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Helldivers 2 is the first PlayStation-published Xbox game

is an editor covering deals and commerce. He joined in 2018, and served as commerce editor at Polygon until May 2025. Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2 will make the jump to the Xbox Series X and S consoles on August 26th, costing $39.99. This is the first PlayStation-published title to launch on Xbox. The title will ship with cross play between all platforms. The cooperative PvE third-person shooter was an unexpected hit when it first launched simultaneously on PlayStation 5 and PC in earl

Tools: Code Is All You Need

Tools: Code Is All You Need If you've been following me on Twitter, you know I'm not a big fan of MCP right now. It's not that I dislike the idea; I just haven't found it to work as advertised. In my view, MCP suffers from two major flaws: It isn’t truly composable. Most composition happens through inference. It demands too much context. You must supply significant upfront input, and every tool invocation consumes even more context than simply writing and running code. A quick experiment make

Amazon’s Big Price Drop Makes Dell’s Big 27-Inch Monitor a 4th of July Steal, Skip Waiting for Prime Day

There are worse ways to kick off a long holiday weekend than by grabbing a great Amazon tech deal on a big monitor that’s long on great features, especially when it’s a Dell monitor that’s just $140. The Dell S2725HS is a 27-inch beauty with an ultra-thin design, terrific HD resolution, outstanding sound from built-in 5W speakers, and many more features that make it an absolute bargain at just $140. The fast 100Hz refresh rate and premium reengineered sound that comes from this Dell 27-inch mon

‘We Live in a Surveillance State’: Reddit Users Explode Over Reports of ICE’s New Face and Fingerprint Scanning App

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly using a new tool called Mobile Fortify, a smartphone-based facial recognition and fingerprint scanning app that allows agents to identify people in real time using only a phone camera. The tool taps into the same biometric system used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at ports of entry. But ICE is now using it inside the U.S., in field operations across the country. According to internal ICE emails reviewed by 404 Media, the app

Microsoft asks users to ignore Windows Firewall config errors

Microsoft asked customers this week to disregard incorrect Windows Firewall errors that appear after rebooting their systems following the installation of the June 2025 preview update. These warnings are logged in the Event Viewer as 'Event 2042' for Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, with a 'Config Read Failed' warning and a 'More data is available' message. Microsoft added that this known issue is caused by a new feature that's still under development and hasn't yet been fully integrat

Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

For years, I’ve felt that writing lines of code was never the bottleneck in software engineering. The actual bottlenecks were, and still are, code reviews, knowledge transfer through mentoring and pairing, testing, debugging, and the human overhead of coordination and communication. All of this wrapped inside the labyrinth of tickets, planning meetings, and agile rituals. These processes, meant to drive quality, often slow us down more than the act of writing code itself because they require t

Best Internet Providers in Knoxville, Tennessee

CNET recommends AT&T Fiber as the best internet provider in Knoxville. Knoxville has no shortage of high-speed internet options, with six providers to choose from, including five that offer gigabit speeds. To determine the best internet providers in Knoxville, our team evaluates speeds, pricing, customer service and overall value. We conduct spot checks on local addresses to confirm availability, thoroughly review provider terms and conditions, and directly contact ISPs when necessary to verify

This Pro-Level Controller Is Great, but It Comes at a Price

Turtle Beach is no stranger to making high-performance gaming hardware, either through its PDP brand or its own in-house accessories. The company is perhaps best known for its gaming headsets but has leveraged its decades of experience to bring us other great gaming accessories like the Stealth Ultra wireless controller. Well, mostly great, as we'll see. What I like about the Stealth Ultra Jason Cockerham/CNET Turtle Beach didn't try to reinvent the wheel with the Stealth Ultra. The standard

Serenading Cells with Audible Sound Alters Gene Activity

The cells in your ears aren’t the only ones listening: recent research suggests that crucial cells throughout the body may respond to audible sound. Experiments described in Communications Biology revealed more than 100 genes whose activity changed in response to these acoustic waves, pointing to possible medical applications. Extensive earlier research has shown that ultrasound—sound at frequencies higher than humans can hear—can affect biology in numerous ways; the new study expands this conc

LLMs as Compilers

LLMs as compilers 7/2/2025 by Kadhir So far, I've only used LLMs as an assistant, where I'm doing something, and an LLM helps me along the way. Code autocomplete feels like a great example of how useful it can be when it gets it right. I don't doubt that over time this will improve, but I'm excited to see a more significant transition from this assistant mode to a compiler mode, at least for coding. It will be exciting when we focus solely on the context we fed the LLM, then test the features

