 2023 when an update offered a "clearer choice of picking its default server of Mastodon.social or a specialized server based on different topics," said ZDNET. But the app's Musk-driven "initial growth spurt has since leveled off, and with around 880,000 active monthly users, "it has struggled to sustain that momentum," said Newsweek. But for some users, that stalled growth might actually be for the best. Without the pressure to overtake X, they "can go back to enjoying what they liked about social media that's not underpinned by ravenous ad businesses," said Wired.

Jony Ive created the look and feel of the iPhone, perhaps the most culture-changing device of the 21st century. And now, the "greatest designer in the world," as described by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is joining the artificial intelligence company, hoping to create another transformative piece of personal technology.

OpenAI's ChatGPT has led the "rapid advances" of AI in recent years, but "developing new hardware based around it has proved more of a challenge," said BBC News. Some devices — like the AI Pin, a brooch that could answer questions and take photos — have flopped. Ive and Altman want to change that. The new partnership offers the opportunity to "completely reimagine what it means to use a computer," Altman said.

iPhone killer?

The partnership with Ive makes OpenAI's ambitions "crystal clear," said Matteo Wong at The Atlantic. Altman believes that computers and smartphones are "clunky" ways to use AI products. The goal is to create new devices that seamlessly integrate AI into a user's life and go "beyond these legacy products," Altman said. Right now the company is short on actual details, Wong said. Instead, Altman is "marketing his imagination."

OpenAI is making a "long-shot bid to kill the iPhone," said Dave Lee at Bloomberg. Beating Apple is the real goal of the "formidable new Silicon Valley bromance" between Altman and Ive. (Indeed, Apple stock sank 2% after the announcement.) The challenge is that building a "breakthrough device" that has the same impact as the iPhone is a "tall order." Consumers will have to be convinced that an AI device "brings functionality far superior to what they can summon with the smartphone already in their pocket." Having Ive on board "counts for plenty" in achieving that goal, but most likely not enough."

Ive has a "few regrets" about how the iPhone created a generation of screen addicts, Kyle Barr said at Gizmodo. "Some of the products" he designed have had "some unintended consequences that were far from pleasant," Ive recently said to an interviewer. But AI has numerous well-documented problems of its own, Barr said. This means the famed designer probably "can't save us from the iPhone addiction he helped create."

Weaning users from their screens

Altman and Ive have "offered a few hints" about their plans to OpenAI staff, said The Wall Street Journal. Their imagined device would be "fully aware of a user's surroundings and life" but also unobtrusively "rest in one's pocket or on one's desk." It will not be another phone or smart glasses. Instead, the ultimate aim is to "help wean users from screens."

Building hardware is "really hard," said Yoni Heisler at BGR. And smartphones are now so advanced that replacing them will be an "uphill battle from the outset." Until Ive and Altman unveil an actual device, there is "no reason to assume that Apple needs to be shaking in its boots."

It's over a year since St Albans, Hertfordshire, announced its plan to become the first British city to go smartphone-free for children under 14. Schools there have led the way, prohibiting smartphone use during class time, but also urging families to "delay" buying devices for their children, said The Guardian.

Ofcom, the UK online safety regulator, estimates that 96% of the UK's 12- to 15-year-olds now have their own phone, and there is a growing debate around whether children should be stopped from having smartphones altogether, or even blocked from social media as they are in Australia.

What is the rationale behind a ban?

While restrictions vary widely from country to country and even from school to school, the "guiding principle everywhere has been to help students do better in school", said academics Cara Swit, Aaron Hapuku, Helena Cook and Jennifer Smith in The Conversation.

One obvious reason to restrict smartphone use in schools is improving concentration during class and reducing distractions – 72% of US high-school teachers say phone use is a "major problem", according to Pew Research Center – but another primary focus has been on improving mental health among young people. Studies in recent years have found a global increase in adolescent loneliness, a rise in feelings of hopelessness among American high-school students between 2009 and 2019, and a link between time spent on social media and "lower life satisfaction" for some children, reported Nature Communications.

It is "tempting to connect these trends with the increased availability of smartphones, but establishing a causal connection is difficult", said The Economist.

Have bans been tried before?

Bans on smartphones in schools have been trialled in schools around the world, including in parts of the UK, New Zealand, Australia, France, Italy, China and the US.

France was one of the first countries to prohibit smartphone use in primary or secondary schools in 2018, claiming that it would help children focus, reduce their social media use and mitigate online bullying.

What were the results?

Studies have shown that bans "often don't work as planned", said Swit, Hapuku, Cook and Smith. One year after New Zealand's ban came into effect, they spoke to students in 20 schools across the country to see if it had been a success or failure. Many had "mixed feelings" about the bans, with some saying it improved their focus, but others reporting stress from being separated from the phones, including anxiety about being unable to contact their parents during the day.

Earlier this year, academics from the University of Birmingham, Harvard, and universities in Brazil and Sweden published a first-of-its-kind study in The Lancet Regional Health Europe Journal, analysing the impacts of smartphone policies in 30 English secondary schools. It found no link between banning phones in schools and pupils getting higher grades or having better mental well-being. However, that may be because school-only bans did not have enough impact on overall phone time: the study found that children attending schools with no-phone policies were online as much as their peers during evenings and weekends.

Could a different approach work?

"If bans alone are not enough, what else do we need to do?" Dr Victoria Goodyear, who co-authored the Lancet study, said in The Independent. "We need to equip children for healthy technology use. There are two key ways: firstly an age-appropriate design, and secondly equipping children with digital skills".

Research from the Digital Wellness Lab supports this balanced approach, emphasising skill building over restriction.

"If schools really want to support students, they need to move beyond one-size-fits-all rules," said Swit, Hapuku, Cook and Smith. That means "helping young people to use technology safely and responsibly".

When you've created "Doom (2016)" and "Doom Eternal", two of the most highly regarded shooters of the last decade, what do you do next? Announce a prequel, said Phil Iwaniuk in Top Gear. The easy option for game developer id Software would have been to add a few extra levels while keeping the systems and mechanics "untouched". But, far from playing it safe, "Doom: The Dark Ages" "veers wildly into new territory".

So many new options have been introduced that "simply aiming a gun at something and pulling the trigger feels somehow unimaginative". From timed parries to melee attacks and a throwable razor shield, the game is bursting with combat mechanics.

While 2020's "Eternal" challenged players to pick off their enemies one at a time, "The Dark Ages" allows you to "obliterate dozens of demons simultaneously", said Rick Lane in The Guardian. "Ripping and tearing is out. Blunt force trauma is in."

While the "slower pace", "less stringent toolset" and emphasis on "standing your ground" doesn't create the same "adrenaline rush", it's a "fascinating reformulation" of the game's core ideas – and figuring how to best use all of the new weapons is a lot of "fun". Instead of "resting on its laurels", id Software has pushed boundaries by releasing a "much more experimental" shooter.

"Rarely do I find myself skipping cutscenes," said Sean Migalla in Screen Rant, but "I couldn't wait to jump back into the action". The shield charge is a particularly "satisfying" addition to the weapons line-up: as well as closing the gap between you and your enemies, it keeps the action moving "quickly and smoothly".

The Plasma Rifle and Super Shotgun are still there "with some slight changes" but it's the Pulverizer that "had me the most excited", said Anthony Franklin II in Vice. "You can shoot skull chips at your enemies. Skull chips." And whoever decided to dress the new, beefier Doom Sayer in a fur cape "deserves an astronomical raise". The way he gears up for battle is "seared into my brain".

It's a "successful" transition, said Morgan Parker in PC Gamer but the new game is not without "sacrifice". Like its predecessors, "The Dark Ages" is "indulgent and deliciously violent". However it's "undeniably the easiest of the trilogy" and feels somewhat "dumbed down", with "uncharacteristically barren" maps and "obvious" puzzles.

There are "cool little moments" sprinkled throughout the 22 levels, like "dogfighting with hellships", but the "peaks are lower". It seems that id Software has listened to feedback that "Doom Eternal" was too "complicated" but I fear "The Dark Ages" is an "overcorrection".

Still, it's the "strongest 'Doom' story there's ever been", said Mitchell Saltzman in IGN. Players are transported to a series of "hellish landscapes" as the history of conflict between humans and demons is fleshed out. The prequel is certainly "heavier" than its predecessor but it's "energetic and exhilarating" nonetheless. And id Software "has once again proven that, like a Super Shotgun blast from point-blank range, they don't miss".

New safety features on the popular children's gaming platform Roblox don't go far enough, experts have said.

Roblox introduced the new features after warnings that children were being exposed to inappropriate content, and adults were creating fake child accounts to message, harass or groom them. The changes are a step in the right direction, say experts, but will still leave vulnerable kids at risk.

What is Roblox?

Roblox is a "gigantic platform" where users can create, share, and play games, said the BBC. It hosts some 40 million user-generated games and experiences and has more monthly users than Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation combined. Last year, the "vast empire" averaged more than 80 million players per day – and 34 million of them were children under the age of 13.

Young people are drawn to the range of experiences Roblox offers, from "raising and dressing up virtual pets to playing an online game of hide and seek using GPS", said Joanne Orlando on The Conversation.

So what's the controversy?

Roblox has been "dogged" by claims that some children have been exposed to "explicit or harmful" content, with multiple reported allegations of "bullying and grooming", said the BBC.

There has been material featuring players dressed up as members of the KKK, wearing swastikas and using racist terms, said The Times. And there have been incidents of "sexual exploitation" and "grooming by paedophiles", said The Conversation's Orlando.

What are the new safety features?

The new features limit who children can communicate with on Roblox, and what content they can play with.

Parents already had the ability to set time limits on play and to prevent their child from accessing experiences beyond a set maturity level, but they will now be able to block individual experiences, too. Another new feature allows parents to block users on their child's friends list. Users under 13 are already barred by default from exchanging direct messages with other users, unless a parent changes this setting.

However, to access the new controls, parents must have their own Roblox account, to which must be verified either by submitting credit card details or a government-issued ID. They can then can link their account with their child's account.

What do experts say?

The new safety features only apply to children under the age of 13, who have parental controls set up on their accounts. This means only those with "vigilant and engaged parents – the children we need to worry least about" – will be better protected, Ian Acheson, a former director of community safety at the Home Office, told The Times. "For other kids, perhaps the more vulnerable, they still remain at risk." The company said it takes "proactive steps" such as built-in filters on text chats to identify and remove material that breaches its community standards, including extremist or sexualised content.

And however vigilant parents may try to be, constant supervision has its limits. "We all know that, with the best will in the world, life sometimes gets in the way", Mumsnet boss Justine Roberts told the BBC. If you've got several children, "you probably can't 24/7 watch everything they're doing, even if you've got all your parental controls set".

