As the memory crisis continues to push up component prices, laptop prices are also rising, making even mainstream models increasingly expensive. However, if you are looking for the right combination of portability and performance, the HP Omen Transcend 14 is currently on sale. The 14-inch powerhouse is available at $1999.99 for a limited period, down from its listed price of $2999.99 at Best Buy, which is a massive saving of $1000.

• Check out the HP Omen Transcend 14 on Best Buy

The HP Omen Transcend 14 is one of the rare compact gaming laptops packing a powerful set of hardware. This particular configuration comes with Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285H processor, paired with 32GB of LPDDR5x memory and an Nvidia RTX 5070 Laptop GPU with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM. For storage, there is a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD, while the laptop ships with Windows 11 Home. The combination should make it capable of handling modern games as well as demanding workloads such as video editing and other content-creation tasks.

A highlight feature of the laptop is the 14-inch 3K OLED display, which has a 2880 x 1800 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The panel supports a 48-120Hz variable refresh rate, covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and offers up to 500 nits of HDR brightness, making it suitable for both gaming and content creation.

Despite packing high-end hardware, the Transcend 14 remains relatively portable, measuring around 0.7 inches thick and weighing about 3.6 pounds. In terms of ports, it comes with Thunderbolt 4, USB-C with DisplayPort and power delivery, HDMI 2.1, and a USB-A port. The laptop also comes with a four-zone RGB backlit keyboard, while the 71 Wh battery is claimed to last up to 14 hours on a full charge.

Considering the premium hardware and compact footprint, the HP Omen Transcend 14 at $1,999.99 is a deal worth considering. The $1,000 discount from its $2,999.99 listed price makes it a considerably more affordable proposition. However, you’ll need to move fast, as the deal price is only available for a few hours.

A chrysophile has ordered a special edition mini PC with a pure 24-carat gold passive chassis reports Fanless Tech. It’s a premium custom version of the ~5-inch (120 x 120 x 120mm) Kubb Fanless PC, but costing around $1.7 million with its opulent gold chassis. As well as its choice of materials pumping up price, this mini PC’s weight has increased from its default 4.6 to 28.7 pounds (2.1kg to 13kg). But as a bonus, which probably still doesn’t make it worth it for most folks, gold has significantly better thermal conductivity than aluminum.

In its social media post, Fanless Tech calls the Kubb Fanless in gold a “cooling marvel.” Its news post on the topic elaborates on this claim, explaining that the thermal conductivity of gold is “about 30% to 50% faster than aluminum.” That might help its Core Ultra chip perform a bit better, all else being equal. However the sacrifice to portability, as this compact gold PC is over 6x heavier, could be a major drawback. As well as the price.

We looked up the thermal conductivity of aluminum and gold, as well as some other common materials. The chart below could be useful for your own passive computing projects.

In contrast to its gilded construction, this mini PC's specs are very modest. Standard configurations of the Kubb Fanless are as follows:

• Intel Core Ultra 5 225H, or Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, or AMD Ryzen AI 5 340
• 16GB DDR5, up to 128GB
• 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, optional second M.2 SSD
• Intel: 1x USB 3.2 (Type A), 1x USB 3.2 (Type-C, DP1.4a), 1x USB4/Thunderbolt 4 (Type-C, DP 2.1), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• AMD: 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 (Type A), 2x USB4 (Type-C, DP 1.4a), Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3
• Side ports: 2x Port RJ45, 2x HDMI 2.1 TMDS, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type A)
• 19V DC, 6.32A, 120W power adapter (100–240V AC)
• Windows 11 Pro
• 3 years guarantee

Kubb Fanless mini PCs are usually made from aluminum, and finished in graphite, blue, or bronze. With an Intel Core Ultra 5 225H at their heart, all those colors are all listed at €1,595 ($1,822) at Kubb.eu, but there is no stock. At that kind of price, the Arctic Senza AI 370 we tested earlier in the year looks like it would be a knockout passive computing competitor. We aren’t sure if Arctic would accept the 24 carat gold chassis special order, and the Senza is designed for discrete under-desk-mounted silence.

We previously reported on the fanless Kubb Mini range of 3 x 3 x 3-inch mini PCs which packed Intel Twin Lake chips, came in cute/bright color finishes, and were priced around $500 (€430).

PlusAI, an autonomous trucking startup, is working with Nvidia to develop its systems and has several trucks and trailers marked with the logos of both companies. This likely caught the attention of thieves who were looking to score big on AI GPUs, with Wired reporting that two of the startup’s trailers got stolen and were found at another location. However, the joke’s on the criminals, as they discovered that the two stolen units contained 20,000 pounds of sand each.

