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Tee Lopes has turned Silksong’s Sherma and Shakra into vocalists for unbearably cute club bangers

by admin September 9, 2025

In Hollow Knight Silksong you’ll eventually meet Sherma, a whimsical pilgrim who loves to belt out a good earworm. While Sherma doesn’t seem very good at the instrument he wields—he basically whacks two nails together towards a discordant “melody”—he’s got a lovely voice on him, especially with an excess of cavernous reverb applied.

Tee Lopes, a videogame composer who’s worked on Sonic Mania and Shredder’s Revenge, to name a few, has released a remix of Sherma’s lil’ jingle. It sounds a lot like that style of saccharine European dance pop that was big in the ’90s and early 2000s: music that resembles Saturday morning cartoons, but which is actually precision-geared for dancing to while high. Very high.

Here it is. I like how Hornet nods out of rhythm in the accompanying video. Bugs will be bugs.

Hollow Knight Silksong Sherma Remix – YouTube

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Lopes has also done one for Shakra, whose banger sounds like something the Vengaboys might have released at the height of their inexplicable popularity. In the words of YouTube commenter @Akif-Faisal: “This is what entertainment looks like”.

(It may also look, depending on your temperament, like something akin to torture. Oh, the Mandelbrot complexity of human subjectivity!)

Hollow Knight Silksong Shakra’s Theme Remix – YouTube

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For my money, if Pharloom had a kind of “Top 40” for insects and parasites, I think Shakra’s jam would win out over Sherma’s. Sherma’s, while cute, has a low key darkness to it. It feels like something that could be used towards evil ends.

I spent all weekend playing Hollow Knight Silksong, and here are my impressions.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

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‘Terrifier’ Makes an Undeniable Mark on Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood

by admin September 9, 2025

The gates of Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood have opened, and this year’s event has some of the theme park’s biggest debuts. Between Terrifier and Five Nights at Freddy’s, the headliner haunted houses really pack a punch, with the terror titan-led Jason Universe house, based on the Friday the 13th franchise, also helping to power a killer season start.

But that’s not to say there were some lows; surprisingly, HHN’s anticipated Fallout offering fell short of expectations. Some repeat houses managed to hold enough excitement, but the West Coast event—which is smaller than the version mounted by Halloween Horror Nights Orlando—might prove to create uneven experiences for park guests who can’t shell out the extra dough for express passes.

Express tickets were provided by Universal for media to be able to review all the houses, and that’s a key takeaway from the start: as theme park insiders, it was clear to us that it might be near impossible to visit all the houses if you do general event admission. If you’re locked in to that price point, always be sure to prioritize 3-4 houses and one entertainment offering—between the Blumhouse-themed Terror Tram, the stunt show The Purge: Dangerous Waters, or the Chainsaw Man short film screening. If you really want to do everything in one night, upgrading to express may be your best bet.

I do have one pro tip from attending in past years: the express pass will sometimes be offered at 50% off near the end of the night and you can buy in to race through all the houses in the last few hours of the event. I’ve done it myself. You can only take advantage if you’re already in the park when the signs go up at the ticket upgrade stations, so keep an eye out for that.

As an LA local, I’ve also simply spread it out by buying a multi-night ticket (such as the “Frequent Fear” pass) and going once a week to hang out for vibes and scope out shorter lines for houses I’ve missed or want to do again.

Here’s what we thought of Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood for 2025:

The Good

Terrifier: Art the Clown has unofficially solidified his place as a Horror Nights icon. From the moment you arrive at the event, the roaming silent clown killer chillingly charms with his bag of demented tricks. Personally, and like most going to the event, this was my first exposure to the character and the world of Terrifier, having been deterred by some of the divisive discourse surrounding the gratuitous violence of the franchise. However, the Terrifier house cleared up some of my concerns and I think the films fall more into an absurdist gore vibe versus the gritty gore genre (think more Raimi than Roth).

There are more horrific things, I think, in the Monstruos house with a child being eaten by La Llorona than anything in the Terrifier house. Don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Art is still very hardcore but in a hilarious way. We very much enjoyed the Looney Tunes or rather Itchy & Scratchy aura on a very sick cartoony clown’s mission of demonic mayhem. The full display of depravity was such a rollicking good time I went home and watched Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2 immediately. Art the Clown will get new fans (myself included) and this house will please longtime fanatics. Get down to the Clown Cafe as soon as you can because this one will have a long queue. And the water splash warnings? They’re for real; bring a poncho.

Jason Universe: This is hands down the scariest house in a traditional sense. Jason stalks you alongside memorable Camp Crystal Lake deaths and with the iconic soundtrack, there are jump scares aplenty. If you’re hard to “get,” you’ll appreciate the attention to detail in making a house that encompasses the Friday the 13th legacy. Even with an express pass, this line was long.