The new measures have "significant limitations" Ashton Kingdon, a criminology lecturer at The University of Southampton, told The Times. There is still "no proper user verification to prevent adults from creating fake accounts".

Roblox co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki insisted his company is vigilant in protecting users. But his "first message" to parents is "if you're not comfortable, don't let your kids be on Roblox".

This spring brings some highly anticipated video games from across genres and platforms. People who enjoy playing games with a partner have already started singing the praises of "Split Fiction." And the "Assassin's Creed" series has released its latest installment, defying drama and setbacks in a positive debut, not to mention the long-awaited life simulator that some say will kill the "Sims."

'Split Fiction'

From the makers of the popular co-op game "It Takes Two" comes the highly anticipated two-player "Split Fiction." This time, players and a friend will take on the roles of Mio and Zoe, two aspiring authors who get stuck in two video games a company hopes to create from their stories. The pair butt heads but are forced to work together to make it through each level and out of the digital world.

"Split Fiction" is a "forgiving game that doesn't set you back much if you die," but it's "still challenging for seasoned gamers," said NPR. Less-experienced game players may struggle, but the game "rewards communication skills." It's "expertly designed to make you appreciate your fellow player, just as Mio and Zoe warm to each other as the game progresses." Feeling extra daring? A super secret level called "Laser Hell" rewards you with a cool easter egg if you beat it. (out now for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S)

'Assassin's Creed Shadows'

Ubisoft's latest installment in the hit "Assassin's Creed" franchise was finally released this month and hit several milestones despite getting some "anti-woke" backlash from critics "complaining about a storyline centering a Black samurai and LGBTQ character options," said Forbes. The Japanese government also "voiced concerns about violence depicted in the feudal Japan-set game."

Still, within 24 hours of its release, "Assassin's Creed Shadows" flew past 1 million players, breaking a record held by "Assassin's Creed Valhalla." By three days after its release, it passed 2 million players, surpassing the launches of "Origins" and "Odyssey," Ubisoft said on X. (out now for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S)

'InZOI'

This life simulator has been making waves over the past couple of years, with some content creators who had early access hailing it as a potential "Sims killer." Whether this game could replace "The Sims" remains to be seen, but the graphics and gameplay previews have elevated it to one of the year's most anticipated games. The game has already surpassed heavy hitters like "Hollow Knight: Silksong," "Deadlock" and "Elden Ring: Nightreign," and it is now Steam's most wish-listed game.

The life-sim is set to release in early access on Friday for PC, but the company plans on having a later release for console gamers. It's a cozier game than some of the season's other releases, but with an open-world system with tons of planned updates on its development roadmap, "InZOI" is worth trying. (March 28 preorder for PC)

'South of Midnight'

This dreamy Southern gothic fantasy stop-motion game takes players into the folklore of the Deep South, with "magic-based combat" and a "litany of entertainingly titled bosses," said GamesRadar+. The game has "quickly earned its place as one of the most anticipated upcoming Xbox Series X games" for the year because of its "super slick magic-infused combat, stunning sense of place and evocative hand-drawn visual design," as we follow main character Hazel into the "depths of a surreal Deep South inspired landscape." Console-wise, this is an Xbox exclusive, but it will likely be one of the games that sets the console apart from its competitors this year. (April 8 preorder for PC, Xbox Series X/S)

Video games vary, but high-octane, fast-paced experiences are typical. That is why a growing industry sector is the subgenre known as "cozy games." Like the name implies, these games are meant to help players unwind in a low-stakes, easygoing environment.

Recent research has been exploring "whether this style of game, along with video games more generally, can improve mental health and quality of life," said Reuters. While playing video games has not always had a positive connotation, there is also evidence that they could help alleviate stress and psychological distress. Here are a few cozy titles to help you reach emotional comfort — just be sure to relax your thumb every so often.

'Stardew Valley'

Since its debut in 2016, "Stardew Valley" has been a star of the genre and a favorite of many a cozy gamer. The beloved farming simulator is "iconic — a certified classic" and continues to receive regular updates to "keep things fresh," said Wired. The game's theme may be farming, but many other activities exist. You can fish, go treasure hunting and even develop romantic relationships with the townsfolk. The game is open-ended, so there is no wrong way to play. Fans keep returning to this nine-year-old game, which "speaks to how it's truly a masterpiece in the genre it both reinvigorated and has come to define," said IGN. The game has "earned a spot on your platform of choice as a modern classic, standing proudly alongside gaming's all-time greats." (Available on Steam (PC, Mac, Linux), Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, Apple App Store, and Google Play)

'Animal Crossing: New Horizons'

Nintendo dropped this gem during the pandemic, and it was an instant hit among the bored and shut-in. The latest edition of the series sets your character loose on a deserted island, leaving you in charge of building a village and attracting new villagers to live there. "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" has extensive customization and decoration options, and players have developed awe-inspiring islands over the years.

In the new edition, everyone's favorite capitalist tanaki, Tom Nook, is back to terrorize you into grinding to pay off loans. But with seasonal activities and regular updates, there is always something to return to. Your villagers will even acknowledge your absence and welcome you back! With the game's fifth anniversary approaching, this year might be the perfect time to start or hop back in. In 2020, Time said this release of Animal Crossing was "the game we all need right now." The assessment remains true to this day. (Available on Nintendo Switch)

'Unpacking'

A short but sweet title, "Unpacking" is a narrative-driven organization puzzle game that involves unpacking boxes and sorting them into various rooms. The music is calm, and the vibes are immaculate. You can spend hours silently finding the best fit for each item, with low-pressure gameplay that maintains a breezy vibe. It is one of those games that will "make you believe in love at first sight," Hey Poor Player said. There is just something about it so "immediately delightful that one can't help but want to get their hands on it straight away." (Available on Steam (PC, Mac, Linux), Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, Apple App Store, and Google Play)

'The Sims'

Escaping from the stress of life by simulating those same stressors might seem counterintuitive, but hear us out. At 25 years old, "The Sims" is one of the older games on this list, but it remains popular with an avid community of fans called Simmers. The game's most recent version, "The Sims 4," debuted in 2014 but is still releasing expansion packs that keep fans coming back. If you are drawn to the nostalgia of the game's Y2K debut, both "The Sims" and "The Sims 2" were recently rereleased to celebrate the anniversary. Some players might be drawn to the potential for chaos, but as this world's omniscient ruler, you could opt for a more chill play style. Or you can let your mostly autonomous Sims roam free and embrace the madness. (Available on Steam (PC), EA App (Mac), Xbox, PlayStation)

Apps designed as tools to keep children safe are being exploited by domestic abusers to secretly spy on their partners.

The "booming market" for "family-tracking" apps that allow parents to see their child's location, limit screen time and control internet access, also has a darker side, said Sky News.

What is stalkerware?

A woman told the broadcaster that she became suspicious when her "coercive and controlling" ex-partner kept "turning up in places" she hadn't told anyone she would be, even locations miles from where they lived.

She wondered if she'd been "microchipped – like a cat" but a worker at a phone repair shop told her that a hidden app called mSpy was "feeding everything" on her phone, including her precise location, to a remote dashboard, accessible to the person who had installed it.

Melody said she felt as though "my entire life had been ripped from me" when she realised her ex could "see everywhere I'd been, every person I'd spoken to" and "everything in my diary".

The app is just one example of "stalkerware" – software "covertly" installed on someone's phone so they can be "monitored remotely" – said the broadcaster. Of the 18 apps that cybersecurity companies "flagged" to Sky News, 14 are marketed as parental control software, and this advertising strategy allows the firms to "skirt laws" on covert surveillance, said an expert.

Researchers at Montreal's Concordia University said common features of this sort of technology include tracking someone's location, spying on messages and calls, remotely activating their camera and viewing social media and browsing history. Their use is on the rise: the digital security company Avast reported an increase of more than 200% over the past three years.

What other tech is exploited by abusers?

The domestic-violence charity Refuge said more than 70% of those it provides support to have experienced tech-related abuse within a relationship, reported the BBC. Examples of technology that can be used for "tech-enabled abuse" include video doorbells, smart TVs and Amazon Alexas, said Lifestyle Health Hub.

A study for the outlet found that 41% of UK women said that a partner or family member knows the password to their personal devices – with 28% of these women saying that they did not give this password willingly.

Some 66% of women didn't know where to get information to help secure the devices in their home if they felt they had been compromised by an abuser, and that figure rose to 79% among those aged 45 and over.

How can you tell if someone is spying on your phone?

If you think someone is spying on your phone, you can "look for signs like data usage increases, battery drain, overheating or unfamiliar apps", said Top10VPN.

Whether you have an Android or iPhone, the "most effective option" to get rid of rogue apps is to do a factory reset, but that will also remove all your data and apps on the device, so back up your data first.

Wrapping up one year and kicking off another, winter is the perfect time to spend your holiday money and gift cards to re-up on new games. Marvel has already kicked off the season with a new multiplayer game, while other studios are readying their own dose of nostalgia with games set for the Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Alien franchises.

'Marvel Rivals'

This month, Marvel debuted its brand new 6v6 player versus player (PvP) shooter, with a whopping 33 playable characters from the Marvel universe. Fans of third-person shooters like "Valorant" or "Overwatch 2" will likely enjoy Marvel's take on the format. Create teams with your friends that balance the powers of several familiar superheroes as you battle across the eight launch maps and three modes: Convoy, Domination and Convergence. There are plenty of "intuitive abilities and counters in Marvel Rivals — all you have to do is take the time and have the patience to learn them," said PC Gamer, a sister publication of The Week. Rivals' maps are "one of its most distinctive features, as battlegrounds transform throughout a match either through a dynamic destruction or bespoke map events." (Dec. 5; order here for PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S)

'Indiana Jones and the Great Circle'

Xbox is closing out its year with a new Indiana Jones game that tells an original story set between the events of the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" movies. The mostly first-person action-adventure game "lends itself to many playstyles, with some stealthy bits and plenty of puzzles to solve," said Sports Illustrated. Players can indulge in the intrepid world of an Indiana Jones story, visiting several locations worldwide, including Rome, Egypt, Shanghai and the Himalayas. The game will make its way to the PS5 sometime in 2025. With a "host of gorgeous and lavishly detailed levels, satisfying combat hinged on jawbreaking haymakers," "The Great Circle" is an "irresistible and immersive global treasure hunt for Indy fans who've felt underserved by the likes of 'The Dial of Destiny' and 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,'" IGN said. (Dec. 9; order here for Xbox Series X/S, PC)

'Alien: Rogue Incursion'

Fans of the horror series "Alien" and virtual reality rejoice. This upcoming VR game is "set to bring players face-to-face with the dreaded Xenomorph like never before," said Game Rant. The central antagonist has become increasingly popular as a character in various video games in recent years. Now, it gets to take center stage in this brand-new virtual reality experience. Horror franchises "lend themselves well to VR video games" as the "feeling of actually being up close and personal with enemies like the Xenomorphs helps to elevate the fear while playing," Game Rant added. From what has been shown so far in previews, "Alien: Rogue Incursion" looks like it will do a "good job of recreating the dark and sinister atmosphere of the original movie and games like 'Alien: Isolation.'" (Dec. 19; pre-order PCVR or PlayStation VR2)

'Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles'

Almost a quarter century after it debuted in 2000, "Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles" is getting remastered for modern consoles with a few new additions to the gameplay. The Lucas Arts game initially appeared on the PlayStation before hitting the Dreamcast and the Game Boy Advance. Set during the events of "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace," the game is a mix of "platforming and beat 'em up gameplay," said IGN. Playable characters include Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Masters Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, Adi Gallia and Plo Koon. The newly remastered game comes out early next year with "13 newly unlocked characters from the beginning, all levels unlocked, versus and training modes introduced in later releases of the game and two-player couch co-op." (Jan. 23; pre-order for PS4/5, Switch, Xbox One, XSX/S, PC)

It has been more than a year since OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded, killing all five people aboard, while on the way to visit the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Questions remain about what could have been done to prevent the accident, and 16 months on, the U.S. Coast Guard has begun a series of investigatory hearings hoping to realize a solution.