The AI data center construction boom has made PC components like RAM and GPUs insanely expensive, which has led to a rise in petty theft involving these components. Enterprises and startups are being targeted, too, especially as they build data centers and local AI servers with millions of dollars’ worth of equipment and hardware. We’ve already seen cargo heists of copper cable and other hardware worth $1.3 million, while other criminals have become more brazen, pushing or spinning security escorts off the road so they can get away with a truck’s worth of AI GPUs.

While PlusAI is partnered with Nvidia, it also uses simulated cargo loads for real-world tests, allowing the company to model how a fully loaded semi-trailer would react to various road conditions. The startup’s truck cabs, which likely had advanced AI hardware installed, were parked securely inside its warehouse, while the trailers were apparently left outside and secured with hand locks. “PlusAI uses simulated loads in its trailers to assist with research and development testing,” company spokesperson Lauren Kwan told Wired, adding that they were recovered with “40,000 pounds of sand intact.”

Interestingly, the discovery of the theft was accidentally made by one of the startup’s top executives, who received a message from an acquaintance saying that they saw the trailers, which they described as “trucks,” near their workplace. This likely got the executive concerned, as that location was half a mile away from PlusAI’s warehouse, which led to the cops getting called. As for the prospective criminals, they probably left the crime scene disappointed — they thought they were getting a huge payday from two truckloads’ worth of smart silicon, but they ended up with 20 tons of dumb sand instead.

Gigabyte Technology hardly needs an introduction to anyone who has built a PC in the last three decades. Founded in Taipei in 1986, the company grew into one of the largest motherboard and graphics card manufacturers in the world, and its AORUS brand has become a fixture of the enthusiast market. Power supplies are a comparatively recent and more modest part of its business. Like nearly every PC brand, Gigabyte does not manufacture its own PSUs. Instead, it sources platforms from established OEMs and sells them under its UD, P-series and AORUS lines. The results have been uneven over the years, with some very good units and a few that left a lot to be desired, so the OEM and the target audience behind each model matters more than the badge on the box.

The Gaming GM PG5 series is Gigabyte's newest attempt to cover the upper mainstream, and the 1000W model in review today is something of a spiritual successor to the popular UD1000GM PG5. We look closer to determine how it ranks among our best power supplies list. It is built by HEC, a long-established Taiwanese OEM. It is fully compliant with the ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 design guides and comes with a native 12V-2x6 connector, a 135 mm fluid dynamic bearing fan, and (according to Gigabyte) 100% Japanese capacitors.

The headline feature, though, is T-Guard, a thermal monitoring system for the 12V-2x6 connector that can cut power to the graphics card if the connector starts overheating. The T-Guard signifies Gigabyte’s proposed solution to the known PCIe 5.1 connector overheating problem that almost every manufacturer has been trying to implement a defense against. Curiously, Gigabyte markets the unit with 80 PLUS Gold logos, even though it has received Platinum certifications from both CLEAResult (80 PLUS) and Cybenetics. It is also available in white as the 1000GM PG5 ICE, comes with a ten-year warranty, and retails for $170 at the time of this review.

Specifications and Design

In the Box

The Gaming 1000GM PG5 arrives in a black and orange cardboard box with a large render of the unit on the front, next to the model name and a bold orange "1000W" print. A row of small icons along the bottom highlights the ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 compatibility, the fully modular design, the Japanese capacitors, the smart fan, and T-Guard, while an 80 PLUS Gold badge sits at the top right corner. It is a flashy, gaming-oriented design, which is fitting given the name of the series.

The bundle is very basic. Other than the unit itself, we only found the AC power cord, four black cable ties, and a multilingual user manual. There are no Velcro straps and no cable combs. Strangely, there were not even mounting screws in our sample's box. For a $170 1000W unit, that is on the stingy side of things, although it hardly matters for the actual quality of the product, and most builders probably already have a drawer full of these things.

All of the cables are modular, including the 24-pin ATX cable. Gigabyte went with black, flat "embossed" cables, where every wire is individually insulated, but the wires are bound together into a ribbon. They are flexible and easy to route, and they look considerably better than plain flat cables. The single native 12V-2x6 cable has a dual-color connector, with a light grey front section that makes a partially seated plug easy to spot, and it is rated for 600W.

External Appearance

The chassis of the Gaming 1000GM PG5 measures 150 x 150 x 86 mm (L x W x H), which are slightly larger than the typical dimensions of a standard ATX unit. Still, at 150 mm long, it will fit in virtually every ATX case, although the length means that very compact builds may be a little tight once the modular cables are installed. The design is more elaborate than most PSUs in this price range. The upper part of the chassis is finished in a dark metallic gunmetal grey, while the lower part and the front and rear faces are matte black.