Pro tip: The Jason Universe-themed foods are low-key the HHN snack war winners. We recommend the gouda fondue bread bowl (we paid out of pocket for it); it’s steeped in Angry Orchard cider and comes with green apple slices. It’s available at the same booth as the Jason mask-shaped s’mores. It might be the best food of the horror fest.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: The sheer artistry of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop’s puppetry and HHN performer work makes this one an all-ages all-timer with aplomb. The haunted “animatronics” charging at you or springing to life really works and there are even unexpected jump scares with dead kids creeping up on you as you hover awestruck around Chica or Foxy. Our only complaint is that the stage show centerpiece at the start only featured Freddy; Orlando’s HHN got the whole ensemble.

Chainsaw Man: This import from Universal Studios Japan was an unexpected surprise. Anime fans will delight in a special HHN Japan theater short, which brings the beloved characters (minus Pochita, sadly) into a meta immersive experience where they have to fight demons while attending HHN themselves. The mix of cute, spooky 2D animation and fourth-wall-breaking CG action with a brief adventure featuring the Chainsaw Man gang impresses and I hope we get more overseas fun making its way stateside.

The So-So

Scarecrow featuring Slash: The HHN Hollywood Scarecrow lore grows with Slash providing a new score. The scares and creature work always make this a standout. However, we were a little underwhelmed by the music; we loved the riff composed by the rock legend but the boom-clap beat made us feel like we were comically in a corn whiskey commercial. It threw the spooky energy off. Hit the bar after.

Monstruos 3: Celebrating the horrors of Latin American folklore has been a fantastic staple of HHN and really there’s no one scarier than La Llorona (IYKYK) and her penchant for kidnapping children and feasting on their souls. Alongside another killer vengeful cryptid, La Siguanaba, this house makes for a solid scare-filled experience; it just felt a little on the shorter side or perhaps we caught it while there was a cast change, which happens sometimes.

WWE Presents: The Horrors of The Wyatt Sicks: As an homage to the late wrestler who came up with the entertainment wrestling’s campy horror lore, this house is a sentimental and solid send-off. However, as someone whose horror WWE storylines were Undertaker and Kane, I felt so lost and wasn’t sure how to connect the storyline in the house to the personas in the ring. Could have had a bit more cohesion but the set and costuming were on point; we’ll give it that. Pro-tip: This one has a series of gross-smelling rooms, and you’ll also get sprayed.

Terror Tram: Blumhouse taking over the backlot could have been great but it ends up being more like an elaborate meet-and-greet area than a haunt. Unless you particularly want to meet Blumhouse figures of fright and get more steps in, it’s probably best to skip. But if you’re a horror movie fan and want to explore where the movies are made, this is a good spot. The photos are always great so that’s an upside. Be warned: this experience takes up nearly an hour of your time so plan accordingly.

The Bad

The Purge: Dangerous Waters: This is tired and while we appreciate the effort in the stunts, there hasn’t been a new Purge movie in ages. This space could have been better utilized, perhaps by Fallout, and we’ll explain why in a bit.

Poltergeist: Retire this one.

Fallout: As a fan of Walton Goggins’ Ghoul, there was not enough sassy and scary outlaw Ghoulussy put into this. The Vault scenes were short and focused too much on Lucy’s linear journey rather than giving us a greatest hits of the horrific moments from the Prime Video show. It also wasn’t scary at all and used up so much space in the former Walking Dead year-long house attraction area with few set pieces that it felt over sooner than we would have liked. For a property that’s going to invite long queues, it’s not worth it. A show on the Waterworld stage starring the Ghoul and Lucy squaring off against figures in the wasteland and the Gulper might have been better.

Pro-tip: The Fallout food is a more fun experience; we recommend the Roasted Radroach Legs but also had a particular affinity for the Roasted Stingwing. There’s also RadAway in pouches for you, in-universe-specific item fans.

Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood is open now through November 2. Get tickets here.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

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The 2025 Apple Event Is Tomorrow: What To Expect From iPhone 17

by admin September 9, 2025

Nothing in this world is certain, except for death, taxes and the reveal of a new iPhone every year. Since receiving our invites to attend Apple’s “awe dropping” iPhone 17 event, we’ve been hard at work deciphering what the enigmatic Apple logo heatmap could mean. While that’ll remain a mystery until Tuesday, we have seen a lot of the expected product lineup through leaked photos and rumors from industry analysts.

In addition to the base model, you can expect an iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max and a slim version, nicknamed the iPhone 17 Air, to be revealed during the event. We’re also likely to see an Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3 and maybe an Apple Watch SE, which was last updated in 2022. The AirPods Pro 3 might also make their debut.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source on Chrome.

iOS 26 and its minimalistic Liquid Glass feature tie the whole lineup together. The latter was showcased at WWDC 2025 and should be released shortly after the event.