The purpose of the two-week inquiry, set to run from Sept. 16 to Sept. 27, is to "assure that every aspect of the case is probed and to determine the causes of the Titan submersible's loss, identify contributing factors and develop safety recommendations to prevent similar incidents," the Coast Guard said in a press release. Following the hearings, there will be efforts aimed at "enhancing safety protocols and preventing future tragedies."

What has been revealed at the hearings?

The hearings have "made public a flood of information about the doomed vessel's design and operation," and "paint a damning picture," said Wired, while also revealing some of the key mistakes and flaws that may have led to the implosion. The most notable perhaps is testimony that OceanGate "skirted, or simply ignored, accepted construction practices for submersibles." The company — whose founder, Stockton Rush, died aboard the Titan — "tested only one scale model of the innovative carbon fiber hull and, despite it failing early under high pressures, proceeded straight to building a full-scale hull." OceanGate also "relied on an unproven acoustic monitoring system to provide an early warning of failure."

The carbon fiber hull itself was also noted as having caused many of the problems. Under the standards of the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), carbon fiber hulls are "not acceptable materials for submersibles," Roy Thomas, an ABS engineer, testified, per ABC News. The hulls "have very low resistance to impact loads, and the hull is susceptible to deformation under applied external loading."

The Titan had also "experienced dozens of problems during previous expeditions, including 70 equipment issues in 2021 and 48 more in 2022," according to The New York Times. During the winter, it was additionally "stored in bitterly cold temperatures outside a facility in Newfoundland, with no protection from the elements."

How can submersible safety be improved in the future?

It should be noted that there "has been up to this point a perfect track record in deep submersions," Chris Roman, an oceanography professor at the University of Rhode Island, said to CNN. It is "not a cavalier, high risk, every dive is like a daredevil event if done properly." There are "no shortcuts here, especially in this business. And if you cut corners, it will bite you," said Roman.

One immediate change that can be made is company culture, which in the case of OceanGate was "centered on 'making money' and offered 'very little in the way of science,'" former OceanGate marine operations director David Lochridge testified, said CNN. The company was "all smoke and mirrors" when it came to safety.

Others, such as Patrick Lahey, the founder of submersible manufacturer Triton, noted that there should be new protocols to prevent similar tragedies. Lahey "stressed the importance of certifying submersible vessels through a process that involves an extensive safety assessment carried out by independent marine organizations" during his testimony, said the BBC. At the end of the day, the submersible "was not quite ready for prime time," said Lahey.

China has broken new ground with its first true blockbuster video game, "Black Myth: Wukong," but the project has also found itself at the center of a political controversy involving the country's longstanding use of censorship. In a unique twist, though, the censorship does not involve the content of the game itself, but rather the players who have flocked to try it out.

These censorship issues come as the action role-playing game has quickly become a cultural phenomenon in China since its Aug. 20 release. The game, a collaboration between Chinese game developer Game Science and game marketer Hero Games, is considered China's first-ever "AAA" game release — and has the popularity to show it. In the first 24 hours after its release, "Black Myth: Wukong" had more than 2 million concurrent players and became the most-played single-player game ever on PC. Concerns are growing, though, that its marketing partner is regulating what these players are doing while streaming the game.

How is China trying to censor 'Black Myth: Wukong'?

Criticism of Chinese censorship of "Black Myth: Wukong" is "not of the game's source material, design or entertainment value," said Variety. Rather, detractors "have aimed their fire at Game Science and at the kind of censorship of discussion that is commonplace in China, but sits less comfortably in the West."

Many prominent game reviewers who were "given advance access reported they had been instructed not to talk about certain topics while livestreaming the game," said NBC News. Specifically, a document provided to these reviewers by Hero Games "listed one 'Do' ('Enjoy the game!') and a number of 'Don'ts,'" NBC reported. The "Don'ts" listed in the document included "using 'trigger words' such as 'quarantine,' 'isolation' and 'Covid-19,' as well as discussing politics, 'feminist propaganda' and 'other content that instigates negative discourse.'"

By "using the game key and creating content, you acknowledge that you have been informed of the following guidelines, and any statements made are your own and not related to our marketing team," said an email from Hero Games to French gaming YouTuber Benoit Reinier, per NBC. He has "never seen anything that shameful in my 15 years doing this job. This is very clearly a document which explains that we must censor ourselves," Reinier said in a translated YouTube video. A gaming company "sending recommendations through a PR agency to avoid 'negative discourse' is a big red flag to me," Reinier further said to NBC.

How will this affect China politically?

The "global interest in the game also highlighted China's push to exercise its 'soft power,'" said The New York Times. This is true in part because it is based on a novel, "Journey to the West," which is "considered one of China's four great classics. The game also depicts important cultural landmarks throughout China."

However, the specific censorship surrounding Covid comes as "Beijing has sought to rewrite its handling of the pandemic," said the Times. The country's "'zero-Covid' policy helped to contain the virus for almost three years, but it crumbled amid widespread opposition." After the policy was stopped, censors "erased mentions of many of the hardships, such as extended periods of forced isolation for hundreds of millions of people," and the censorship of "Black Myth: Wukong" appears to be a continuation of that.

Despite this, "Chinese gamers have rallied to the game's defense," said AFP. Some are "painting any criticism" of the product, which is largely "focusing on the lack of diversity in the game — as evidence of foreign bias." There are also "signs that the government is recognizing the industry's potential value for exports and culture, notably the interview of Game Science's founder by state media Xinhua agency ahead of its game launch," Goldman Sachs said in a note, per Reuters. The financial services company expects "more Chinese AAA games to enter the global market in the future."

Famed nineteenth century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer had some strong opinions on noise. He wrote at length about his personal distaste for hammering, barking dogs and screaming children and claimed there was a link between sensitivity to loud sounds and heightened intelligence. "Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption but also a disruption of thought," he wrote. "Of course, where there is nothing to interrupt, noise will not be so particularly painful."

Schopenhauer would not last ten minutes in the digital age. Noise pollution is thicker than ever, thanks in large part to cell phones. Anywhere we go — the subway, the coffee shop, the airport — people are using their devices, quite often without headphones. You will overhear calls made on speakerphone and TikToks playing back to back. The practice, dubbed "blasterbating" by Kendra Stanton Lee at Newsweek, is defined as "the loud consumption of digital content that is only intended for oneself, but to which all in proximity are subjected." Somehow, even though a "general decorum of respecting shared spaces predates cellular phones," said Lee, technology etiquette appears to be regressing. 

What are the practical reasons people are not using headphones?

The trouble begins with the addicting nature of the phones themselves. A 2023 study found that 57% of Americans admitted to being addicted to their phones. With the advent of "doomscrolling" and TikTok's "addictive algorithm," many people are glued to technology for large parts of their day, even while in public places. 

Then smartphone design — and over half of the world now has a smartphone — compounds the issue. Apple removed the iPhone's headphone jack in 2016 to make room for other inputs, and Android started removing jacks, too. This means users have to purchase wireless headphones, like AirPods, in order to listen to their devices privately. But wireless headphones are often more expensive and easier to lose than traditional wire headphones and connecting to Bluetooth takes more effort than plugging in a cord, especially for the less technologically savvy. 

What are the psychological implications?

Many people are not happy about strangers forgoing headphones in public. On X, Ashley Clark called it an "outright epidemic of people guilelessly and guiltlessly listening to TV shows/music out loud." But the bother is perhaps not universal: "For some people, going sans headphones doesn't register as a problem," said The New York Times. "For others, it's an affront — in some cases, debilitatingly so."

Speaking up is always an option, and attempts can be made to embarrass or educate others by reminding them of headphones' existence. Jay Van Bavel, a professor of psychology at New York University, calls this a "Covid-era 'norm erosion' that can only change if there's sufficient norm enforcement," said the Times. But confronting a stranger can be intimidating, especially when you don't know whether someone will react in a violent or explosive manner. "It seems easy to ask," Van Bavel said, "but at the moment, you are violating a norm, and it's hard."

Some experts believe that people may be more disrespectful and unkind since the pandemic, said CBS News. "Not only did the pandemic worsen deep-seated issues such as mental health, homelessness, health care and political polarization, it has made people think differently about one another," said Michael Halpin, a sociology professor at Dalhousie University, to the outlet. 

A 2022 study in the journal PLOS One found evidence of "population-wide personality shifts" in the wake of Covid, said NPR. In the pandemic's later period, researchers noted "significant declines in the traits that help us navigate social situations, trust others, think creatively and act responsibly," especially among young adults. But researchers added those changes could also be attributed to economic stress, among other things, and are not necessarily permanent. 

When it comes to the subject of eschewing headphones, "maybe we're not more rude than ever," M. Zachary Rosenthal, the director of the Center for Misophonia and Emotion Regulation at Duke University, said to the Times. "We just have new ways of being rude." 

Summer is usually a slow season for new video game releases, but that's not necessarily set in stone. This year, several long-anticipated games are coming, including the conclusion of a decade-long saga in "Destiny 2" and a remaster of a classic Nintendo game. If you're looking for a reprieve from the hot weather, here are a few video games you can grab to keep you company inside.