The sides carry a large embossed "GAMING" logo along with the Gigabyte name and the wattage, and the fan grille is a perforated octagonal area with the Gaming series logo at its center, with four exposed screws at the corners. The specifications sticker is placed on the side opposite the fan.

The rear face of the unit is almost entirely perforated with a honeycomb pattern, and there are only the on/off switch and the AC receptacle. There is no switch to control the semi-passive fan mode. It is always active. The modular panel on the front is clean and clearly labelled, with four sockets for the CPU and PCIe cables, three sockets for the peripheral and SATA cables, the 24-pin motherboard sockets and the non-standard 12V-2x6 cable socket, which is placed separately at the bottom left corner.

T-Guard is the major update over the UD1000GM PG5, and a feature Gigabyte clearly is relying on to market the unit. According to Gigabyte, precision thermistors monitor the temperature of the 12V-2x6 connector in real time, and if an abnormal temperature rise is detected, the system cuts power to the graphics card while keeping the rest of the system running. If the CPU has integrated graphics and the monitor is connected to the motherboard, the user can continue working and save any progress before shutting down, and a reboot is required to restore power to the GPU.

The UD1000GM PG5 had nothing similar. It relied solely on the typical protection features of every PSU, which do nothing against a single overheating connector, as current is spread across many pins and the total draw never approaches the OCP limit. Monitoring the temperature directly addresses the actual failure mode behind the melting connectors that have plagued high-end graphics cards over the past few years, and it is a lot more meaningful than yet another marketing badge. The concept is sound and, as a concept, it should work, unless the temperature increase on the connector is very abrupt and the position of the sensor does not allow it to react in time.

Internal Design

The cooling fan is a Hong Hua HA13525H12SF-Z, a 135 mm fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) fan rated at 0.50A. Hong Hua fans are very common inside mainstream PSUs, are reliable, and should easily last through the ten-year warranty. The larger 135 mm diameter allows the fan to move the same amount of air at lower speeds than a 120 mm fan, which pays off in the acoustics department and probably the main reason why the designer chose to push the chassis to 150 mm, as the 135 mm fan does not fit in a 140 mm chassis. A clear plastic sheet under the fan guides the airflow across the heatsinks.

The OEM behind the Gaming 1000GM PG5 is HEC, a manufacturer that has been producing power supplies for decades and has built units for many renowned brands. The platform is modern, with good-sized two-prong heatsinks for the active components, and a clean, well-spaced layout that helps with airflow. The transient filtering stage starts on a small PCB right behind the AC receptacle and continues on the main board, with four Y capacitors, three X capacitors, two filtering inductors, and a MOV, which is more than a complete filter for a unit of this class. An NTC thermistor and a bypass relay provide inrush current protection. There are two bridge rectifiers, mounted on their own relatively large dedicated heatsink.

The APFC stage uses three CRJW125N60G2F MOSFETs and a boost diode. The coil is fully enclosed and the bulk capacitor is a single 680 μF / 400 V unit from Toshin Kogyo (TK), a respected Japanese manufacturer, rated for 105 °C. The primary inversion stage consists of two NCE 65TF099F MOSFETs on a dedicated heatsink, forming a half-bridge LLC resonant topology. It is a simple, mature, and efficient arrangement that is found in the majority of high performance units today.

On the secondary side, the 12V rail is generated by six unidentifiable MOSFETs in a synchronous rectification arrangement. The 3.3V and 5V rails are generated by DC-to-DC converters on a vertical daughterboard. Gigabyte's claim of 100% Japanese capacitors is accurate. All of the electrolytic and polymer capacitors on the secondary side are supplied by TK as well, which is a welcome sight in a $170 unit, and it is excellent news for its long-term reliability.

Cold Test Results (25°C Ambient)

Cold Test Results (25°C Ambient)

For the testing of PSUs, we are using high-precision electronic loads with a maximum power draw of 2700 Watts, a Rigol DS5042M 40 MHz oscilloscope, an Extech 380803 power analyzer, two high-precision UNI-T UT-325 digital thermometers, an Extech HD600 SPL meter, a self-designed hotbox, and various other bits and parts.

At 25 °C ambient, the Gaming 1000GM PG5 performs much better than the Gold logo on its box suggests. It averaged 92.6% at 230 VAC and 90.6% at 115 VAC across the nominal load range, peaking at 93.8% (230 VAC) at about 50% load and 92% (115 VAC) at about 30% load. Even at a sustained 1000W, efficiency was 91.0% and 88.5%, respectively. This is Platinum-level performance, and it is consistent with both certifications the unit actually holds: 80 PLUS Platinum from CLEAResult and ETA Platinum from Cybenetics. Why Gigabyte chose to market it as a Gold unit is anyone's guess.