Here are the biggest rumors and leaks about Apple’s new hardware. We’ll continue updating this piece ahead of the iPhone 17 event tomorrow. Whether you plan to watch the stream or just check in with the big announcements, CNET experts are bringing the latest live Apple event coverage to you before the keynote begins.

Watch this: iPhone Air Is a Wild Card – and Starts a Big Change for Apple

06:39

Here’s what the iPhone 17 could look like, in an array of different colors.

Zain bin Awais/CNET

What is the ‘awe dropping’ Apple event on Sept. 9?

If you’re excited about the new iPhone’s debut, you won’t have to wait long. Now that invites have gone out, we can officially confirm that Apple is planning its event for Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.

It turns out the leaks and rumors surrounding the event date were accurate. We can expect to see a full slate of product launches at the “awe dropping” Apple event, starting with the iPhone 17. The heatmap Apple logo included in the event invites hints at a new feature, but we don’t know what that could be.

iPhone 17

The standard iPhone is the cornerstone of Apple’s September presentation, and the iPhone 17 should be no different. All in all, this year won’t mark a groundbreaking shakeup for the iPhone. That’s supposedly coming next year, for the iPhone’s 20th anniversary. But there are still new features to get excited over in the meantime.

The largest alteration to the design is rumored to be the phone’s camera bump, which will more closely resemble the pill-shaped design of Google’s Pixel. Analyst Jeff Pu also believes that the selfie camera will be 24 megapixels — a solid upgrade from the 12-megapixel front-facing camera present in the iPhone 16 lineup.

There are conflicting rumors about the iPhone 17’s internal specs. Pu said that the new phone will have the same A18 chipset used in the iPhone 16, while leaker Fixed Focus Digital suggested that the phone will be upgraded to the A19 chip. It’s unknown whether the iPhone 17 will get a physical battery upgrade, but the Adaptive Power feature included within iOS 26 should help extend the phone’s battery life nonetheless.

Prominent leaker Majin Bu posted photos of the purported iPhone 17 lineup on X, and if they’re accurate, the device will come in black, blue, silver, purple and green.

Based on the Sept. 9 event date, we can expect preorders for the new Apple hardware to begin on Sept. 12, with a release date of Sept. 19.

The iPhone Plus might be replaced with a sleeker iPhone 17 Air in this year’s product lineup. Here’s a rendering of what that might look like.

Zain bin Awais/CNET

iPhone 17 Air

The iPhone 17 Air could replace the Plus model in the lineup. Its key feature could be an ultra-thin design, like Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge. It will be interesting to see if the slim design comes with a sacrifice to battery life, like with the S25 Edge. A Bloomberg report states that the Air could be as thin as 5.5mm. Pu notes that the Air will likely have a 6.6-inch display, with a resolution of 1,260×2,740 pixels.

There is a mix of rumors about the Air’s chip, with trusted sources such as Bloomberg reporting that it will have the standard A19 chip. More recently, MacRumors reported on a leaker’s assertion that the phone will contain the A19 Pro chip, but there’s no substantial evidence pointing toward either claim.

According to MacRumors, the Air has a 2,800-mAh battery — though it might be the first Apple phone to use a high-density silicon battery, which could increase actual battery capacity by between 15% to 20%. Note that the Adaptive Power feature shipping with iOS 26 might help with the battery life.

Judging by the numerous leaked photos and renders, it’s also extremely likely that the Air will have only one wide-angle rear camera, like the iPhone 16E. The front camera may also be moved to the left of the Dynamic Island cutout (that camera sensor bar at the top of the phone’s display) to maintain its form.

While the iPhone 17 is expected to stay at the baseline 8GB of memory, the Air could have 12GB of RAM, which is the same memory that the Pro and Pro Max phones are rumored to include.

A CNET mock up of the iPhone 17 Pro.

Viva Tung/CNET

iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max

Whereas the Air is expected to make sacrifices to achieve its design, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are the most premium models in the lineup. Recent photos substantiate rumors that the Pro’s chassis will change from titanium to aluminum, making it lighter than previous models.

The biggest rumored upgrades coming are the cameras. MacRumors reported that the iPhone 17 Pro models will have an 8x optical zoom telephoto lens, up from the 5x one on the 16 Pro. Pu wrote that the Pro phones will feature a 48-megapixel telephoto camera, which is a substantial improvement over the 16 Pro’s 12-megapixel sensor. He similarly reports that the selfie camera will be upgraded to 24 megapixels, up from the 12-megapixel front-facing camera on the 16 Pro.

As reported on by MacRumors, one leaker claimed the iPhone 17 Pro Max will have the biggest battery in any iPhone to date — and the Pro will likely have a similarly sized battery. Bu claimed that both phones will have a vapor chamber cooling system, which could help keep these batteries from overheating on the sunniest summer days.