'Destiny 2: The Final Shape' (June 4) 

Great news for the "Destiny" fanbase: "The Final Shape" DLC finally arrives in early June. Over the past decade since "Destiny 1" first dropped, the series has set itself apart from other multiplayers due to its "rock-solid, first-class gunplay with captivating sci-fi settings" and semi-regular updates that introduce players to new locations, Vulture said. While last year's "Lightfall" expansion was a "damp squib, churlishly drip-feeding levels that really should have been included in one big update," the newest update looks to make up for where it fell short.  

"The Final Shape" is a "pivotal expansion" for "Destiny 2" because of all of the new things it adds to the multiplayer and because it is the "culmination of the franchise's Light and Darkness Saga, which all started back in 2014," Games Radar+ said. However, the DLC does not mark the end of "Destiny 2", with The Final Shape "adding plenty, with new episodes paving the road ahead." Order here.

'Still Wakes the Deep' (June 18)

The latest game from the developer Chinese Room, creator of "Dear Esther" and "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture," sees the company pivoting back to the first-person narrative horror genre. Set on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland during Christmas 1975, "Still Wakes the Deep" features players faced with surviving the elements, plus there's something supernaturally spooky about the isolated setting. Like the studio's older games, the latest has no combat — but that does not mean there is not plenty of action to terrorize players. 

The studio hoped to create an "experiential narrative horror that was very strongly grounded in its time and place on this iconic location of an oil rig in the North Sea," lead designer Robert McLachlan said to Games Radar+. The horror is tempered by a "narrative theme about love, family, and letting go of relationships, all seen through the lens of extraordinary events happening to an ordinary person," McLachlan said. Pre-order here for PlayStation, Xbox, or Steam. 

'Luigi's Mansion 2 HD' (June 27)

Technically, it's not a new game, but 2024 has proven to be the "year of remasters and remakes for the Nintendo Switch," The Gamer said. It's been a "quieter year for Nintendo," likely because the next-generation console news is on the horizon;  in the meantime, the company is porting old titles over to the Switch. "Luigi's Mansion 2 HD" is a remaster of the 3DS classic initially titled "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon." The remastered sequel is not expected to add new features to the original game, but will include the game's original multiplayer options. "Team up with other Luigis, either locally or online, and clear the game's haunted houses of ghosts and ghouls together," said The Gamer. Pre-order here.

'Black Myth: Wukong' (Aug. 20)

If you want to add another action role-playing game to your repertoire, then "Black Myth: Wukong" is worth considering. Based on the 16th century Chinese novel "Journey to the West," "Black Myth: Wukong " is a "fantasy epic with a 'Dark Souls'-like twist," said Rolling Stone. Developed by Chinese indie studio Gamescience, the game stars a warrior monkey named the Destined One who is "on a path to paint his own legend." The action RPG is the studio's first significant game following a series of small free-to-play titles, and it is hoping to deliver a game on par with those like "Lies of P" and "Elden Ring," only "paired with lush visuals evoking the rich depths of Chinese mythology." Plus, there are dragons! "Everything's better with dragons," Rolling Stone said. Pre-order here for PlayStation or on Steam.

'Star Wars Outlaws' (Aug. 30)

This may not be the first video game set in the sci-fi universe, but "Star Wars Outlaw" will be the first open-world experience of its kind. Ubisoft is behind the title, a follow-up to another successful licensed project, "Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora." The game depicts a lesser-shown side of the 'Star Wars' universe and centers on scoundrel Kay Vess as she navigates the "dangerous underbelly of the Outer Rim, with some familiar faces like Jabba the Hutt making an appearance," Games Radar+ said. Pre-order here.

Last year was a banner year for video games, delivering several big-name releases, such as "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" and "Baldurs Gate 3." So far, 2024 is shaping up to be another good year for gamers looking to add to their repertoire. Here are a few of the latest video games releasing this spring.

'The Outlast Trials' (March 5)

Horror game fans can look forward to the third installment of Red Barrels' Outlast series, "The Outlast Trials," which came out of early access in March with new maps and missions. The first-person psychological horror survival game is set during the Cold War, and players fight to survive the strange trials of the Murkoff Corporation. Players can go through the game solo or play online with up to three friends. 

As a horror game, "The Outlast Trials" more than delivers the "bloodcurdling, stomach-dropping, wince-inducing gore and violence" fans expect from Red Barrels, Jasmine Gould-Wilson said on Games Radar+. The game is a "thrilling, compulsive experience that will shatter every nerve in your body" and a "chaotic playground to run rampant in with your most steel-stomached pals." Order here.

'Dragon's Dogma 2' (March 22)

It has been twelve years since Capcom's fantasy role-playing game Dragon's Dogma was released, and the sequel finally arrives this spring. It is an action-adventure game that continues in the spirit of the original. But it also offers newness, including a "more robust world, varying vocations for your created character and more emergent scenarios to keep the gameplay feeling fresh and intriguing," said Kotaku. 

The game's director, Hideaki Itsuno, said in a PlayStation Blog post that the sequel "incorporates ideas that were not technically feasible at the time we created the first game." He believes the game will allow players to "experience the fantasy world you've always dreamed of" and will "ultimately be the ultimate 'Dragon's Dogma.'" Order here.

'Princess Peach: Showtime!' (March 22)

Princess Peach takes the helm of Nintendo's new Mario game for Switch, "Princess Peach: Showtime!" It is only the second time that Peach has been the star since "Super Princess Peach" debuted on Nintendo DS in 2005, where she was tasked with rescuing Mario and Luigi. This time, the Mushroom Kingdom ruler takes the lead, with no Mario in sight. Unlike her previous starring role, this game is not just an inverted "Super Mario" game. "Princess Peach: Showtime" is "very much doing its own distinct thing," IGN's Brian Altano said, and it "looks and feels unique." Like its predecessors, "Showtime" is "definitely for the younger crowd, but so are many of the best Nintendo games,” said Altano. Order here.

'Rise of the Ronin' (March 22)

If "Ghost of Tsushima" is your vibe, Team Ninja's "Rise of the Ronin" might be worth adding to your list. The Playstation-exclusive game comes from the studio behind the acclaimed action role-playing games "Nioh" and "Nioh 2." The game is set during the Bakumatsu period, the end of the Edo era, "during which an undercurrent of political discord between east and west sets the scene," Joe Donnelly wrote in a preview for Games Radar+. While there are similarities to the developer's previous titles, the "latest adventure is definitely more sophisticated and, by extension, more ambitious," said Donnelly. Order here.

'Tales of Kenzera: Zau' (April 23)

Developer Surgent Studios' "Tales of Kenzera: Zau" was an "emotional breakout" of The Game Awards, Kotaku said. The game is a "stunning Metroidvania," a portmanteau of the "Metroid" and "Castlevania" series, and a subgenre of nonlinear platform games with "ability-gated exploration." The game follows a young shaman's journey to revive his dead father after he makes a deal with Kalunga, the god of death. The game was inspired by studio founder Abubakar Salim's own experience with grief, who said he "always believed that games are the most powerful way of telling a story." Pre-order here.

A decade ago, an online harassment campaign against three female video game professionals was dubbed Gamergate. It "formalized the playbook for online harassment used by hate groups and the far right," Wired said. 

Recently, a similar campaign against a narrative design company called Sweet Baby, Inc. (SBI) has some calling this Gamergate 2.0, "invoking the online harassment campaign that erupted into a culture war." The coordinated attacks share several similarities, including "attacks aimed primarily at women and people of color," based on the idea that video game culture is for cis white men alone and is being stolen from them. 

The firestorm that Sweet Baby and its defenders are facing is part of a larger problem that has caught the attention of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to a recently released government report. Together, these events convey a growing problem with extremism in the video game industry. 

How Sweet Baby Inc. became enemy number one

Wired said the backlash against the Montreal-based narrative development and consulting company started around the release of the "Spider-Man 2" and "Alan Wake II" games in fall 2023. Sweet Baby's social media comment section was overrun with hateful comments, many of which trumpeted the idea that the company was responsible for the "wokeification" of video games, Kim Belair, the company's CEO, said to Wired. In the following weeks, the abuse increased as conspiracy theories spread about Sweet Baby's involvement with the investment company BlackRock. "People want to believe that our work is surgically removing the things." Belair said. "That's just not the reality of it."

In truth, the company functioned like a Hollywood script doctor and had "no actual say on what makes it into the final game," PC Gamer said. Still, a group called "Sweet Baby Inc. detected" nonetheless led the charge against the company for pushing a "woke" agenda of diversity, equity and inclusion in video games. The group formed on Steam, a digital distribution platform for PC games, in late January 2024 and has since gained over 100,000 members. They highlight games they believe Sweet Baby has consulted on and discourage members from playing them. 

Kotaku senior editor Alyssa Mercante infiltrated the group's Discord and spoke to a few members, who said they were concerned about "ideological worldviews that I believe have taken hold of the Western world, media and gaming as a whole" and "race and identity group quotas." After her report was published, Mercante became the target of online harassment. 

This campaign gaining traction during an already contentious election year is not, to some, a coincidence. Large-scale organized harassment campaigns like Gamergate 2.0 "fuel — and are fueled by — political events,” mental health nonprofit Take This said in a statement. The organization's research director, Rachel Kowert, an expert on extremism and radicalization in video games, said that as "political rhetoric heats up" ahead of the presidential election, this type of online activity will increase, and it is "important to understand that these phenomena are interrelated."

The government is keeping track of gaming-world extremism

The growing presence of extremists on Steam and Discord has been well-documented in the last few years, and the American government has taken note. In its recent report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are coordinating with social media and gaming companies to "root out so-called domestic violent extremist content," Intercept said. 

The GAO noted that while the two agencies have tools for exchanging information about potential threats related to domestic terrorism, neither the FBI nor DHS has "developed strategies and goals related to such information-sharing efforts." The report draws from interviews with Roblox, Discord, Reddit and a game publisher and social media company that asked to remain anonymous. The GAO found that the DHS intelligence office regularly meets with companies to discuss possible online activities promoting domestic violent extremism or other activities violating the companies' service terms. The FBI also receives tips from gaming companies about content with extremist views that would warrant further investigation, and the bureau, in turn, conducts briefings with the companies about purported threats. 

Despite sharing information, the GAO warned that without a clear strategy or goals, the agencies might not be "fully aware of how effective their communications are with companies, or how effectively their information-sharing mechanisms serve the agencies' overall missions."

In an era of influencers and personal brands built on social media, it's more possible than ever to achieve online fame. While platforms like Instagram do not technically allow children under 13 to have their own accounts, some parents help out by running their kids' pages for them, hoping to aid in their quest to become influencers, models or actors. 