The thermal and acoustic performance balance is impressive. The fan remains completely stopped up to about 30% load (roughly 300W), which covers most desktop work. Once it starts spinning, it barely gets audible up to 500W, where it reaches about 33 dB(A). From there it ramps up gradually, reaching 36.4 dB(A) at 600W and about 41 dB(A) at 800W, before climbing to 48.2 dB(A) at a sustained 1000W. That last figure is loud, but it is hardly a load most systems will continuously sustain. Thermally, the unit maintains very low and safe operating temperatures.

Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)

Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)

Inside our hotbox, at roughly 45 °C ambient, efficiency drops by just 0.8%, averaging 91.8% at 230 VAC and 89.8% at 115 VAC, with full load figures of 89.9% and 87.4% respectively. That is a very small degradation for a 20 °C increase in ambient temperature, which is a testament to the quality of the components and their resilience to adverse operating conditions.

The fan is a slightly different story. It still stays off up to about 300W, but it starts at a higher speed and ramps up much faster, reaching 38.3 dB(A) at 500W and 47.2 dB(A) at 800W. At a sustained 1000W, the fan climbs to 54.5 dB(A), practically the maximum, as the fan reaches its top speed, which is very loud and very noticeable in any system. In return, the internal temperatures stay very low, with the primary and secondary heatsinks reaching just 88°C and 82°C respectively at full load. These are high figures, but they are reasonable for a unit operating at its maximum output in a 45°C environment, and the unit’s components are very capable of handling them. Gigabyte clearly favored longevity over everything else.

PSU Quality and Bottom Line

Power Supply Quality

Voltage regulation is good on the minor rails and average on the 12V rail. Across the 20% to 100% load span, the 3.3V and 5V rails moved by just 0.5%, which is exceptional. The 12V rail regulation is 1.3% - not a class leading figure, but not a bad result either. The ripple suppression is very good. The 12V rail peaked at 48 mV at full load, while the 3.3V and 5V rails did not exceed 26 mV under any condition. Against the 120 mV and 50 mV ATX design limits, that is 60% headroom on the 12V rail and 48% on the minor rails. Several premium platforms can do better, but these figures are far from unacceptable on a mainstream PSU.

During our thorough assessment, we evaluate the essential protection features of every power supply unit we review, including Over Current Protection (OCP), Over Voltage Protection (OVP), Over Power Protection (OPP), and Short Circuit Protection (SCP).

All protection mechanisms were verified and triggered correctly during testing. With the unit hot, OCP tripped at 136% (27.2A) on both the 3.3V and 5V rails, and at 120% (100A) on the 12V rail, while OPP shut the unit down at 116% of its rated output, or about 1160W. These are tight thresholds for a 1000W unit, yet not too tight, as expected from an ATX 3.1 compliant unit.

Bottom Line

The Gigabyte Gaming 1000GM PG5 is a well-rounded power supply, and one that Gigabyte seems to undersell. The HEC platform is modern and well designed, the component selection includes Japanese capacitors all around, which is a welcome sight at this price point, and the unit is fully compliant with the latest ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 design guides. It is evident that Gigabyte favored longevity and reliability over squeezing out every last bit of electrical performance, and for a mainstream 1000W unit, that is a very reasonable priority.

T-Guard deserves a special mention, as it is the major update over the UD1000GM PG5 and the reason most people will notice this unit. It is Gigabyte's answer to the known 12V-2x6 connector overheating problem, which almost every manufacturer is currently trying to find a defense against. By monitoring the connector temperature and cutting power to the GPU if something goes wrong, while keeping the rest of the system alive, it targets the actual failure mode instead of relying on protections that were never designed for it. As a concept, it should work, unless the temperature rise is very abrupt and the position of the sensor does not allow it to react in time. Even so, for anyone planning to run a power hungry graphics card, it is a reassuring addition.

Efficiency is where the unit shines. It is Platinum-level efficient, as confirmed by our testing and both the 80 PLUS and Cybenetics certifications, which makes Gigabyte's decision to market it with Gold logos rather strange. The rest of the electrical performance is average for its class, with good minor rail regulation, a decent 1.3% on the 12V rail, and ripple that is comfortably within the ATX limits, if not remarkable. The balance between temperatures and noise is very good. At room temperature, the fan is barely audible up to 500W, and the internal temperatures remain low and safe, even inside our hotbox, where efficiency barely degraded.