The Pro phones will come with the A19 Pro chip, but while the iPhone 17 Air could likely have a five-core GPU, the Pro and Pro Max will have a six-core GPU, ensuring better performance across the board.

For folks who care about showing off their new phone, you’ll be happy to know that one supposed leaker on Weibo claimed that one of the color choices for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max is related to the slick iOS 26 Liquid Glass design, while we’ve seen leaked mockups of the Pro in black, silver, dark blue and orange.

It’s time for an upgrade to the Apple Watch and its premium edition. The budget smart watch might also get a new iteration this year.

Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET

Apple Watch Series 11, Ultra 3 and SE

The Apple Watch Series 11 could get key improvements to its core features, battery life and performance.

We might not see a drastic change in design from the Apple Watch Series 10, but MacRumors reports that the Series 11 could get a more energy-efficient screen with higher resolution and better brightness settings (which could improve battery life). Keeping with the trend of upgrading the processor in each new Apple Watch, we should see an S11 chip present in the Series 11.

Gurman reported in March that Apple has been testing blood pressure tracking for future Apple Watch models, but it’s unclear how far along in development that feature is and whether it’s ready for release with the Series 11.

What is extremely likely to debut at this event, on the other hand, is the Apple Watch Ultra 3, since MacRumors found imagery for the smartwatch buried within the iOS 26 beta. The photos show an Ultra watch with a slightly larger display, clocking in at a 422×514-pixel resolution. The Ultra 3 would likely share an S11 chip with the Series 11. While the Ultra 2 already boasts the longest battery life of any Apple Watch, an S11 chip could see even greater returns on a single charge for the Ultra 3 — it could last three or four days in low-power mode.

The most unique feature that could come to the premium new Apple Watch is satellite connectivity. According to Gurman, Apple has been exploring adding this feature to the next Ultra model — if implemented, it would enable emergency messaging and location sharing in areas without cell service. Google’s new Pixel Watch 4 is the first smartwatch to support satellite connectivity.

There are some hints that we might see a new SE model. For starters, there hasn’t been an SE since 2022, which means Apple could be primed for a release this year. A report from Gurman also stated that a next-gen SE could be in the works. According to Gurman, the next SE design could largely focus on an improved exterior, but it’s also likely that the budget watch could get an upgrade to Apple’s S9 chip.

The WatchOS 26 AI-powered Workout Buddy feature will also be standard for any new Apple Watch introduced at this event, though it will need to be paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone.

It’s been a couple of years since a new AirPods Pro model has been released — but we might just see a new iteration come September.

John Kim/CNET

AirPods Pro 3

It’s been a hot minute since Apple updated the AirPods Pro, according to CNET’s resident headphone reviewer David Carnoy. The second iteration of the premium wireless earbuds was released in 2022, and the company has been radio silent about the AirPods Pro 3 despite releasing new AirPods models every year since 2019.

That’s likely to change very soon, as MacRumors contributor Steve Moser found references to the AirPods Pro 3 in the underlying code for iOS 26’s first beta.

Bloomberg’s Gurman predicts that the product announcement will happen during the iPhone 17 event. He also reported that the new design will likely feature heart-rate monitoring as a key feature, similarly to the Powerbeats Pro 2. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo further reported that the company is looking to add infrared cameras to future AirPods, but this hardware might not be ready until the AirPods Pro 4.

It’s also rumored that the AirPods Pro 3 could have an interactive touchscreen display in the charging case, doubling as a remote control. It’s also possible that the new wireless earbuds will have an H3 chip, an improvement over the AirPods Pro 2’s H2 chip that could improve battery life, enhance sound quality, provide better active noise cancellation and perform better during voice calls.

If you’re tired of light and dark mode, the new “all clear” Liquid Glass mode in iOS 26 might be just what you’re looking for.

Apple/Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET

Announcement, beta and iOS 26 launch

A new generation of Apple hardware calls for new software as well, and iOS 26 is changing far more than the operating system’s naming convention. The iOS 18 successor — which was announced at WWDC — is on its fifth public beta, which fixes a number of bugs from the previous update and brings the software more in line with the most recent developer beta version.

We know what many of the main features of iOS 26 will look like before its full release. The design is largely minimalist, with a heavy emphasis on Liquid Glass, which presents a colorless “all clear” alternative to the light and dark mode interfaces. This unobtrusive design will make dynamic changes to the lock screen, where the time and date will change to fit your photo, and Safari, where unused tabs will gravitate toward the top of the screen.

The Camera, Photos and FaceTime apps are also going back to basics with simplified designs, while the Messages app is getting more colorful. The biggest features for iOS 26 are call screening for unknown numbers, live translation for calls and texts, a dedicated Games app and lyrics translations on the Music app.

For an in-depth breakdown of all of the iOS upgrades Apple has revealed (as well as the updates the company didn’t mention), check out the roundup from CNET’s Jeff Carlson here.

