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Don’t Expect PlayStation’s Current PC Port Strategy To Change Anytime Soon

by admin June 13, 2025

Amidst Xbox’s multiplatform publishing strategy, Sony is reiterating its commitment to prioritizing the PlayStation 5. During a recent Sony business meeting and “fireside chat,” PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst stated the company is taking a “very measured, very deliberate approach” when it comes to deciding if and when a first-party title appears on other platforms like PC.

Sony has been porting many of its marquee titles to PC for years. Some of its more recent live-service titles, like Helldivers 2 and the short-lived Concord, released day-and-date on console and PC, while tentpole single-player games like God of War: Ragnarok or Ghost of Tsushima typically release on PS5 first and arrive at least a year later on PC.

When asked about the industry’s move towards multiplatform titles and how Sony is looking to protect the “value” of the PS5 console, Hulst indicated that Sony isn’t looking to change its current strategy.

“It’s important to realize that we’re really thoughtful about bringing our franchises off console to reach new audiences and that we’re taking a very measured, very deliberate approach in doing that,” Hulst said. “Particularly on the single-player side, our tentpole titles, they’re such a point of differentiation for the PlayStation console.”

He went on to say that Sony’s first-party titles are meant to be a showcase for the PS5 hardware, and that the company wants players to “get the best experience” from these titles playing on PS5.

“We’re very thoughtful about how and if and how we bring these titles to other platforms,” Hulst said.

It’s an approach that appears to be working, even as Microsoft doubles down on its multiplatform game strategy of releasing Xbox titles on PS5 with positive results. When asked about Microsoft’s strategy and whether or not it’s a good thing, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino said he believed competition in the industry is good and creates innovation, but that Sony is “confident and committed to our current strategy.”

In addition to discussing how its approaching platform exclusivity, Sony reiterated its commitment to live-service titles, with Hulst stating he doesn’t believe Bungie’s upcoming shooter Marathon will suffer the same fate as Concord.

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June 13, 2025 0 comments

Roku Streaming Stick on table with flower

Product Reviews

Roku Streaming Stick review: the cheapest Roku streamer if you don’t need 4K

by admin June 13, 2025

Why you can trust TechRadar

We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Roku Streaming Stick: Two-minute review

The Roku TV interface is easy to navigate, but we experienced some lag when making selections during our testing of the Roku Streaming Stick (Image credit: Future)

The Roku Streaming Stick is cheap, compact, and easy to use. As the cheaper of Roku’s two newest streaming sticks, the other being the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, it has its limitations – specifically, no 4K or HDR support – but the value proposition here is very good. If you’re trying to save money, it might be among the best streaming devices out there.

As far as competition goes at this price point, there’s really only the Amazon Fire TV Stick HD, which is slightly more expensive. Of course, if you care about getting the best performance and features and are willing to pay for it, I suggest going for the Roku Ultra (2024) instead.

The Roku Streaming Stick is literally just a stick with an HDMI port on the end, and is small even by streaming stick standards. When I reviewed the Amazon Fire TV Sticks that came out in 2023 ( still current models), I had trouble fitting their bulky bodies into the HDMI slots behind my TV, so the svelte design of the Roku Streaming Stick is welcome.

Roku Streaming Stick: Price and release date

The super-compact Roku Streaming Stick is powered by your TV’s USB port (Image credit: Future)

$29.99 / £29.99 (about AU$50)
Released April 2025

Thirty bucks or quid for a streaming device is impossible to beat. The closest to that is probably the Amazon Fire TV Stick HD that I mentioned earlier at $34.99 / £39.99 / AU$69.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether it’s worth saving ten bucks for this version over the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, which goes for $39.99 / £39.99 (about AU$70). The design of both sticks is the same, and so are the limitations in performance. If you’re trying to just get the cheapest streaming stick with 4K and HDR support (but not Dolby Vision), the Plus version is the one you’ll want. But if you have an older TV that doesn’t support those features, the basic Roku Streaming Stick will be ideal.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2023) is also a good streamer to look at as it’s regularly discounted to the same price as the Roku Streaming Stick Plus. And unlike Roku products, that model is available for purchase in Australia.

Roku’s remote control sits nicely in the hand and features a mic button for voice search commands (Image credit: Future)

Should you buy the Roku Streaming Stick?