The compromises are few. The fan gets very loud under sustained heavy loads in hot environments, practically reaching its top speed at full load, and the bundle is bare, lacking even mounting screws. The 150 mm long chassis, a consequence of the 135 mm fan, may also be a little tight in very compact cases. None of these are serious issues, as the vast majority of gaming systems will rarely push the unit hard enough for the fan to become a nuisance.

With a price tag of $170 at the time of this review and a ten-year warranty, the Gaming 1000GM PG5 represents good value, but it does not stand out across the board. Against other 1000W units in the same price range, such as the Corsair RM1000x, the MSI MAG A1000GL PCIE5 and the Montech Century II 1050W, it provides average all-around electrical performance, so buyers should not expect a noticeable difference in regulation or ripple. Where it pulls ahead is efficiency, as its Platinum-level figures are great for the class, and it also offers a good balance between temperatures and noise, with all-Japanese capacitors and T-Guard as extra reasons to pick it. For a gaming system built around a demanding graphics card, especially one with a 12V-2x6 connector, that combination makes the Gaming 1000GM PG5 a very sensible 1000W choice, even if it is not a clear winner in every category.

MORE: Best Power Supplies

MORE: How We Test Power Supplies

MORE: All Power Supply Content

Developers of SharpEmu — an experimental, open-source PS5 emulator — have successfully run PS5 games at a playable 60 FPS on the emulator. According to an X post on September 25, the developers reached this milestone for six of 55 titles tested, with 12 — including the six playable — reaching gameplay. According to the developer, the six games are yet to be tested from start to finish; the “playable” designation means the games currently run without issues, although minor graphical or audio issues may persist in some.

The six 60 FPS titles are Dreaming Sarah, Void Terrarium, New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, Tetris Forever, Hoa, and Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered. The breakthrough was achieved with SharpEmu v0.0.4-release.2, the emulator’s latest public build released on September 25. According to developers, the build includes upgrades such as improved SPIR-V shader translation and updated Vulkan API support.

Developed in C#, the SharpEmu PS5 emulator supports Windows, Linux, and macOS and uses Vulkan and MoltenVK for graphics API calls. PlayStation 5 relies on an AMD Zen 2 x86-64 CPU architecture; therefore, SharpEmu can execute the console's CPU instructions natively on a standard PC rather than translating them from an unfamiliar instruction set. The emulator focuses on loading a game's eboot.bin executable and required system modules, partially handling kernel functions, and processing the game's shader, resource, and AGC graphics submissions.

For now, SharpEmu is still far from handling demanding 3D titles, with only 12 of 55 tested titles reaching a game ready state. Of those 12, only six performed cleanly enough to be designated as “playable” at a full 60 FPS. The developers stress that SharpEmu is still in its early stages, noting that “SharpEmu is an experimental emulator intended for research and educational purposes. This project does not contain any copyrighted system firmware, game data, or proprietary PlayStation assets.” Meanwhile, another emulator, KytyPS5, recently ran the PS5 version of GTA V at roughly 40 to 60 FPS on a high-end Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Radeon RX 7900 XT system, crashing after the game's opening mission.

It won’t be long until Linux enthusiasts will be able to complete a clean kernel build in under 10 seconds. Linux expert and Phoronix head honcho Michael Larabel said that “the coffee window is closing” in recent commentary that weighs computer processor advances and human / AI optimizations of the Kbuild code. What once used to be a computer processing task that provided a decent excuse for a coffee break now only allows enough time for a measured sip.

The source site’s determined Linux focus has meant that OS kernel compilation times have become a signature benchmark over the last two decades. Larabel notes that this once time-consuming process “can be done in now roughly 15 seconds.” It isn’t just advances in hardware and core counts pushing the envelope; compiling a defconfig x86-64 Linux kernel build has had many bottlenecks removed thanks to the work of Linux MM developer Lorenzo Stoakes and the assistance of AI/LLMs recently. Even modest processors have seen their compile times cut dramatically thanks to this work.

Larabel went hands-on with the latest v4 kernel patches from Lorenzo, and armed with his very powerful EPYC workstation, achieved “a 15-second kernel build!” Before the latest patches, the same system took over 22 seconds for the same compilation task.

The test system is extremely potent, though. Your home PC or laptop might still let you have enough time to go brew some coffee, as Larabel’s test rig features the following components:

• 2x AMD EPYC 9575F 64-core processors (so, 128 cores / 256 threads)
• 24 x 64GB DDR5-6400 memory modules
• Samsung PM1743 3.84TB PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD storage
• Stock Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

It is noted that the code compilation benchmarking didn’t employ a RAMdisk to aggressively tune the compile times

All the above timings mentioned are for the minimal default kernel compilation for x86-64 systems. The Phoronix chief also timed the compilation of a Linux kernel with ‘allmodconfig’ with thousands of drivers and subsystems enabled. This precipitates far longer compile times. On the above beefy system, though, the latest Lorenzo patches drove the time down from 169 seconds to 134 seconds. So, this other milestone is approaching the two-minute mark.