Unfortunately, this kind of ambition can lead to some bad places, and a recent investigation by The New York Times exposed the dark underbelly of the world of child influencers on Meta's platforms. What begins as a parent's best effort to jump-start their kids' career can "quickly descend into a dark underworld dominated by adult men, many of whom openly admit on other platforms to being sexually attracted to children." The 5000 mom-run accounts examined by the Times also offered "disturbing insights" into how social media is "reshaping childhood" with "direct parental encouragement and involvement." And if that wasn't alarming enough, there is evidence that Meta has known about this toxic practice for years.

'God bless Instamoms'

The driving force behind child influencers is their parents. The Times discovered that some sell pictures, exclusive chat sessions, and even the "girls’ worn leotards" to mostly unknown male followers. Kidfluencers can make up to six figures monthly from subscriptions and other interactions with their fans, and larger followings will impress more prominent brands. Instagram's algorithm then rewards them with greater visibility. 

An audience demographic firm found 32 million adult male followers among the 5000 child influencer accounts the Times examined. Another analysis using image classification software indicated that suggestive images are most likely to garner 'likes' and comments. And it seems that interacting with a primarily male audience opens the door for these kids' abuse. Sometimes, the men "flatter, bully and blackmail" girls and their parents to elicit racy pictures. The outlet also monitored exchanges on the messaging app Telegram, where men talk openly about their desire to abuse children they follow on Instagram. "It's like a candy store 😍😍😍," one of them said, per the Times. "God bless instamoms 🙌," said another. Account owners said that when they report explicit images or possible predators to Instagram, they are "typically met with silence or indifference."

Parents are finding it challenging to keep their kids away from this threatening side of Instagram. "I really don’t want my child exploited on the internet," Kaelyn, a mother in Melbourne, Australia, who agreed to be identified only by a middle name to protect the privacy of her child, said to the Times. "But she’s been doing this so long now. Her numbers are so big. What do we do? Just stop it and walk away?"

Meta's responsibility

In response to the Times' investigation, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said that parents were ultimately responsible for the content on their Instagram accounts and could delete them at any time. “Anyone on Instagram can control who is able to tag, mention or message them, as well as who can comment on their account,” Stone said, pointing to a feature that allows parents to ban comments with certain words. Still, there is evidence that Meta, Instagram’s parent company, was well-aware of the risks. The company found 500,000 child Instagram accounts that have “inappropriate” interactions daily, according to an internal 2020 study quoted in legal proceedings. 

In an exclusive story, The Wall Street Journal said that safety staff at Meta warned higher-ups about the fact that new paid subscription tools on Facebook and Instagram were being abused by adults who were profiting from exploiting their children. One year ago, two teams raised alarms in internal reports after discovering that hundreds of what Meta calls “parent-managed minor accounts” were using the feature to sell exclusive content to paying customers. While the images did not involve nudity, Meta staffers found evidence that some parents knowingly produced content for "other adults' sexual gratification." They also found evidence that some parents engaged in "sexual banter" about their kids or made their daughters interact with sexual messages. It was additionally revealed that Meta’s recommendation systems were promoting underage modeling accounts to users suspected of behaving inappropriately toward minors. 

The holiday season is here, bringing with it an avalanche of games and gift cards that can be used to buy those games. From remakes of classics to fresh adventures, these are the biggest new video games you won't want to miss:  

'Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora' (Dec. 7)

"Avatar" fans, Ubisoft sees you. In this action-adventure game based on James Cameron's blockbuster sci-fi film franchise, you play as an original Na'vi character who was abducted by humans. Fifteen years later, you must "reconnect with your lost heritage, discover what it truly means to be Na'vi, and join other clans to protect Pandora from the RDA," per the developer. According to Cameron, the game brings a "new corner of Pandora to life" and tells a story that co-exists with his movies. 

'Alone in the Dark' (Jan. 16)

David Harbour and Jodie Comer star in this reimagining of the classic survival horror game "Alone in the Dark" that will kick off the new year on a spooky note. It follows two protagonists, Emily (Comer) and private investigator Edward (Harbour) as they search for Emily's missing uncle. Publisher THQ Nordic describes the game as a "love letter" to the 1992 original, drawing on its "characters, places and themes" but featuring a new story. 

'Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown' (Jan. 18)

Ever since 2010's "Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands," fans have been left to wonder if the series itself has been forgotten, as there hasn't been a new mainline entry in over a decade. But that's about to change with "Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown," a "Metroidvania"-inspired 2.5D platformer that Ubisoft says will feature the "perfect blend of parkour, combat and puzzle-solving" that gamers love. 

'The Last of Us Part II Remastered' (Jan. 19)

"The Last of Us" franchise continues to endure and survive thanks to constant remakes and remasters, and now it's time for the 2020 sequel to receive a makeover. In addition to upgrading the graphics for the PlayStation 5, the "Last of Us Part II" remaster will throw in "lost" levels cut from the original. There's also a new roguelike mode called "No Return" where players must survive for as long as possible against the infected. With "Part II" set to be adapted for season 2 of the HBO show, there's no better time to catch up on one of the decade's most divisive games. 

'Tekken 8' (Jan. 26)

Between 'Mortal Kombat 1' and 'Street Fighter 6,' 2023 was a big year for fighting games, and the sucker-punching will continue with 'Tekken 8.' Following up 2015's "Tekken 7," this eighth installment features what the developer describes as "aggressive" new gameplay, including a mechanic called the Heat System that gives players "the ability to harness aggressiveness as their weapon, and incorporate these new offensive tactics into their playstyle." Game of the year 2024? Oh, they're tekken it. 

'Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League' (Feb. 2)

"Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League" made many lists of most anticipated games of 2023, only for it to not come out in 2023. But the DC adventure, in which the Justice League becomes brainwashed and the Suicide Squad must stop them, is finally, allegedly almost here. Its delay out of 2023 came after some online backlash, particularly over the revelation that the game requires a constant internet connection; Kotaku suggested this "might be gaming's newest cursed blockbuster." Stay tuned to find out whether the reception is closer in line to "Suicide Squad" or "The Suicide Squad." 

'Final Fantasy VII Rebirth' (Feb. 29)

The chronology of the "Final Fantasy" series can get a bit overwhelming, so bear with us here: In 2020, "Final Fantasy VII Remake" revisited the classic RPG "Final Fantasy VII," but Square Enix decided to remake it not only in one game, but in a trilogy. "Final Fantasy VII Rebirth" is the second part of that trilogy, and according to the developer, it will culminate "in the party's journey to 'The Forgotten Capital'" from the original. But creative director Tetsuya Nomura has said it's not necessary to have played the previous game, and "new players might even enjoy starting their 'Final Fantasy VII' journey with 'Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.'" Get ready to party like it's 1997. 

Just as one strike among entertainment workers ends, another could be on the horizon. 

The video game industry is on the verge of a possible actors strike following an authorization vote from union members. So could a work stoppage be imminent? And what are the key issues in this dispute? 

What union covers video game actors?

SAG-AFTRA represents video game performers in addition to film and television actors. However, video game actors are covered under a different contract than actors who work in movies and TV and who have already been on strike since July. 

SAG-AFTRA's Interactive Media Agreement covers "all performers engaged in an interactive program or video game," the union explained. This includes voiceover artists and actors who provide motion capture and stunts for games, as well as "stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers." The ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors strike does not apply to video game work, per Polygon.

Video game actors’ current contract expired in November 2022. "Since then, we’ve been operating month to month," SAG-AFTRA noted. Negotiations have been ongoing since October 2022. 

Will video game actors go on strike?

On Sept. 25, SAG-AFTRA announced that its members had voted 98.32% in favor of a strike authorization.

This does not mean a strike will definitely happen, but it gives the union the ability to call one should negotiations with video game companies be unsuccessful. Film and television actors similarly authorized a strike in June 2023 before one was called the following month. 

Should a video game strike occur, it would be against major companies including Activision, Electronic Arts, Insomniac Games, Epic Games, and Take 2 Productions. 

What issues are driving the potential strike?

Video game performers share several of the same concerns as film and television actors. The "overlap of these two SAG-AFTRA contracts is no coincidence, but rather a predictable issue impacting our industry as well as others all over the world," said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher. 

The guild has called for wage increases and protections against video game performers being replaced by artificial intelligence. "For many performers, their first job may be their last, as companies become increasingly eager to scan our members or train AI with their voices as soon as they show up for work," the union argued. 

SAG-AFTRA has additionally called for steps to be taken to ensure the safety of on-camera performers. For example, the union wants these performers to have a rest period of five minutes per hour and is also calling for a medic to be present on set during the performance of stunts or other hazardous work.  

"Between the exploitative uses of AI and lagging wages, those who work in video games are facing many of the same issues as those who work in film and television," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said. 

Has there been a video game actors strike in the past?

Yes, SAG-AFTRA previously called a video game strike in 2016, and it lasted almost a year. This was the longest strike in SAG-AFTRA history. 

A major factor in that fight was residuals for video game actors. Ultimately, an agreement was reached for a "new bonus structure" providing additional payment to performers based on the “number of sessions worked on each game,” the union explained to members at the time.

However, Rodriguez told Kotaku that the stakes are different this time because of AI. "Secondary payments or residuals — they’re irrelevant if you’ve been replaced by a machine," he said. 

What's next?

Bargaining between SAG-AFTRA and the video game companies resumed on Sept. 26, but following the strike authorization vote, a work stoppage could be called at any time. This could potentially result in delays to highly anticipated games, just as films and TV shows were postponed amid the writers and actors strikes. 

A spokesperson for the gaming companies told Axios that they will "continue to negotiate in good faith to reach an agreement that reflects the important contributions of SAG-AFTRA," adding that "we have reached tentative agreements on over half of the proposals and are optimistic we can find a resolution at the bargaining table." 

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HP Envy x360 13 (2022)

Thin and easy to carry, this 13in 2-in-1 laptop/tablet has a brilliant OLED touchscreen and excellent battery life. It has a range of ports: USB-C and audio jack, but no HDMI. £699; hp.com

Apple MacBook Air (M2)

It is pricey, but creative students may want it because the macOS platform is the industry standard. It’s also thin and light, with a 13in screen and good battery life. A cheaper option is the M1 model, at £999. £1,149; apple.com

Asus TUF Gaming A15

This is a powerful 15.6in gaming laptop that has everything you need for academic work too, with video rendering, graphic design, audio editing and complex programming. £999.99; johnlewis.com

Dell XPS 13

One of the best Windows laptops out there, this has a bright, crisp 13in touchscreen. It is incredibly fast, thanks to the 12th generation Intel processor, but is let down by its webcam. £929; dell.com

Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook

This affordable 10in tablet doubles as a laptop thanks to its magnetic keyboard cover and stand. You are limited to ChromeOS software and web apps, though. From £190; amazon.co.uk

While governments and advertisers have long used technology to track the whereabouts of citizens and consumers, active location sharing has been available to the public only for a relatively short time.

