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Slow Horses season 6 premieres September 16 on Apple TV with weekly episodes through October 21, marking the show's first season under new creative leadership and adapting two Mick Herron novels instead of one. Early critic reviews from outlets like Decider, Comic Book Club, and Next Best Picture praise the season as the strongest yet, citing sharp twists and strong character work.
A global analysis covering 204 countries found that nearly 3 billion people are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke, contributing to roughly 1.7 million deaths each year. The research highlights that passive smoke exposure remains a major public health burden despite decades of anti-smoking campaigns.
Nintendo will hold its second Direct of the week at 10AM ET on September 9, streaming on YouTube and the Nintendo Today! app, running roughly 45 minutes and centered on Switch 2 titles arriving this winter. A follow-up Nintendo Treehouse stream lasting about 110 minutes will show gameplay footage from featured games afterward.
A technical analysis by Valentin Ignatev, discussed by a Python performance blogger, shows that Python's set and dict data structures, though usually treated as constant-time O(1) for lookups and insertions, can be forced into quadratic-time behavior. By constructing integers that share the same hash value (using a Mersenne prime modulus), it's possible to trigger repeated hash collisions that slow insertion and lookup dramatically as the collection grows.
OpenAI has released ChatGPT Images 2.5, which includes a new Sketch feature allowing users to draw a rough doodle inside ChatGPT and have it converted into a polished image based on typed instructions. Users can invoke the tool by typing @Sketch, then annotate specific parts of the generated image with comments to request targeted edits, such as changing eye color. OpenAI says the update also improves lighting and texture quality, strengthens multi-turn editing consistency, and cuts image generation latency by up to 50% compared to the previous version.
Google has shifted Chrome from its four-week milestone update schedule to a two-week cycle, with version 153 rolling out now across desktop, Android, and iOS. Each release will carry a smaller set of changes, but updates will arrive twice as often, with version 154 already slated for September 22.
Amazon has cut the price of the Tapo MagCam C460 wireless outdoor security camera to $84.99 from its $119.99 list price, matching its lowest recorded price. The battery-powered camera features a magnetic mount, 4K recording, color night vision, and AI-based alerts for people, pets, and vehicles.
Xiaomi released the Xiaomi 18 Fold and Huawei unveiled the Mate XT2 trifold this week, both timed just ahead of Apple's Wednesday event where the company is expected to reveal its first foldable iPhone under CEO John Ternus. Analysts say the Chinese manufacturers are trying to lock in buyers before Apple enters the foldable market.
Nintendo's Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct confirmed the Ocarina of Time remake will release Nov. 5 for Switch 2, preceded by a special-edition console bundle with a matching Pro Controller and case on Oct. 29. The company also revealed physical acoustic and electric ocarinas modeled after Link's in-game instrument. The remake adds modern touches including dual analog stick controls, a dedicated jump button, voiced cutscenes, and microphone-based humming to play the ocarina's magic songs.
Sophos researchers detailed a second-stage Linux rootkit infecting F5 BIG-IP APM systems, likely delivered after attackers exploited the critical CVE-2025-53521 remote code execution flaw. The malware infects Apache's httpd process, hooks internal functions to intercept PHP file loading, and injects a web shell into memory rather than writing files to disk, while also altering SELinux settings and persisting through firmware upgrades. ESET separately analyzed the same threat under the name PoisonedRefresh.
GrapheneOS announced it is teaming up with Motorola to produce phones running the privacy-focused custom Android OS. Commentator Switched To Linux says the deal raises unanswered questions and concerns rather than excitement, without detailing specific terms of the arrangement.
After five years of development, Pistol Shrimp Games has launched a free public demo of Free Stars: Children of Infinity, the sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters made by that game's original creators. The demo focuses solely on the melee combat mode, letting players choose from 38 ships—including nearly all classic Ur-Quan Masters vessels plus new additions—for head-to-head arcade battles. It's available now on Steam and GOG for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with console versions still to come.