Phoronix is now taking bets on AMD (Zen 6) EPYC 9686F systems, with MRDIMMs and PCIe Gen6 storage pushing defconfig x86-64 Linux kernel compilation times under the 10-second mark.

A security researcher discovered a vulnerability in Flock’s website that gave him an access token without needing login credentials. The researcher used the information gleaned to build a map of Flock cameras and share it on a website he named the Flock Surveillance Map, which now lists the location of 335,701 cameras. Flock has now issued a trademark infringement complaint with the goal of having the researcher close the website.

According to The Intercept, Joshua Michael used this to query ArcGIS, a third-party mapping and geospatial layer that Flock uses, to retrieve a database of Flock devices in November 2025.

Michael said that he immediately informed the company about the security flaw. He said in his email, dated Nov. 13, 2025, that “all testing was strictly non-intrusive, limited to open unauthenticated endpoints, and did not involve bypassing authentication, modifying data, or invoking any billable ArcGIS or Google operations.” However, the company did not reply to his message, and it took him two more attempts before a representative responded. Flock said in its response, “Thank you for the findings. We are internally triaging them and will reach back out with next steps soon,” but the researcher said that the company still hasn’t replied to this day.

Flock apparently fixed the vulnerability in January of this year after Michael published his findings, but the researcher was able to exfiltrate a Flock device location database before that. This information has allowed him to build the Flock Surveillance Map website, which lists 335,701 cameras, presumably updated in December 2025.

The surveillance company said that it has never been hacked, that Flock information has never been leaked, and that the Flock Safety cloud platform “has never experienced a data breach,” but Michael says that this does not reflect reality. He told The Intercept that it made this announcement “after I pulled their database of devices.” “That leaves two possibilities,” said the researcher. “Either they knew and chose not to disclose it for fear of bad press, or they didn’t know I exfiltrated the data at all. The first is a transparency failure. The second is a detection failure with national security implications.”

This issue once again raises questions about the company’s cybersecurity and privacy measures. Hackers have recently discovered that the Flock cameras stored encryption keys directly on the device, which allowed them to extract more than 27,000 clips stored and find that it has taken more than 1.6 million images in a span of 21 days. There were also multiple instances of misuse, in which police officers used the system to stalk romantic partners, while a car reviewer was “ambushed” in a store parking lot and detained for an hour for a mistyped police report.

What’s more alarming was that Michael pointed out that the ubiquity of the system and the vulnerabilities he uncovered so far show that it could be used to track personnel. Soldiers and civilians working in the defense industry could potentially be observed going to and from 22 sensitive sites, including Eglin AFB, CIA Headquarters, FBI Headquarters, Joint Base Andrews, and even the Pentagon, with people living within a 20-mile radius of these sites having a 57.22% to 93.94% chance of passing a Flock camera and getting recorded in the system.

While Flock did not comment on The Intercept’s reporting before publication, Michael noted that he received a trademark infringement complaint on his site. Doppel, a cybersecurity company focusing on social engineering defense, reached out on behalf of the surveillance company and said that he’s using the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization and that it may confuse its customers. Because of this, the firm requested that the Flock Surveillance Map website be taken down, despite a pop-up that appears on the website when accessed for the first time saying otherwise.

TypeSafe AI's Jev "beat the Elite Four and the Champion and entered the Hall of Fame on September 23, 2026" in Pokémon Red, according to the developer's project page. Unlike the chatbots that have taken weeks to months to beat the Blue version of the game, Jev can only pick from a list of choices. It didn't achieve this without help, though. Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 monitored the game log and adjusted options and their wording as Jev played, effectively acting like a coach.

The developer, Andrew Boyd, is the founder of Standard Agents Inc., which sells a platform for building AI agents. Boyd initially announced the project on X with victory coming in a week. The gameplay was livestreamed, available in a browser or a terminal, with a chat that Jev moderated.

Jev is a recently released decision model that returns solutions with a confidence figure. It is not a chatbot, and it is not an LLM. For the game, Jev refers to a list of options with facts, and it selects the best option based on probability. It doesn't read the screen and does not produce text or images. A traditional LLM, Claude Opus 5, monitored the game log to help Jev when it got stuck. This happened indirectly by modifying the options and data available to Jev.