Introduced to a mass audience in around 2017, when Google first released location sharing on its Maps function, it has since become “just another type of social networking”, said Vox, “despite the fact that for many people, it still feels a little icky”.

“We don’t often think about our current location as sensitive information, but it is,” said Lifewire. Here is how it can and is used for good and bad.

1. Pro: safety tool for parents

The use of location-tracking services brings both “benefits and concerns” for parents, said BrightCanary. Primarily it can be used to find out where children are at all times, particularly in case of emergency. It also allows parents to make sure they are where they say they are, and offers peace of mind.

It also provides a level of “accountability” said BrightCanary. “If your child knows their whereabouts are being monitored, they may be less likely to engage in risky behaviour because of the increased possibility of being caught,” said the news site.

If “safety and convenience” are the foremost reasons for location-tracking your child, it is crucial they are aware and agree to share locations with you, said the Family Online Safety Institute. If they are not and later discover that they were forced to location share without their knowledge, “then this can lead to feelings of resentment and a breakdown of trust in your relationship”.

2. Con: invasion of privacy

Location-tracking features have “stirred controversy” for well over a decade, said The New York Times. According to the non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center, location-tracking technologies enable law enforcement agencies to monitor people’s movements or advertisers to connect people’s online activities with their real identities.

“In other words, used carelessly, location tracking may hurt your privacy,” said the paper.

“There’s very little stopping foreign intelligence services from using a front company to purchase such data,” said Security Magazine. “Nor is there much to stop clients from freely sharing the data they access. And then there’s the issue of data breaches, providing yet another opening as hackers look to use the data for their own economic ends.”

“I see it as the natural conclusion of the digital-age expectation that we’re always online, always available, and have no reasonable expectation of a private, offline life,” explained Scott Nover, a tech reporter at Quartz.

3. Pro: finding lost property

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of location-tracking is for finding something you have lost. Beyond the in-built tracking systems which allow you to easily locate your phone, Bluetooth wireless technology allows the likes of Apple AirTags and Tiles for Android “to see its location on a map in real-time (or the last known location if it’s not connected to the network) and play an audio alert from the tracker’s speaker” reported The Wall Street Journal. It means, for those who have embraced the new technology, the days of losing your keys down the back of the sofa are well and truly over.

4. Con: dangerous in wrong hands

“Armed with the knowledge of where you are at a specific point in time, people with ill intent could use that information to your disadvantage,” said Lifewire.

Tracking apps, along with the likes of smart speakers and key-logging software, “have made it easier for perpetrators to maintain control of victims and continue abuse”, said the BBC. Location tracking is just one way an “ill-intentioned romantic partner” can “monitor, intimidate, and control you – and they don’t have to be a tech wizard to manipulate it”, The New York Times reported.

This also applies to complete strangers. ‘Checking in’ at locations while running errands “provides potential thieves with detailed knowledge of your daily schedule”, said Springwise. Conversely, while location-sharing can tell you where someone is, it can also tell you where they are not: an invaluable tool for criminals looking to target your home when you are on holiday.

5. Pro: keeping track of friends

It is not just parents who use location sharing to keep track of those close to them. The rise of ride-sharing apps like Uber, as well as a huge variety of dating apps, have normalised “a culture of being alone with strangers”, reported Tech Crunch.

“We talk to strangers online, pay them to get into their cars and meet up with them alone” said the tech site: developments that “go against every rule about strangers that our parents embedded in our childhood brains”.

Because of this more and more people are choosing to share their location with their closest friends when on a night out.

6. Con: bad for relationships

“Experts are divided over how helpful location sharing really is for relationships,” said Inverse.

For some couples who have experienced cheating it can be used to build up trust. But it can also increase anxiety. Dr Jenni Skyler, of the Intimacy Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said that if a relationship has not experienced a recent breach of trust “it’s excessive”.

“It is sort of an exercise over control, and it can take you down a rabbit hole,” she told Inverse.

This is particularly true among younger people, clinical psychologist Yasmine Saad told USA Today. She has estimated that the issue of location sharing in relationships comes up for about 80% to 90% of people in their teens, 20s and 30s at her practice.

Ultimately, said Mashable, “your decision to share your location with your partner depends on the scenario and perhaps a couple of other factors, too – namely, you and your partner’s personal preferences and the status of your relationship”.

Easter is the riskiest time of the year for personal tech like mobile phones and laptops as data shows demand for device repairs rises by 24% at the start of April.

The findings, collected by Getac, show that tablets are the most likely tech items to break over the Easter holiday, followed by laptops and mobile phones.

The data, drawn from a decade of national Google searches, as well as Which? and The Restart Project, also showed a 6% drop at Christmas.

Most common repairs

The highest demand was for fixing smashed screens, followed by dead batteries, chargers and faulty USB ports.

Some might blame holidays, with millions of Britons planning trips over the Bank Holiday weekend, “but it seems this isn’t the case”, said Manufacturing and Logistics IT magazine.

Over the summer, “when Brits jet off with their devices in their hand luggage”, there was only a 7% increase in repair demand. Half-term is “the potential culprit” behind the Easter increase, it said.

Plus mobile phones only accounted for 10% of repairs; it was mostly tablets (32%) and laptops (29%) that broke.

That has significant implications for the 44% of Britons that now work remotely during the week, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Devices are getting more expensive, and so are repairs. The average laptop fix costs anywhere between £60 and £160, with an average mobile phone screen replacement now costing about £170, according to Which?.

Norwich the riskiest

Interestingly, data showed that Norwich has the highest demand per capita for repairs, based on common searches such as “broken iPhone” and “fix laptop”.

Norwich topped the list of 62 UK cities analysed, followed by Lincoln, Wrexham, Inverness and Bath.

The safest areas for personal tech, according to the data, were Wakefield, Newport, Bradford, Lancaster and Londonderry.

New Harry Potter video game Hogwarts Legacy is flying off shop shelves despite calls for a boycott of the new release.

After winning global fame as the author of the hit book series, J.K. Rowling has “fallen from beloved to beleaguered” in recent years over her outspoken views on transgender women, said Newsweek. The 2020 unveiling of a Hogwarts Legacy trailer prompted debate about whether Rowling's attachment to the game would “prove to be problematic” – despite her having no direct involvement.

But despite many gamers and members of the LGBTQ+ community calling for a boycott, others argued that “choosing to play the game doesn’t automatically mean they support the author's statements”, said the BBC’s gaming reporter Steffan Powell.

That argument appears to have won the day, with the new title – the first open-world action game set in the Hogwarts wizarding universe – topping the sales lists on Steam, Epic Store and Amazon even before its official release on Friday.

J.K. Rowling controversy

Rowling’s stance on trans people has “alienated large swaths of her fanbase” and “fanned the flames of an already red-hot debate”, said entertainment journalist Erik Kain on Forbes. But Hogwarts Legacy can be viewed as “a victory for the LGBTQ community and for progress”, Kain argued, as it features a “prominent trans character” and also “allows you to play as a trans protagonist”.

All the same, said The New Statesman, many fans have felt “unable to ignore” Rowling’s comments on trans women and her connection to the game as the creator of this wizarding world.

In January, one of the voice actors in the game, Sebastian Croft, tweeted: “I was cast in this project over three years ago, back when all Harry Potter was to me was the magical world I grew up with. This was long before I was aware of JK Rowling’s views. I believe wholeheartedly that trans women are women and trans men are men.”

Some gaming forums, such as ResetEra, have banned all mentions of Hogwarts Legacy, while some sites, such as The Game, have decided not to review the new title despite the potential resulting “revenue loss”.

Failed boycotts

The pushback against the video game is far from the first brand boycott that has failed.

Sales of Nike products jumped by 31% after the company faced criticism for appointing American football quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick as its spokesperson in 2018. Some consumers posted footage on social media showing them destroying Nike products over the choice of Kaepernick, who popularised the act of “taking a knee” at football games to protest against racial inequality.

Donald Trump joined in the online criticism, but the then president “inadvertently helped out” Nike, said NBC, by “drawing more attention” to the brand, which ultimately helped to boost sales.

Trump was also at the centre of another backlash against a company in the US in 2020. Sales of products made by Goya Foods soared by 22% after social media users called for a boycott in response to CEO Robert Unanue praising the Republican politician.

Fast-food chain Chik-fil-A has also been a target of boycotts and negative press, as a result of the anti-LGBTQ+ stance of its owners. A decision in 2011 by a Chick-fil-A outlet in Pennsylvania to donate food to a marriage seminar conducted by the Pennsylvania Family Institute, “a group known for its anti-gay advocacy, prompted a nationwide boycott of the chain”, said Vox.

But overall, the bad press and boycotts did little harm. According to latest figures, Chik-fil-A was the third-largest fast-food chain in the US by sales in 2021.

Trans activists are calling for a boycott of a new Harry Potter game set to be released in February in response to J.K. Rowling’s views on gender ideology.

Hogwarts Legacy is expected to be “one of the blockbuster games of the year” when it goes on sale on 10 February, reported The Times.

But the build-up to its release has sparked calls by some gamers to avoid it, despite Warner Bros Games insisting it is inclusive and the game’s website stating that the Harry Potter author was “not involved in the creation of the game”.

‘Any support is harmful’

YouTuber and journalist Jessie Earl was one of several trans activists to voice opposition, arguing that “any support of something like Hogwarts Legacy is harmful”. Earl’s tweet provoked a response from Rowling, who said such “purethink is incompatible with owning ANYTHING connected with me, in ANY form”.

Rowling has attracted widespread criticism from trans groups since a series of tweets in June 2020 in which she responded to a headline on an online article discussing “people who menstruate”. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Rowling denied she was transphobic and said she stood by her comments, saying: “It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”

She has since been outspoken on the topic, most recently branding Nicola Sturgeon a “destroyer of women’s rights” over the passing of the Scottish government’s Gender Recognition Bill, said The Herald.

The author was also critical of the Scottish first minister over “the jailing in a women’s prison of a trans woman who was convicted of rape”, said The Times. Rowling tweeted: “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to the disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists.”

Will Overgard, a US gamer, said that by supporting Hogwarts Legacy “you are essentially aligning yourself with some really heinous transphobic values”. He argued for a complete boycott of the game, which lets players take the role of a student at Hogwarts, in a video that has been viewed two million times.

One leading gaming forum, ResetEra, has banned discussion of Hogwarts Legacy altogether, and accused Rowling of “pushing transphobic legislation”, said the Daily Mail.