We’ll continue to update this piece as more details for the Sept. 9 “awe dropping” iPhone 17 event are confirmed. Check back for more information about release dates and upcoming Apple hardware as it becomes available.

Watch this: Apple Will Reveal the iPhone 17 Soon. Here’s What We Want

05:23

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

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Massive Leak Shows How a Chinese Company Is Exporting the Great Firewall to the World

by admin September 9, 2025

A leak of more than 100,000 documents shows that a little-known Chinese company has been quietly selling censorship systems seemingly modeled on the Great Firewall to governments around the world.

Geedge Networks, a company founded in 2018 that counts the “father” of China’s massive censorship infrastructure as one of its investors, styles itself as a network-monitoring provider, offering business-grade cybersecurity tools to “gain comprehensive visibility and minimize security risks” for its customers, the documents show. In fact, researchers found that it has been operating a sophisticated system that allows users to monitor online information, block certain websites and VPN tools, and spy on specific individuals.

Researchers who reviewed the leaked material found that the company is able to package advanced surveillance capabilities into what amounts to a commercialized version of the Great Firewall—a wholesale solution with both hardware that can be installed in any telecom data center and software operated by local government officers. The documents also discuss desired functions that the company is working on, such as cyberattack-for-hire and geofencing certain users.

According to the leaked documents, Geedge has already entered operation in Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Myanmar, as well as another unidentified country. A public job posting shows that Geedge is also looking for engineers who can travel to other countries for engineering work, including to several countries not named in the leaked documents, WIRED has found.

The files, including Jira and Confluence entries, source code, and correspondence with a Chinese academic institution, mostly involve internal technical documentation, operation logs, and communications to solve issues and add functionalities. Provided through an anonymous leak, the files were studied by a consortium of human rights and media organizations including Amnesty International, InterSecLab, Justice For Myanmar, Paper Trail Media, The Globe and Mail, the Tor Project, the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, and Follow The Money.

“This is not like lawful interception that every country does, including Western democracies,” says Marla Rivera, a technical researcher at InterSecLab, a global digital forensics research institution. In addition to mass censorship, the system allows governments to target specific individuals based on their website activities, like having visited a certain domain.

The surveillance system that Geedge is selling “gives so much power to the government that really nobody should have,” Rivera says. “This is very frightening.”

Digital Authoritarianism as a Service

At the core of Geedge’s offering is a gateway tool called Tiangou Secure Gateway (TSG), designed to sit inside data centers and could be scaled to process the internet traffic of an entire country, documents reveal. According to researchers, every packet of internet traffic runs through it, where it can be scanned, filtered, or stopped outright. Besides monitoring the entire traffic, documents show that the system also allows setting up additional rules for specific users that it deems suspicious and collecting their network activities.

For unencrypted internet traffic, the system is able to intercept sensitive information such as website content, passwords, and email attachments, according to the leaked documents. If the content is properly encrypted through the Transport Layer Security protocol, the system uses deep packet inspection and machine learning techniques to extract metadata from the encrypted traffic and predict whether it’s going through a censorship circumvention tool like a VPN. If it can’t distinguish the content of the encrypted traffic, the system can also opt to flag it as suspicious and block it for a period of time.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

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Rimac introduces its take on solid-state batteries for electric vehicles

by admin September 9, 2025

Rimac Technology has unveiled a new battery pack platform for electric vehicles that uses only solid-state batteries. The company has been an EV supplier for notable car brands including Aston Martin and Koenigsegg, as well as making electric supercar Nevara. Rimac collaborated with ProLogium and Mitsubishi Chemical Group on the product, which it claims will offer a lighter, safer and more energy-dense EV battery. It introduced this tech, alongside new composite and hybrid battery EV developments, at the IAA Mobility 2025 event.

Solid-state batteries are being touted as an important new development for EVs. European R&D operation Imec released a study into this tech last year that backed claims that these batteries did indeed have the potential to improve efficiency while bringing down costs.

However, the commercial development of solid-state batteries has been slow going. Despite a flurry of partnerships several years ago, the targets for getting EVs fully powered by the tech onto the road may still be some time away. For instance, Nissan said it aims to have its first EV solely using solid-state batteries released by its 2028 fiscal year. Rimac didn’t offer even a rough timeline for when it might have its new battery tech available for customers.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

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AMD’s AI-powered FSR 4 upscaling is now available in most FSR 3.1 games

by admin September 9, 2025

AMD’s FSR 4 AI upscaling and frame-generation technology can now be enabled for “most games that support FSR 3.1 with DirectX 12,” the company says in the patch notes for its newest 25.9.1 driver. This support has been a big promise from AMD, but it’s taken awhile to come to fruition; FSR 4 first launched alongside the company’s RX 9000-series graphics cards back in March.