The page's harness changelog had 474 entries, most of them a failure from the game log paired with the change made in response. Examples of mistakes include walking "into Lorelei's shut entrance 53 times," crossing one Rock Tunnel ladder "124 times in ten minutes," and losing to the Champion's Alakazam after beating all four Elite Four trainers, which forced Jev to beat all four again before it took down the Champion later that day.

Opus made adjustments for both accuracy and cost. Using notes on the model from TypeSafe, it reduced the text sent to Jev by about two-thirds and used words instead of numbers. When Jev got stuck in a loop, the harness was changed to request a decision only every six seconds instead of about once a second. Human input also existed: viewers sent tips in chat, and the helpful ones were used to improve Jev's list of options. The reliance on Opus, the developer, and the audience shows the strengths and limitations of the decision model.

A second Jev-based run, made by Christian Mathiesen at Frigade, detailed a separate approach. The harness in that case, according to its README, "reads the game's memory, lists the legal options ... and Jev picks one," but it never writes to game memory. Mathiesen said that his first version, where Jev could choose the buttons directly, "never left Pallet Town." The cost, by his own estimate, is "about $1–1.70 per 24 hours."

A separate Pokémon Red experiment took a different route. A developer who goes by stmonty trained a small world model on an RTX 3080 Ti with more than 42,000 frames of gameplay. Starting from a save in Professor Oak's lab, it picked a starter in 52 of 100 tries, according to stmonty's blog post. Both the goal and assistance were far smaller than Jev's: stmonty's model had to learn what each input does from screenshots alone.

The viral nature of Jev, with LangChain describing it as having "had a pretty outsized response" since its launch on Sept. 15, had multiple developers playing the game within 10 days. The success of the run demonstrates that collaboration with specialized models can improve problem-solving in a meaningful way. TypeSafe itself says open-ended tasks are better suited to an LLM, as we reported when Jev launched. For comparison, Anthropic's Claude Plays Pokémon stream, running Opus 4.5 at the time, still hadn't finished Red as of January. This time, with Jev doing the playing and Claude writing the rules, the developer achieved victory.

The U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy have jointly launched an exercise U.S. Mk 48 heavyweight torpedo from the Royal Navy’s uncrewed drone submarine, XV Excalibur, marking a historic milestone in autonomous warfare. According to an official press release, the proof-of-concept launch took place on September 13 at the British Underwater Test & Evaluation Center (BUTEC) in Scotland.

“This successful test marks a historic first for allied undersea warfare,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle. “Proving that we can seamlessly launch a U.S. heavyweight torpedo from a Royal Navy autonomous underwater vehicle validates our shared vision for true interchangeability. By integrating weapons, payloads, and mission architectures across allied platforms, we are increasing the flexibility, scale, and combat power of our combined forces and ensuring they are ready to meet the strategic demands of tomorrow.”

The launch was conducted under AUKUS Pillar 2, a military partnership between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia aimed at developing and accelerating the deployment of cutting-edge, advanced defense technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and autonomous underwater systems, to maintain a strategic technological edge in the Indo-Pacific region. According to the U.S. Navy, the trial validated the mechanical, electrical, and software integration of an American kinetic payload onto a British autonomous platform, proving weapon interchangeability between allied forces.

The project — designated Project Broadsword — received approval in February 2026 from the Department of the Navy Rapid Capabilities Office (DONRCO) and was executed in collaboration with OPNAV N97, the Royal Navy, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Keyport, and several industry partners. From approval to trials took just seven months. In a similar project, the U.S. Navy launched missiles from its first drone sailboat in August.

The Mk 48 is a heavyweight anti-submarine and anti-surface torpedo used by the U.S. Navy and several allied submarine forces. Typically launched from fully manned submarines with crews of 100 to 140 actively involved sailors, the 3,700-pound (1,680 kg) weapon is designed to sink deep-diving submarines and high-performance surface ships. Project Broadsword marks the first time the torpedo has been successfully launched from an uncrewed, autonomous robotic submarine.

The launch machine, XV Excalibur, is the British Royal Navy’s Extra-Large Uncrewed Underwater Vessel (XLUUV), designed to operate autonomously or via remote control without any crew on board. The Royal Navy successfully demonstrated the drone's capability in 2025 by controlling Excalibur in UK waters from a command center 10,000 miles away in Australia. Before the torpedo test, the vessel served as a mobile underwater laboratory for testing cutting-edge technology and future payloads. Because Excalibur lacks traditional internal torpedo tubes, engineers attached the 2-ton torpedo externally using a specialized cradle beneath its hull.