‘We know it’s a diverse audience’

When the game’s voiceover cast was announced, Sebastian Croft, a British actor who worked on the LGBT Netflix series Heartstopper, also faced a backlash. “I was cast in this project over three years ago, back when all Harry Potter was to me was the magical world I grew up with,” he said. “This was long before I was aware of JK Rowling’s views. I believe wholeheartedly that trans women are women and trans men are men.”

The game’s director, Alan Tew, has maintained that the game is inclusive, with players able to play as trans wizards and witches. “We know that’s a diverse audience. For us, it’s making sure that the audience, who always dreamed of having this game, had the opportunity to feel welcomed back,” he told IGN.

Warner Bros Games told fans in September 2020 that Rowling “is not directly involved in the creation of the game” – although her team did reportedly collaborate in its making, said The Times.

However, since the premise of Hogwarts Legacy is based on Rowling’s work and intellectual property, “she is sure to receive royalties”, reported Newsweek. “Multiple sources have cited that Rowling earns anywhere between $50 million to a $100 million each year from royalties.”

Despite the uproar, according to Newsweek, forecasters continue to predict that the game will sell well, and pre-release sales seem to confirm this.

Investing in refurbished technology can help consumers cut costs with little to no compromise on quality – and this Black Friday, a number of top retailers are offering highly competitive deals on pre-loved tech.

From laptops to hair tools, air fryers to soundbars, take a look at some of the best refurbished deals on the market this year.

What is refurbished technology?

The term refurbished can mean something slightly different depending on the product and retailer. It could be an item that a previous customer returned, “perhaps sent back just days after the original purchase”, said Wired. The product could be new but with damaged packaging, or a discontinued item, but still technically “new”.

Check what level of certification the product has been awarded, and whether it’s being described as “refurbished” because the item has been repaired, or it ticks one of the above boxes.

Refurbished items do “come with a degree of uncertainty”, noted TechRadar – but that “shouldn’t immediately scare you away”. These products are cheaper than new year-round, but they “will often get even sweeter” during Black Friday sales. And the quality can be “much like buying brand new”, said Wired.

It’s not only your wallet that will benefit from investing in a refurbished tech product. “Another driving force” when making a second-hand purchase is that it can help to reduce levels of electronic waste that are likely to end up in landfill, said TechRadar.

Top tips for buying refurbished technology

“Not all refurbished and used items are equal,” noted TechRadar. While you might “expect the odd scuff or scrap on the outer shell” of refurbished goods, their inner workings are what “you need to worry about”.

The “three things” to look out for, according to Wired, are “a darn good price, a good returns policy and a warranty similar to what you’d get buying new”. You may “have to be a little more careful and pay more attention” to how the product is working during the returns period, but “a tech refurb deal can be a steal”.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 covers second-hand products bought from online retailers, so they must meet a satisfactory quality, be fit for purpose and be as described, MoneyHelper explained – and you are entitled to a full refund within 14 days of an item being delivered.

“Buying from a private seller makes things slightly more complicated,” so be vigilant when scouring the net for the best deals this weekend.

The Week is supported by our readers. When you make a purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission.

1. Bose Smart Soundbar 900

17% off

The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 “is certainly a looker”, said Expert Reviews. Available in black or white, it combines “stylish design and cutting-edge features” while delivering “a solid front soundstage and some excellent smart features”, such as ADAPTIQ room calibration, which tunes your sound system’s output to best suit your room’s acoustics.

With nine speakers, the Dolby Atmos technology creates “an unparalleled spatial experience”, according to Bose. The company’s refurbished soundbars are products that have been returned by customers, “thoroughly inspected, tested and serviced” to meet Bose’s quality criteria, “same as a new product”. It also comes with the same warranty as a new item.

Was £899.95, now £749.95; bose.co.uk

2. Apple iPhone 11

14% off

Tom’s Guide gives the Apple iPhone 11 four out of five stars, praising its “superb cameras, fast performance and excellent battery life”. This Black Friday, shoppers can purchase refurbished versions of that same handset from Envirophone for £249.99 (by way of comparison, a new iPhone 11 from a major phone retailer costs £439).

A variety of colours are available, including lilac and mint green, and the device comes with a USB cable. All refurbished Envirophones are run through a “100-point checklist” before they leave the factory and there’s a 12-month guarantee upon purchase.

Was £289.99, now £249.99; envirofone.com

3. Dell Latitude laptop

85% off

The price of Dell’s 12-inch Latitude laptops has been slashed by 85%. One retailer has reduced the cost of the laptops from £799 to £119.99 (a saving of £679) - and then shoppers can get an additional 20% off using the code BETTER20, bringing the price down to £96.

These devices have been professionally resprayed by the seller’s “in-house paint technicians” and tested by qualified engineers. Plus, if you’re worried about buying a second-hand laptop, they’re protected by a one-year RTB (return-to-base) warranty.

Was £799, now £119.99; ebay.co.uk

4. Ninja Foodi Health Grill & Air Fryer AG301UK

17% off

Air fryers have been all the rage this year, with home cooks turning to them to give their dishes chargrilled flavours and minimise the amount of oil needed to deliver tasty results. This refurbished Ninja appliance (which has been professionally checked, cleaned and restored after being returned) has five customisable cooking functions.

As well as air frying, it can grill, roast, bake and dehydrate – the latter perfect for creating homemade beef jerky, dried herbs and fruit snacks. Its use of something called “Cyclonic Air Technology” ensures even and fast cooking, with no need to flip. “When it comes to multifunctional kitchen gadgets,” said BBC Good Food, “Ninja is a front-runner in both performance and quality.”

Was £179.99, now £149; ebay.co.uk

5. Amazon Echo Show 10

29% off

Smart displays are “usually stationary screens”, said PC Mag. Not the Amazon Echo Show 10. This third-generation smart display “delivers powerful audio” and adds a motorised base that lets the screen and camera rotate as you move around”, meaning you no longer need to stay in one place to see the display or make a video call.

Amazon’s refurbished version, which is 29% off this Black Friday, has been through a full diagnostic test, thorough cleaning and inspection and a secure data wipe, ensuring that even though it’s been pre-owned, it’s as good as new.

Was £215.99, now £152.99; amazon.co.uk

6. Dyson Supersonic hair dryer

30%

“In a marked change from previous years, eBay is only promoting pre-loved and refurbished deals for Black Friday,” said Manchester Evening News. The e-retailer’s “certified” level of refurbishment means it’s been approved by the manufacturer, and is in “pristine condition”.

The Dyson-approved Airwrap may have sold out, but the Supersonic hair dryer in colourway iron/fuchsia is available for a bargain price compared to a new model. It’s “one of the best-loved hair tools on the market”, with “lightweight” design and heat control technology that allows for fast drying with a range of styling attachments, said Glamour. “It’s also rarely discounted.”

Was £269.99, now £188.99; ebay.co.uk

7. Kindle Paperwhite

22% off

If you’re looking to upgrade your e-reader, Amazon’s certified refurbished Kindle Paperwhites – which have a one-year warranty – are 22% cheaper than usual this Black Friday.

The Kindle Paperwhite “has major, important advantages over the base model”, said PC Mag. “For starters”, the fact it’s waterproof means it’s safer for reading at the beach, by a swimming pool and in the bath. Its “flat front design prevents sand and gunk from getting caught in cracks”. And the screen is “much sharper”, with a light that’s “easier on the eyes”. Yes, the Paperwhite is “more expensive than previous models”, added TechRadar, but it remains “the best ereader for those who are looking for a simple gadget that lets you read for hours on end”.

Was £116.99, now £90.99; amazon.co.uk

A US teenager’s shock victory against the world champion has sparked extraordinary speculation in the world of chess.

Allegations have emerged of cheating, “including wild speculation involving vibrating anal beads”, which have “rocked chess to its core”, said The Guardian.

Musk and Mourinho memes

Two weeks ago the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, pulled out of the $500,000 (£433,000) Sinquefield Cup tournament in St Louis, Missouri, and then, on Monday he resigned from a game after just one move. The opponent on both occasions was the 19-year-old American Hans Niemann.

After the St Louis event, Niemann, the lowest-rated grandmaster in the tournament, was less than gracious about his victory. “It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me,” said the teenager. “I feel bad for him.”

Carlsen, 31, from Norway, then posted a cryptic tweet that included a video clip of football coach José Mourinho saying: “If I speak, I am in big trouble.” People interpreted this as a hint that Carlsen believed his opponent had cheated.

There was “frenzied speculation”, said The Guardian, with one theory, popularised by Elon Musk, suggesting that Niemann had “used vibrating anal beads to help him”.

Vibrating anal beads?

Yes, the suggestion is that Niemann was using wireless vibrating anal beads to read signals from a computer chess engine about what moves he should make, wrote Thomas Mitchell for The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit,” wrote Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, in a since-deleted tweet, “Genius hits a target no one can see (cause it’s in ur butt).”

Although there is no evidence that Niemann had done this, he has admitted to using a computer chess engine to cheat at online chess in the past (when he was 12 and 16).

But he insists that is in the past and denies ever breaking the rules at a live tournament. “If they want me to strip fully naked, I will do it. I don’t care. Because I know I am clean,” he said.

The saga has caused shock, not least because Carlsen’s own organisation is hosting the tournament he withdrew from. “Carlsen effectively invited his apparent nemesis to his virtual home and then walked out the back,” said Kotaku.

The saga has “set off waves across the chess world”, said Forbes, while CNN said the tension between the pair “rocked the chess community”.

England’s leading woman player, Jovanka Houska, accused Carlsen of “pouring more fuel on the fire” of the controversy with his latest withdrawal, said the FT. The paper said this week’s “bizarre happening” is “almost without precedent in international chess”.

The story is so exciting for the media it is “as if a rogue editor has dropped a bunch of random, enticing words into a headline generator and waited to see what it would spit out”, wrote Mitchell.

It's more than three years since Wordle, the online word-guessing game, took the internet by storm.

It began as a "humble independent game" played only by its creator, Brooklyn-based software developer Josh Wardle, and his family and friends, said digital news site Chron. But its popularity exploded, from fewer than 100 players in its early days in October 2021 to around 300,000 each day by the following January.

Wardle had designed the puzzle for his partner Palak Shah, "who was absorbed by word games like the New York Times Spelling Bee and Crossword", said tech website The Street. At first, it was a "guessing game for just the two of them", said the New York Times, with its name a pun on its inventor's surname – although an earlier version was "Mr. Bugs’ Wordy Nugz", reported The Verge. 

It was after he shared the game on the family WhatsApp group, where it became an "obsession", that he put it on the internet, where it achieved a "meteoric rise", added the NYT, which bought the game in January 2022, for a sum “in the low seven figures” as part of its gaming division. 