Swipe to scroll horizontallyRoku Streaming Stick

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

HD streaming with Dolby Atmos but no 4K or HDR support

3/ 5

Performance

It’s fine when streaming, but it lags when interacting with the interface and menus, possibly due to using an older Wi-Fi standard

3.5 / 5

Design

It’s slim and is designed to get power from the TV it’s connected to, helping provide a cleaner, more tangle-free look

4.5 / 5

Value

Streaming doesn’t get cheaper than this. You just have to decide if you can forgo 4K and HDR support

5 / 5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Roku Streaming Stick review: Also consider

(Image credit: Future)

How I tested the Roku Streaming Stick

Used regularly for a week
Tested with various apps
Tested the remote

I used the Roku Streaming Stick regularly for a few days to evaluate everything it can do. I used it to stream Roku content and movies and shows from apps like Max. I also spent time using the remote and testing its various functions.

I’ve tested a lot of tech gear over the years, from laptops to keyboards and speakers, and so have been able to use my expertise towards giving an honest and fair opinion, not to mention a critical eye, to any product I test.

‘I don’t actually play horror games’: Phasmophobia’s lead developer had no intention of making a horror game but still kicked off a whole new genre

by admin June 12, 2025

I’ll never forget the first time my friends and I played Phasmophobia. It was like nothing I’d ever played before, absolutely hilarious, and surprisingly terrifying—it still is. So it’s rather funny to me that not only does Phasmo’s creator not really play horror games but he didn’t intend to make one either.

“I failed to make a co-op puzzle game,” director and lead developer Daniel Knight told my colleague Andrea Shearon during an interview at Summer Game Fest. “Or a co-op puzzle horror game. I didn’t really settle to make a ghost-hunting game. It just ended up being the kind of perfect fit.

“But the main goal was to make a social co-op puzzle game where you actually had to stand next to your friends and figure the puzzle out together. And then the horror is kind of like the secondary part—it just happened to be the perfect fit.”

Now Knight mentions it, I can totally see where he’s coming from with the puzzle idea. Trying to figure out what kind of ghost it is by working together as a team, using various tools, and having a checklist is just like solving a puzzle. It’s just a scary one which also involves you getting chased around a house by a red-eyed demon child.

Having a horror game that isn’t necessarily focused on being scary but instead works at being tricky to solve and an immersive experience for you and your friends may be what makes Phasmophobia so memorable. The best moments in Phasmo always come from someone messing up a test or a ghost surprising the team by doing something that we hadn’t accounted for.

Phasmophobia devs on mod support, 2025 updates, and more | Kinetic Games interview – YouTube

Watch On

I still remember playing on the Brownstone High School map with some mates where all the signs pointed us towards the ghost being in one of the rooms on the ground floor next to the stairs. We ended up having a massive argument as half of us didn’t think it was actually in this room after finding no physical evidence. It wasn’t until the ghoul appeared behind us that we realised the EMF Reader and Sound Sensor were actually pointing us towards the room directly above where we’d set up shop.

It may seem kind of weird at first, but maybe a horror game from someone who doesn’t massively love horror games isn’t such a bad idea. “I don’t actually play horror games,” Knight says. Although when pressed, he did admit that he’s dabbled in a bit of Content Warning.

I love Content Warning, and don’t get me wrong it can be absolutely terrifying when you’re being chased by the Snail Man or flipped upside down by the Ceiling Star, but it’s also probably the most tame co-op game to come out recently. But hey, a horror game’s still a horror game, and I don’t think Knight has to prove anything, not after making Phasmophobia.

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Bitcoin Price Above $107,000 Is Ideal, But Don’t Get Excited Until This Happens

by admin June 12, 2025

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure

The Bitcoin price is comfortably trading above the $107,000 zone, providing a bullish outlook for the flagship crypto. Crypto analyst Daan Crypto has commented on the current BTC price action and revealed why market participants still need to be cautious.

Why Investors Need To Be Cautious About The Bitcoin Price Action

In an X post, Daan Crypto stated that the Bitcoin price rally is driven by big perpetuals to push higher and squeeze last week’s highs. He told market participants to be cautious with these kinds of moves early in the week. The analyst added that if the BTC price can trade and hold above $107,000, it will show a good amount of strength.

However, Daan Crypto believes there is still a need to be cautious even if the Bitcoin price holds above $107,000. He stated that the quick Open Interest increase is something that investors want to get rid of to get a clean reset before really getting excited. His warning suggests that this perpetual driven rally might not be sustainable, with BTC likely to correct at some point.

Source: Daan Crypto Trades on X

Crypto analyst Kevin Capital also echoed a similar sentiment. In an X post, he stated that there is a lot of work to be done and that investors should not get overly excited about the recent Bitcoin price rally. The analyst noted that it is great to feel the optimism, and the charts do look very solid. However, there is still a long week ahead with a lot of “macro data crossing the wires.” In line with this, he urged market participants to stay grounded and calculated.