The U.S. Navy confirmed that following the success of Project Broadsword, it will “continue aggressive follow-on acceleration with Project CUTLASS,” in collaboration with its partners. “Utilizing the Anduril Dive-XL platform, the next phase will tackle advanced payload integration data, command and control architectures, and tactical employment scenarios to further mature uncrewed undersea capabilities,” the press release read.

The launch is the latest development in fast-rising autonomous warfare, where militaries deploy systems that can capture and process data and execute tasks — including the use of lethal force — with little to no human intervention. These systems include unmanned aerial, ground, and sea vehicles; weapons; robots; and AI-driven command-and-control systems. Earlier this month, an autonomous NATO strike drone used Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano to independently pick and bomb targets.

With physical media making a comeback, a man in the UK has been sentenced to three years and six months in prison for manufacturing and selling counterfeit vinyl records. Rehan Ahmed, from Southall in west London, was reportedly running a “highly organised, unlicensed operation” since 2017 that produced thousands of fake records featuring music from popular artists including The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, and Kendrick Lamar. The operation is estimated to have generated nearly £2.7 million ($3.5 million) in revenue.

Ahmed’s counterfeit business, ‘Phoenix of Vinyl ’, came on the radar in 2024 after a representative from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) made a test purchase and found evidence of counterfeiting. The City of London Police raided the premises soon after and uncovered the largest stock of fake vinyl ever found in the UK, with 2,791 records by 108 different artists. In addition to the records, police officers also found four vinyl presses roughly 70 years old, along with 3,000 metal stampers, and thousands of sleeves and center labels.

A separate report by The Guardian suggests that the BPI has been involved in 43 search warrants over the past two years targeting counterfeit vinyl and CDs. They have seized around 600,000 items with an estimated value of up to £8 million ($10.7 million).

"With music on physical formats enjoying a resurgence, the market in counterfeit records has unfortunately also been growing as criminals cash in at the expense of creators and fans. This doesn't just impact the legal music economy and everyone that works and invests in it - it also affects every one of us as citizens who fall victim to other forms of criminality that it funds," said Peter Ratcliffe, director of content protection at BPI.

According to a report published by the BPI, vinyl sales in the UK have grown substantially, with 7.6 million records sold in 2025. That’s a 13.3% year-over-year increase, marking the format’s 18th consecutive year of growth. Vinyl revenue also rose 19.9% year-over-year to £174.7 million ($234 million), with the BPI reporting in March that it was the format’s highest annual revenue in more than three decades.

Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is driven by the ruthless application of science, economics, and the dedication of its employees. But superstitious engineers think there’s another key ingredient – strategically placed bags of creamy coconut flavored Guai Guai snacks in their traditional green livery. These bags of snacks are found with surprising regularity around Taiwan, placed on machinery used to make semiconductors and other computing products, as the prevailing superstition is that the snacks bring good luck. Alarmingly, the Taipei Times recently reported that production of these tech talisman snacks could be halted, as the company that makes Guai Guai is facing a severe threat of strike action.

The Guai Guai Company factory in Zhongli, Taiwan, has operated since 1968, and more than a third of its workforce have been with the company for 30 years or more. On September 1 this year, the company revealed that it would relocate to Hsinchu, about 45 minutes south by car. Kind of ironically, Guai Guai is relocating to Taiwan's Silicon Valley, yet this action could grind production to a halt.

Workers can retain their positions if they relocate or commute to the new factory. Also they have been offered a 5% increase in pay. It is noted by the worker’s union that 5% is merely in line with the newly announced changes to Taiwan’s minimum wage.

Another grievance felt by the workers concerns the massive windfall that the company is getting for the sale of its Zhongli site. Taiwan’s Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) has bought it for redevelopment. This has netted the company NT$5.6 billion (US$176.1 million). No bonus, dividend, or any other kind of benefit will be shared with the workers.

Thus the union is looking for the company to make written guarantees on severance packages and pay raises, writes the Taipei Times. Specifically, the disgruntled factory workers are looking for a share of the ‘AI windfall’ with weight given to longer-serving staff. Moreover it is seeking severance packages for those who don’t want to work so far away, and asking that workers who stay on get a NT$10,000 (US$315) monthly salary increase.

A massive 94% of the Guai Guai workers voted in favor of strike action. They are now just waiting for the company response, the results of the negotiations between the snack-making company and the union.

Negotiations between management and the union are expected to continue this week, but we haven’t seen any further news from Taiwan on this matter yet. Taiwan’s government doesn’t take an entirely neutral stance, according to the source. The company’s offer should respect the years of service of the workers and secure the livelihoods their labor had earned, reckons the local Taoyuan Department of Labor, which is monitoring the situation and could decide to step in.