What to build instead of AI agents

Paul: Today, the scene is owned by Hugo, a brilliant mind who advises and teaches teams building LLM-powered systems, including engineers from Netflix, Meta, and the U.S. Air Force. He runs a course on the LLM software development lifecycle, focusing on everything from retrieval and evaluation to agent design, and all the intermediate steps in between. Enough talking, I’ll let him dig into today’s controversial topic: “Stop building AI agents”. ↓🎙️ P.S. I agree with him. 🤫 Hugo: I've taught

Starlink Plans to Send 42K Satellites Into Space. That Could Be Bad News for the Ozone

Satellites like the ones used for Starlink's internet service could be depleting the Earth's ozone layer when they're deorbited, according to a study funded by NASA and published in Geophysical Research Letters in June. 2024. When Starlink's satellites reach the end of their lives, they burn up in the Earth's atmosphere and leave behind small particles of aluminum oxide. These travel down into the ozone layer, which absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation. Researchers from the University of South

Two years in, Apple is now officially on Threads

It took a minute, but Apple has at last activated its official Threads account. And thanks to its massive Instagram presence, it instantly picked up nearly 5 million followers. Today’s move comes well after several Apple-related accounts joined Instagram’s alternative to X right out of the gate. Apple Music, Apple News, Apple Books, Shazam, and Beats by Dre were among the first to show up shortly after Threads launched in mid-2023, but the main @apple account remained absent until now. Instant

The End of Wireless Dead Zones? T-Mobile’s Starlink Service Launches in 3 Weeks

Imagine being able to send a text, video or voice recording from the remotest corners of the country. That's the future T-Mobile envisions, as its partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service gets ready to launch on July 23. The alliance will provide direct-to-cell messaging service, called T-Satellite, which will also be available to AT&T and Verizon cellphone customers. T-Mobile says its goal is to “eliminate mobile dead zones for good” by utilizing 657 Starlink satellites that will b

Nearly 500 Starlink Satellites Have Incinerated in Earth's Atmosphere So Far This Year

According to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, 472 Starlink satellites burned up in the atmosphere between December 2024 and May 2025, as SpaceX deorbited around 6% of its active fleet. Starlink satellites are built to last around five years. After that, they're steered into the Earth's atmosphere to burn up. SpaceX, the rocket company owned by Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk, launched the first Starlink satellites in 2019, which means we're now seeing its first full-sca

Robinhood stock hits $100 as it roars 30% since S&P 500 snub

CANNES — Robinhood stock hit the $100 mark for the first time, capping off a week of fresh all-time highs and renewed investor confidence. Shares closed up 6.12% Wednesday at $97.98. Shares are now tracking their best performance since April, up more than 30% since the trading app was snubbed from the S&P 500. The milestone follows a major strategic swing in Europe, where Robinhood unveiled its most ambitious crypto expansion to date — one aimed at re-engineering the financial infrastructure i

Prepare to Share All Your Pics With Meta If You Turn On Facebook's New AI Photo Tool

There's good news and bad news: The bad news is that Meta's continued development of generative AI has led it to add a privacy nightmare setting to its Facebook app. The good news is that, in a big departure from Meta's status quo, you have control over whether you participate. It's all about whether the company and its AI get access to your camera roll and all the pictures there, even the ones you haven't posted anywhere. Meta, Facebook's parent company, has been trying to keep up with AI hea

Crunchyroll Accidentally Left AI Slop in Anime Subtitles

Crunchyroll, the massively popular anime streaming service and distributor, just got caught using obvious AI slop in its subtitles. The slipup was made in the premiere episode of a new series called "Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show" — and trust us, there's no guesswork involved in sniffing out the AI here. Around the 19:12 mark, the show's German subtitles feature a big fat "ChatGPT said:" jammed into the dialog. A classic, lazy error. (We double checked, and it's still there as of this

New macOS malware targets crypto and Web3 startups with fake Zoom update

North Korean hackers are behind a new and unusually sophisticated macOS malware campaign that targets the crypto industry using fake Zoom invites. Here’s how it works. Dubbed “NimDoor” by researchers at SentinelLabs, the attack is more sophisticated than the typical macOS threat, and it chains together AppleScript, Bash, C++, and Nim to exfiltrate data and maintain access in compromised systems. Here’s SentinelLabs’ executive summary of the hack: DPRK threat actors are utilizing Nim-compiled

NimDoor crypto-theft macOS malware revives itself when killed

North Korean state-backed hackers have been using a new family of macOS malware called NimDoor in a campaign that targets web3 and cryptocurrency organizations. Researchers analyzing the payloads discovered that the attacker relied on unusual techniques and a previously unseen signal-based persistence mechanism. The attack chain, which involves contacting victims via Telegram and luring them into running a fake Zoom SDK update, delivered via Calendly and email, resembles the one Huntress manag