The macro data on the horizon includes the US CPI data, which will come out today. This could determine whether there will be any Fed rate cuts this year. Meanwhile, the PPI inflation data comes out tomorrow, which could also impact the Fed’s decision.

BTC To Reach $120,000 By End Of Summer

In an X post, crypto analyst Titan of Crypto suggested that the Bitcoin price could rally above $120,000 by the end of the summer. He stated that the monthly chart suggests a potential surge toward the macro trendline. If this momentum holds, the analyst is confident that Bitcoin could aim for a rally towards $130,000 before the fourth quarter of this year.

Crypto analyst Mikybull Crypto told market participants to get ready for the Bitcoin price rally following the Golden Cross. He declared that the current price action is a bear trap indeed, indicating that BTC is going much higher.

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is trading at around $109,400, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

BTC trading at $109,592 on the 1D chart | Source: BTCUSDT on Tradingview.com

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com

Editorial Process for bitcoinist is centered on delivering thoroughly researched, accurate, and unbiased content. We uphold strict sourcing standards, and each page undergoes diligent review by our team of top technology experts and seasoned editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance, and value of our content for our readers.

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

NotebookLM screenshot with branch diagram of Telemachus Confronts the Suitors

Gaming Gear

As Long as I Have NotebookLM, I Don’t Need Any Other AI Tool

by admin June 11, 2025

If all artificial intelligence ever amounted to was Google’s NotebookLM in its current form, I’d be fine with it. OK, maybe bake in Gemini Live’s camera mode in one way or another first. Other than that, NotebookLM is the only AI tool I want or need.

I always appreciated the concept of what NotebookLM could do when it was first announced and enjoyed casually tinkering with it, but experiencing it in the real world — and at a time when I needed a tool like it to exist — solidified how awesome NotebookLM really is to me. It’s now my favorite AI tool, ever, and I’ve never used an AI tool as much.

Powered by Google’s Gemini AI, NotebookLM breaks down complex subjects into an easy-to-understand format and helps you brainstorm new ideas. There’s now a mobile app for iOS and Android, and new features were just announced during Google I/O last month. It keeps getting better without feeling like it’s becoming overstuffed with features just for the sake of it.

NotebookLM isn’t just Google Keep stuffed with AI, nor is it just a chatbot that can take notes. It’s both and neither. Instead of asking questions to Gemini, only for it to find an answer from the ether of the internet, NotebookLM will only search through the sources that you provide it. It’s a dead simple concept that feels like one of the most practical uses of AI, giving way to the perfect study buddy for classes or work. And Google didn’t stop there.

Now it can do so much more, and will reward your poking around to see what it can do for you. And features like its impressive Audio Overviews have since trickled down into Gemini itself, allowing it to be used in a much wider set of Google’s products.

Below, I’ll cover some of NotebookLM’s most interesting features (including the newly announced ones) and how it became one of my favorite AI tools to use.

For more, check out Google’s smart glasses plans with AndroidXR.

What is NotebookLM?

NotebookLM is a Gemini-powered note-taking and research assistant tool that can be used in a multitude of ways. It all starts with the sources you feed it, whether they’re webpage URLs, YouTube videos or audio clips, allowing you to pull multiple sources together into a cohesive package and bring some organization to your scattered thoughts or notes.

The most obvious use case for NotebookLM is using it for school or work. Think of it — you’ve kept up with countless classes and typed notes down for every one and even perhaps recorded some lectures. Sifting through everything individually can eventually get you to some semblance of understanding, but what if you could get them to work together?

Once you’ve uploaded your sources, Gemini will get to work to create an overall summary of the material. From there, you can begin asking Gemini questions about specific topics on the sources and information from the sources will be displayed in an easy-to-understand format. This alone may be enough for some people just looking to get the most out of their notes, but that’s really just scratching the surface.

Available for desktop and mobile

NotebookLM’s three-panel layout.

Screenshot by Blake Stimac/CNET

NotebookLM has been available for a while now on the desktop and is broken into a three-panel layout, consisting of Source, Chat and Studio panels. Both the Source and Studio panels are collapsible, so you can have a full-screen chat experience if you prefer.

While the Source and Chat panels are pretty self-explanatory, the Studio panel is where magic can happen (though some of the features can also be created directly from the Chat panel). This is where you can get the most out of your NotebookLM experience.

The NotebookLM app: Information alchemy in your pocket

The mobile app for Android and iOS launched the day before Google I/O 2025.

Screenshots by Blake Stimac/CNET

Those familiar with the desktop experience will feel right at home with the new mobile apps for iOS and Android. The streamlined app allows you to switch between the Source, Chat and Studio panels via a menu at the bottom. When you go to the view that shows all of your notebooks, you’ll see tabs for Recent, Shared, Title and Downloaded.