It's been a daily fixture in the newspaper ever since, with "Wordle" becoming the most googled word of 2022 and even helping rescue a pensioner held hostage in their basement. It's also turned into a money-spinner for the NYT, helping "funnel players" to a paid subscription to either the paper's other games or news site, reported CNN. 

But if you've tired of the original, some alternatives have sprung up, including the new New York Times word-search-based option. And should you get bored of any of these, try The Week's very own Quiz of The Week, crossword, codeword and sudoku.

WordGuessr

This is Wordle for people who "don't want to wait 24 hours before getting a new puzzle", said The Gamer. As well as being able to play as many games as you want, WordGuessr lets you customise how many letters you want to be in the word – you may be surprised by how difficult it becomes when you have a six-letter word to discover. 

Play WordGuessr

Pinpoint

LinkedIn's word association game is perfect "for those who like Connections in the New York Times app. It's a slower version of that", said Tom's Guide. Five clues are revealed one by one as you attempt to guess the category with as few hints as possible.

Play Pinpoint

Quartiles

Conquering this "tough" game is "as satisfying as remembering something that was just on the tip of your tongue", said CNET. In the new Apple News game, users are challenged to form words from tiles containing two to four letters, collecting points based on the length of the word. If you can fit together four tiles, you make a Quartile, the longest word possible.

Download Quartiles

Strands

The latest New York Times game, Strands, was released in beta form in March 2024. It's "a well-designed and unique puzzle that takes the familiarity of a word search and adds a thematic layer", said The Gamer. Words are hidden in a six-by-eight grid, but unlike a typical word search, they're not vertical, horizontal or diagonal. Instead, they're "in twisty-turny sequences that snake around and double back on themselves". This makes finding the words harder, so each puzzle has a theme, a "clue that connects all of the hidden words", and a "spangram", a word that spans across the entire puzzle from left to right or top to bottom that reveals what the entire puzzle is about".

Play Strands

Dordle

A "devious word game that doesn't let you off easy", Dordle challenges players to guess two five-letter words at once, "but you can only input one word guess at a time", said CNET. "Confused? Play it and you'll get it." And unlike Wordle, you can play new puzzles on the same day, so newbies can take multiple turns to get the hang of things. While Wordle is more of "a calm, breezy experience", the reviews site continued, Dordle "should give you some exciting moments. Or anxious moments. Or both." It's a "different beast", with "a bit of an attitude". But "that's what makes it fun and challenging".

Play Dordle

Quordle

Want even more of a challenge? Quordle presents players with four Wordle-style puzzles to solve. So while the principle is "the same", you have to guess "four five-letter words at the same time", said The Independent . You get nine attempts, "with each guess appearing in all four fields", and you can take a practice turn too. According to Quordle creator Freddie Meyer, his game has attracted more than 500,000 players daily, but he has insisted there are no plans to monetise the puzzle.

Play Quordle

Octordle and Sedecordle

Each of these word games "requires you to simultaneously solve a different number of words at once", said CNET . Octordle is eight at once, and Sedecordle a "whopping" 16.

Play Octordle

Play Sedecordle

Byrdle

While Heardle is perfect for pop lovers, Byrdle is designed for the classical crowd. Named after Renaissance composer William Byrd, the game follows the same principle and allows the same number of goes as Wordle, but the words are related to choral music. According to the game site, Byrdle gained 50,000 players within three weeks of launching. "Much like a delightfully dissonant English cadence, we're lost for words," said Classic FM.

Play Byrdle

Hello Wordl

As with Wordle, you get six tries to guess a word, using the familiar coloured blocks to track your progress. You can "play as many games as you want", said CNET, and you can also "change the number of letters in the word you're guessing" to between four and 11. But "no matter how long the word is, you still only get six guesses".

Play Hello Wordl

Waffle

All the words are in the crossword-like grid; "your job is to unjumble them" by swapping letters, said AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons. to guess the correct words. Like Wordle, the puzzle uses green to denote a letter in the correct spot, and yellow for those that appear, but in the wrong place. You can make 15 swaps to "guess the six words on the board".

Play Waffle

Crosswordle

You have to "guess two words, which cross each other, in as few tries as possible", said the Independent. There's one puzzle each day, but no limits on the number of guesses. And you "can guess as many times as you want – until you either win or give up". You can also create your own Crosswordle puzzle to share with friends, which is "something none of the other Wordle alternatives offer", said Pocket-lint.

Play Crosswordle

Absurdle

Described by The Guardian as a "much more confrontational, brain-burning" version of Wordle, Absurdle also revolves around trying to guess a five-letter word but "sharpens the original premise into a horrific machiavellian scheme". The key difference is that "the target word changes as you play", said Tom’s Guide. "Essentially, you're competing against a malevolent AI which uses your guesses to narrow down the possible answers, discounting anything that contains a letter you've used." And "the more guesses you make, the smaller the answer list gets", The Guardian explained, until "there is only one word in the dictionary that fits the algorithm that you and the game have created". "Voila, you've beaten Absurdle at its own game" – but in how many goes?

Play Absurdle

Sweardle

Billed as "the sweary" guessing game, Sweardle was invented as a "joke parody of Wordle", swapping five-letter words for four-letter expletives, with approximately 50 swear words used in rotation. You get only four chances, so "don't f*** it up", warns the site. A message on the game site explains that its creator "wishes to remain anonymous because this really isn't the sort of thing you want to have come up in a future job background check".

Play Sweardle

Semantle

Unlike Wordle, the game isn't about spelling, but about the semantics or the word's meaning. Semantle challenges players to guess the word or short phrase of the day by guessing words that get "closer and closer to the right word's meaning", said the London Standard.

Play Semantle

SpellTower

Like Boggle mixed up with Tetris: players make words out of adjacent letter tiles to clear the play space. It tests vocabulary as well as spatial planning skills, with words used as tactical objects. "If the idea of making words under pressure lights a fire in your soul," said The Escapist, "then you're in luck. Effectively a mixture between a word search puzzle and Tetris, SpellTower prompts players to make as many words as possible while a rising stack of letters continues to grow.

Play SpellTower

Lewdle

Are you a fan of Wordle and an aficionado of vulgar vocabulary? Then Lewdle is an appropriately inappropriate option for you. "It gets explicit, wild, suggestive, and torrid at every turn, making it a big no-no in family-friendly or professional settings," said Nerds Chalk , which describes the game as a "grossly inappropriate and oddly engrossing Wordle variant". As a bonus, you can even suggest words to the team behind the game.

Free on iOS and Android. Play Lewdle

Antiwordle

"While Wordle wants you to guess a word in as few tries as possible, Antiwordle wants you to avoid the word by guessing as many times as possible," said CNET. With each guess, letters turn grey, yellow or red. Grey means it isn't in the word and can't be used again, yellow means it is in the word and "must be included in each subsequent guess" and red means the letter is in the correct position and "locked in place". Use every letter on the keyboard without finding the correct word, and you win. And you might find this "much harder than the original".

Play Antiwordle

1. Brother HL-L2350DW mono laser printer

If you’re looking for a no-fuss black and white printer, this is your best bet. Fast and surprisingly quiet, it’s quite compact despite the large 250-sheet paper input. It can struggle with printing spreadsheets, however, and it won’t copy or scan.

£130; argos.co.uk

2. Epson Expression Premium XP-6100

This good value, compact printer has no touch screen, but you can control it on Epson’s iPrint app. It has dual front-loading paper trays for A4 and photo paper, and it can print double-sided if you want; on the downside, cartridge refills are pricey.

£155; amazon.co.uk

3. HP OfficeJet Pro 9020

This may be a bit of a beast, but it has a 35-page automatic document feeder for hands-free copying, two 250-sheet paper trays that fit a full ream of paper, and the ability to scan both sides of a page at once. It’s a big printer for big tasks and the closest to a proper office printer – but printing costs are high.

£260; jessops.com

4. HP OfficeJet Pro 7720 A3

The 7720 is good for professional printing at home. The HP Smart app is easy to use. It can print up to A3, and scan and copy up to legal size (a bit larger than A4). The print quality is good, but cartridges are quite expensive.

£250; onbuy.com

5. Epson EcoTank ET-2710

Epson claims users can save up to 90% on ink costs with its refillable ecotank printers, which use more eco-friendly cartridge-free ink. This model prints, scans and copies. There’s no airprint, but it is easy to set up, print quality and speed are good (14 to 33ppm), and colours are vibrant.

£240; ao.com

A simple online word game that had just 90 players in November has been acquired by The New York Times (NYT) in a seven-figure deal.

Wordle, a guessing game where players have six attempts to decipher a five-letter word, is the brainchild of Josh Wardle, a former Reddit software engineer based in Brooklyn.

The game was initially popular in his family’s WhatsApp group, but has grown massively over the last couple of months, attracting millions of daily players around the world.

The NYT said its purchase of Wordle “reflects the growing importance of games, like crosswords and Spelling Bee” and is part of the company’s quest to increase digital subscriptions to ten million by 2025.

“New York Times Games play a big part in [Wordle’s] origins, and so this step feels very natural to me,” said Wardle in a statement posted on Twitter.

Wordle was acquired for a price “in the low seven figures” and the game will eventually move over to the NYT website.

The company said that Wordle would “initially remain free to new and existing players”, sparking concerns among loyal fans that the game may go behind the NYT’s paywall in the future.

“The NYT took one nice and simple thing that a lot of people really liked, a dumb bit of fun in our exhaustingly dark times, and implied that they’ll stick it behind a paywall. Exhausting,” wrote one Twitter user.

How to play

Wordle players have six goes to work out a five-letter word. When they guess a correct letter in the correct spot in the word, the letter goes green. A correct letter in an incorrect spot turns orange, while an incorrect letter becomes grey.

The game can be played just once a day and participants are shown a countdown to the next Wordle, which refreshes at midnight, once their turn is complete.

Players are able to share their results on social media via a coloured grid as opposed to the actual words, making it spoiler-free.

Wardle created the game for his partner, Palak Shah, after the pair started regularly attempting the New York Times Spelling Bee (a word game where participants see how many words they can make out of seven letters) and the daily crossword.

‘Low frills’

The limit of one game per day was partially inspired by the Spelling Bee, Wardle told the NYT in an interview published on 3 January. It “leaves people wanting more”, he explained.

There are around 2,500 Wordle words, which Wardle thinks should last for a few years. The selection was narrowed down by Shah, who sorted through 12,000 five-letter words, marking whether they were familiar to her or not.

The game has been described as “low-frills” due to its lack of ads, pop-ups and flashing banners. “It’s something that encourages you to spend three minutes a day,” said Wardle in his NYT interview. “And that’s it. Like, it doesn’t want any more of your time than that.”

Wordle can currently be played at powerlanguage.co.uk.