AMD touts FSR 4, its competitor to Nvidia’s DLSS 4, as a “significant leap forward” over FSR 3. “By utilizing ML algorithms, FSR 4 can intelligently predict and compensate for lost pixels during low-resolution rendering, thereby providing gamers with high performance and crisp, high-definition visuals that are just as good as native,” AMD says.

The new driver brings official FSR 4 support to cover more than 85 titles. But for FSR 3.1 games, you can force FSR 4 by flipping a toggle in the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition app. “This last step allows the driver to override the FSR 3.1 game implementation with the latest version of FSR 4,” according to AMD.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

A gloved hand reaches towards a pile of diamonds

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Netflix has just dropped a shocking new movie you need to stream after Unknown Number for one simple reason

by admin September 9, 2025

Let’s face it: Unknown Number might just be one of the most memorable Netflix documentaries of all time. When Lauryn and her boyfriend Oliver started getting texts from anonymous numbers that quickly became explicitly threatening, they’d never expected the culprit to be Lauryn’s mom, Kendra. My jaw is still on the floor after the perfectly executed twist two-thirds of the way through the new movie.

Frankly, I’ve been looking for the same documentary-binging high ever since. I didn’t expect to get it so soon, but out of everything new on Netflix in September 2025, another new movie released today (September 8) just might do the trick. In fact, I was already seated purely after reading the synopsis.

Behold: Stolen: Heist of the Century. If you think we’re getting the same whodunnit in the form of Unknown Number’s reveal, you’d be mistaken – if anything, Netflix is now subverting the surprise of its mystery by not only withholding who did it, but how the heist was even pulled off in the first place.

Stolen: Heist of the Century is our next big Netflix documentary movie after Unknown Number

Stolen: Heist of the Century | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube

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Let’s set the scene: it’s 2003 in Antwerp, Belgium. The target is the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, housing in the city’s so-called Diamond District with tons of well… you get the idea. Between February 15-16, 2003 a gang of thieves stole loose diamonds, gold, silver and other types of jewelry valued at more than $100 million, with the heist still considered one of “the greatest of the century” to this day.

In true Mission: Impossible style, here’s what our robbers had to get through. The vault that stored the precious gemstones and metals was located two floors below the main floor of the building, protected by multiple security mechanisms. These included a lock with 100 million possible combinations, infrared heat detectors, a seismic sensor, Doppler radar, and a magnetic field. The building itself had a private security force, with the district already heavily guarded and monitored.

I spent all weekend playing Hollow Knight Silksong and I’m totally enthralled, but nothing could completely live up to the hype after so many years

by admin September 8, 2025

Up front: Silksong is obviously a good videogame.

I’ve played it for around 15 hours in the last four days, and all the while I’ve watched online communities grapple with it, most of whom seem to have progressed further than me. I’ve spent at least half as many hours reading about Silksong these past few days as I have playing it. And honestly, under the circumstances—the media didn’t get a head start here—that feels like the best way to go about playing and thinking about this curious game, which will likely delight or disappoint depending on your attitude going in.

I really like it so far, but there are some things that annoy me about it, and I don’t think it lives up to the hype through no fault of its own.

I’m still not completely sure why Hollow Knight got as big as it did. I totally agree that it’s a great videogame and an outstanding metroidvania. Few games in this genre trust and reward the curiosity of the player as much as Hollow Knight did, and Silksong is no different in this regard.

But this doesn’t sufficiently explain its popularity. Maybe it’s because Team Cherry’s melancholy and quietly eccentric world is, in subtle ways, pretty different to anything we’ve explored before in this genre. It’s simultaneously cosy and forbidding, nasty and cute. Neither Hollow Knight or Silksong are fantasy metroidvanias, nor gothic ones, nor sci-fi ones, and that’s unusual. Most games adhere to the dictates of popular genres so strictly that when something like Hollow Knight comes along—something that doesn’t so much invent a new orthodoxy as it does artfully blur the distinctions between well-trodden ones—it can feel like a revelation. More curiously, this world of strange bugs, upright vermin, proud parasites, doesn’t feel aligned with any industry zeitgeist at all. (But nor did other mega popular indies Peak, Phasmophobia, or Among Us. I’m detecting a pattern.)

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

Which might be why Hollow Knight got as big as it did, aside from the prosaic truth that it’s fun. It’s also part of the reason why I think Silksong will inevitably be embraced despite not reinventing or even meaningfully advancing the genre it inhabits. Unless something massive changes between now and when the credits roll, Silksong isn’t a project in exceeding and thus rendering quaint and redundant its predecessor: it’s very much a companion piece. Despite the insurmountable hype built over years of gestation, Silksong’s ambitions are humble.