Zelle needs to fix ‘significant scams and fraud,’ lawmakers say

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Banks are facing renewed pressure to protect their customers from scams on Zelle, the payment network owned by JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Capital One, and other big banks. In letters to the banks, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) asked them how often their customers report Zelle

Former SpaceX manager alleges harassment, retaliation, and security violations in lawsuit

A former SpaceX security manager, who was privy to top secret information on U.S. government programs, is suing the company and one of its senior employees for alleged discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation. Jenna Shumway, who was promoted to senior contractor program security officer after being hired in 2022, also alleges the senior employee — Daniel Collins, a former Defense Department official hired to run security compliance for the company’s government work — violated top secr

Lovable on track to raise $150M at $2B valuation

Lovable, one of the darlings of the vibe coding world and one of Europe’s fastest-growing AI startups, is working on raising a fresh round of over $150 million at a near $2 billion valuation, the Financial Times reports. The raise and giant step-up in valuation comes just months after the Swedish startup raised a $15 million round led by Creandum in February. The company described that round to TechCrunch as “pre-series A,” but with numbers this large, it’s safe to say that Lovable has jumped f

Large Object From Interstellar Space Detected Heading Toward Center of Solar System

A new interstellar object has been spotted careening into the solar system at an extremely unusual trajectory. If its interstellar origins were to be confirmed, it'd only be the third of its kind spotted in the solar system in history. An oblong interstellar object, dubbed 'Oumuamua, was first discovered in 2017, while comet 2I/Borisov was detected in 2019. The latest addition, provisionally named A11pl3Z, has a highly unusual trajectory, leading astronomers to believe it may have also origina

US judge rules Huawei must answer criminal charges about alleged Iran deal

A US judge has ruled that Huawei must stand trial following a 16-count indictment from 2019 accusing the Chinese telecommunications company of trying to steal trade secrets from its US rivals and selling surveillance equipment to Iran despite trade sanctions, according to a report by Reuters . A trial is currently set for May 4, 2026. US District Judge Ann Donnelly found sufficient evidence in the indictment to refute the company's bid for dismissal. In a 52-page decision, the Brooklyn judge ru

Finally, a MagSafe wallet for my phone that feels premium (and it just got even cheaper)

ZDNET's key takeaways The UAG Metropolis Wallet is a MagSafe wallet and stand made of vegan leather for $45. It holds up to five cards and cash, has a kickstand, is RFID blocking, and features pockets. It's only available in Black. $44.95 at Amazon $44.95 at Walmart more buying choices Now until July 7, get 20% off with the code UNITED at checkout on UAG's direct website. This drops the Metropolis wallet down to $36. As ZDNET's MagSafe expert, I've tried many magnetic accessories, from walle

‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Didn’t Always End That Way

Jurassic World Rebirth is now in theaters, and if you’ve seen it, you probably felt a little manipulated by the end. Not in a bad way necessarily, but in a way that felt somehow satisfying and also disappointing. You guessed what was going to happen but also kind of hoped it didn’t. Well, it turns out there’s a very, very good reason and story behind that. So, we asked the film’s director, Gareth Edwards, about it. Major spoilers below In Jurassic World Rebirth, as the group is getting ready to

Dell Laptop (32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) Now 73% Off, Priced So Low so Don’t Count on It Lasting Till Prime Day

The good folks at Amazon must be getting warmed up for the annual Prime Day blowout, or maybe somebody lit their 4th of July fireworks a little early, because for the second day in a row there is a truly insane Dell laptop deal that’s just dropped out of nowhere. The last one, on the Dell 15 Vostro 3520, took a $2,000 price tag down to just $549. Now it’s the Dell 15 Vostro 3530’s turn in an even bigger deal taking a $2,400 price down to just $650. The Dell Vostro 3530 is the slightly bigger br

Takashi Yamazaki’s ‘Godzilla’ Ride Is Getting a Slick New Mechagodzilla

A few months ago, we learned that Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki‘s next project with the king of all Kaiju wasn’t going to be his next movie, but a new theme park ride set to open in Japan this summer. Now we have more details of what to expect… and what familiar shiny face Godzilla will throw hands with during it. Today it was confirmed that Yamazaki’s ride, set to open next month at the Seibuen Amusement Park in Tokorozawa, Japan, is called Godzilla the Ride: Great Clash, and wi

A Trans Pilot Was Falsely Blamed for a Plane Crash. Now She’s Fighting the Right-Wing Disinfo Machine

On January 29, a Blackhawk helicopter crashed into a commercial airliner in the skies over Washington, DC. The collision killed all 67 people on board both aircraft, including the pilots. But online, a different pilot—one that wasn’t even present—was being blamed for the tragedy. Within two days, the rumor spread like wildfire. The morning of January 31, Jo Ellis, a part-time pilot with the Virginia Army National Guard, woke up to messages from a friend warning that she was being named online a