Beast mode

While Hornet is a much faster, more adept, more balletic character than her predecessor, Silksong feels surprisingly similar to Hollow Knight. The platforming is reliably tight, and Hornet is not beholden to the rules of inertia. She stops on a dime, and can be controlled mid-air. She doesn’t slide around too much and there is no sense of ever losing control over her. In the early hours at least, her downward attacks can only be executed diagonally, which actually makes no bloody sense, but the snooker-like gradations of complexity it introduces to movement and combat is edifying.

Just as I’m coming to grips with Hornet’s movement, the usual onslaught of new abilities reinvent her. Aside from the major traversal upgrades I know to expect in games like this, Silksong has a take on Hollow Knight’s Charms that makes it feel more akin to an RPG. Hornet can equip different Crests once she’s found them, and all confer some minor but important tweaks to her combat moveset. On top of that, these Crests are what you slot Silksong’s equivalent to Charms into. It’s the kind of change that will please more experimental players, as well as those who spent a lot of time mixing and matching Charms in the original.

The bosses so far don’t really rock the boat in terms of design: it’s still a matter of watching, learning and then perfecting a series of attack phases.

Silksong feels good in the hand, but it’s not why I play it. While I don’t like the Ori games as much as I love Hollow Knight, I feel like the former has a better grasp on mellifluous and expressive character movement. Team Cherry’s approach to platforming can feel quite wooden, and it lacks the flair of something like Mario or even N++. Silksong is faster than its predecessor, and the combat is much more aggressive—there are a lot of potential abilities to chain together, and many early-to-mid game bosses demand it—but Silksong, like Hollow Knight, isn’t so much about flowstate as it is about observation, patience and well-timed, precise manoeuvres.

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

One thing I love about Silksong is that its world sprawls much more than its predecessor: at the time of writing I have three known directions I can explore, and probably more that I don’t know about. I love to feel overwhelmed with options in a metroidvania. I’ve read anecdotes from players online who managed to discover far-flung regions of the map in the early hours that I haven’t seen yet by mid-game, and as a general rule, areas feel much more varied, with distinct and often surprising themes (one of my criticisms of Hollow Knight is that it’s a very dark game; Silksong is less so).

And as usual, novel approaches to exploration are often rewarded. Once, to scale an insurmountable wall, I lured a bug from a far-flung area of the room to pogo-bounce off it and mantle onto the unreachable surface. It worked. I found an NPC up there, and I’m not sure who the heck they are or how they factor into my journey, but I was rewarded for doing something that would feel akin to a bug in most other games.

There are also a lot of surprising one-off encounters—many more than in Hollow Knight—which results in a delightful tension with every new room explored. Who am I going to find in here? And what will they want from me?

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

The bosses so far don’t really rock the boat in terms of design: it’s still a matter of watching, learning and then perfecting a series of attack phases. But all I’ve beaten so far, ranging from the widely loved ol’ chum Bell Beast through to the semi-puzzly Fourth Chorus, have been gripping spectacles, at least until the fifth-or-so attempt.

Silksong isn’t harder than Hollow Knight, until it suddenly is: a particular boss (I’m actually still trying to beat it) is mercilessly kicking my arse harder than any mandatory boss in Hollow Knight, and I’m definitely less than halfway through the game. This game makes no concessions for newcomers or the impatient, and some of its quirks, like taking damage when merely touching an enemy (even if they’re stunned!) can feel unfair, or dare I say, like poor game design.

Notice bored

This is a metroidvania alright. But to see why Silksong is special you have to be alert to the minor details. In one area, tiny brown bugs carry away the corpses of enemies you’ve slain, but you’ll only notice if you stand around for a while. When the Bell Beast leaps around in their unkempt den, tiny bells bounce and ricochet off all surfaces melodiously. And while the music is as grandiose or as plaintive as the situation warrants, Silksong really excels in the area of sound design: the clink of Hornet’s sword against an impenetrable metal wall, the distant foreboding rumblings in Hunter’s March that I’m sure will probably be explained at some point (but I’ll be happy if they aren’t), give the world a sense of life and tactility that very few other studios can manage on a 2D plane.

The combat is fine, but it needs the spectacle of a boss battle, or the momentum of exploration, to carry it through.

This is an unusually lavish game, and not just by the standards of sidescrolling platformers. Spend a moment in any given room, and take in the bespoke detail applied. And then, listen to the room. The map may be bigger and there may be more bugs, but the truly impressive thing about Silksong is its sensorial detail. Get it on the biggest screen you’ve got. Make sure you’ve got the sound charging through the best speakers you have. Don’t play it at barely audible volume on a handheld: it won’t do it justice. It makes Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown look like a Roblox experience.

There are a few things that annoy me. I don’t like the sidequests, or “wishes”, so far. They usually demand Hornet to collect so-and-so amount of things, and I’d happily ignore them were it not for the fact that completing some of them have far-ranging consequences. There’s even a sidequest notice board in the main township: I hate these things in games, and it feels weirder for Hornet to be rocking around doing MMO-like sidequests than it would have done for the Knight. If I wanted this nonsense I’d wait for Borderlands 4.

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

And I’m not super fond of being suddenly trapped in a room and having to fend off waves of enemies before I can proceed. Not because these sequences are arduous—though they’re sometimes really hard—but more because they’re boring, and they happen much more frequently in Silksong than they did in Hollow Knight. The combat is fine, but it needs the spectacle of a boss battle, or the momentum of exploration, to carry it through. I can’t help but groan every time two metal gates slam shut in a square room so I can fight more of the same enemies I was just fighting in the previous hallway.

I feel like those complaints are pretty minor considering how infatuated I am with Silksong, but I do get the sense that living up to the pre-release hype is basically impossible for this gorgeous but ultimately quite orthodox platforming adventure. And I don’t mean that as a criticism: it just seems basically true to me. It’s just the nature of hype.

Then again, maybe Silksong is different. This medium’s timeworn urge towards larger scale, new and innovative game systems, and envelope-pushing graphics technology—ie, the phenomena that is basically killing the blockbuster side of town right now, at least in the west—doesn’t seem to touch Team Cherry at all, whose fortune was made via Kickstarter, and whose core team is made up of three South Australians. The truth is that they’re just really good at making their weird arse bug games. And they’re really good at making me feel like a minor genius for being curious.

And, because of the huge success of their older game, they’ve been able to spend years filling this newer one with exquisite minor detail. Just don’t come here expecting a reinvention or even something dramatically different to Hollow Knight.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments

Photo: ANDER GILLENEA/AFP via Getty Images

Gaming Gear

Internet Access in the Middle East Disrupted After Undersea Cables Are Mysteriously Cut

by admin September 8, 2025

Over the weekend, crucial undersea cables providing internet access to parts of Asia were mysteriously cut, leading to internet outages in certain parts of the Middle East and Asia.

The initial news seems to have originated from a Microsoft announcement published on Sunday. The announcement reads, in part: “Starting at 05:45 UTC on 06 September 2025, network traffic traversing through the Middle East may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea.” Gizmodo reached out to the company for more information.

From the available reporting, much of which comes from the Associated Press, it’s still unclear who has actually been impacted. Netblocks, the internet monitoring service, claims that the cable cuts led to “degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries, including #Pakistan and #India; the incident is attributed to failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.”

The AP report notes that the Saudi government hasn’t acknowledged the outages, although Kuwait did announce damage to the FALCON GCX cable, which runs through the Red Sea. Internet access outside of that geographic region isn’t expected to be impacted, Microsoft said.

Some suspicion has apparently been thrown on Houthi rebel groups who have operated in the Red Sea for months, although AP notes that such groups have denied attacking the cables in the past. In March, three cables in the Red Sea were cut, and suspicion was cast on the Houthis. We still don’t know who was responsible for that incident. The Houthis say their military efforts are intended to disrupt Israel’s violent military campaign in Gaza.

In recent years, there’s been rising concern about damage to cables, and some onlookers see evidence of geopolitical sabotage. The International Cable Protection Committee (yes, there is such a thing) meets annually to discuss political and technical solutions to better bolster protections for the aquatic network of vital internet infrastructure.

Earlier this year, cable disruptions near the Baltics and Taiwan inspired accusations of intervention by America’s foes, NBC previously reported. That said, it’s also possible that cables are frequently being damaged unintentionally, sometimes by large ocean freighters or other environmental disturbances.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Vodafone is testing an AI ‘actor’ to sell its products instead of paying a human to do it

by admin September 8, 2025

Vodafone made a commercial starring an AI avatar posing as a real lady. This is interesting because Vodafone is a major global brand and not a fly-by-night TikTok company using a ridiculous deepfake of Jackson Galaxy to sell cat toys.

The tells in the commercial are obvious and what one would expect. The AI avatar’s hair is a bit off, which ruins the charade that this is a real person. The physical mannerisms and speaking tone are also wonky. A facial mole moves around at one point. It’s AI. You know the drill.

The company responded to a question on a message board as to why it couldn’t put “a real person in front of the camera” by saying this is simply an experiment. It said it was “testing different styles of advertising — this time with AI,” and that “AI is so much a part of everyday life these days that we also try it out in advertising.”

This isn’t the first Vodafone ad to feature generative AI. It released a fully AI-generated commercial last year that spurred a bit of controversy, despite looking absolutely awful. Social media platforms are also becoming increasingly littered with AI-generated virtual influencers.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

The Good

The So-So

The Bad

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iPhone 17

iPhone 17 Air

iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max

Apple Watch Series 11, Ultra 3 and SE

AirPods Pro 3

Announcement, beta and iOS 26 launch

Digital Authoritarianism as a Service

Stolen: Heist of the Century is our next big Netflix documentary movie after Unknown Number

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