While not everything is on the app yet, it’s likely just a matter of time before it matches the web version’s full functionality.

Audio Overviews

If you didn’t hear about NotebookLM when it was first announced, you likely did when Audio Overviews were released for it. Once you have at least one source uploaded, you can then opt to generate an Audio Overview, which will provide a “deep dive” on the source material. These overviews are created by none other than Gemini, and it’s not just a quick summary of your material in audio format — it’s a full-blown podcast with two “hosts” that break down complex topics into easy-to-understand pieces of information. They’re incredibly effective, too, often asking each other questions to dismantle certain topics.

The default length of an Audio Overview will vary depending on how much material there is to go over and the complexity of the topic — though I’m sure there are other factors at play. In my testing, a very short piece of text created a five-minute audio clip, whereas two lengthier and more dense Google Docs documents I uploaded created an 18-minute Overview.

If you want a little more control on the length for your Audio Overview, you’re in luck. Announced in a blog post during Google I/O earlier this month, users now have three options to choose from: shorter, default and longer. This is perfect if you either want to have a short and dense podcast-like experience of if you want to get into the nitty gritty on a subject with a longer Audio Overview.

You can interact with your AI podcasters

It gets even better. Last December, NotebookLM got a new design and new ways to interact with Audio Overviews. The customize button allows you to guide the conversation so that key points are covered. Type in your directive and then generate your Audio Overview.

Now, if you want to make this feature even more interactive, you can choose the Interactive mode, which is still in beta, to join the conversation. The clip will play, and if you have a particular question in response to something that’s said, you can click the join button. Once you do, the speakers will pause and acknowledge your presence and ask you to chime in with thoughts or questions, and you’ll get a reply.

I wanted to try something a little different, so I threw in the lyrics of a song as the only source, and the AI podcast duo began to dismantle the motivations and emotions behind the words. I used the join feature to point out a detail in the lyrics they didn’t touch on, and the two began to dissect what my suggestion meant in the context of the writing. They then began linking the theme to other portions of the text. It was impressive to watch: They handled the emotional weight of the song so well, and tactfully at that.

Mind Maps

Generating a Mind Map is just one of several powerful features from NotebookLM.

Google/Screenshot by Blake Stimac

I’d heard interesting things about NotebookLM’s Mind Map feature, but I wanted to go in blind when I tried it out, so I did a separate test. I took roughly 1,500 words of Homer’s Odyssey and made that my only source. I then clicked the Mind Map button, and within seconds, an interactive and categorical breakdown of the text was displayed for me to poke around in.

Many of the broken-down sections had subsections for deeper dives, some of which were dedicated to single lines for dissection. Clicking on a category or end-point of the map will open the chat with a prefilled prompt.

I chose to dive into the line, “now without remedy,” and once clicked, the chat portion of NotebookLM reopened with the prefilled prompt, “Discuss what these sources say about Now without remedy, in the larger context of [the subsection] Alternative (worse).” The full line was displayed, including who said it, what it was in response to and any motivations (or other references) for why the line was said in the text.

Study guides and more

If the combination of all that Audio Overviews and Mind Maps could do sounds like everything a student might need for the perfect study buddy, NotebookLM has a few other features that will solidify it in that place.

Study guides

After you’ve uploaded a source, you can create a quick study guide based on the material that will automatically provide a document with a quiz, potential essay questions, a glossary of key terms and answers for the quiz at the bottom. And if you want, you can even convert the study guide into a source for your notebook.

FAQs

Whether you’re using it for school or want to create a FAQ page for your website, the NotebookLM button generates a series of potentially common questions based on your sources.

Timeline

If you’re looking for a play-by-play sort of timeline, it’s built right in. Creating a timeline for the Odyssey excerpt broke down main events in a bulleted list and placed them based on the times mentioned in the material. If an event takes place at an unspecified time, it will appear at the top of the timeline, stating this. A cast of characters for reference is also generated below the timeline of events.

Briefing document

The briefing document is just what it sounds like, giving you a quick snapshot of the key themes and important events to get someone up to speed. This will include specific quotes from the source and their location. A summary of the material is also created at the bottom of the document.

How NotebookLM really ‘sold’ me

I already really liked NotebookLM’s concept and execution during its 1.0 days, and revisiting the new features only strengthened my appreciation for it. My testing was mostly for fun and to see how this tool can flex, but using it when I “needed” it helped me really get an idea of how powerful it can be, even for simple things.

During a product briefing, I did my typical note-taking: Open a Google Doc, start typing in fragmented thoughts on key points, and hope I could translate what I meant when I needed to refer back to them. I knew I would also receive an official press release, so I wasn’t (too) worried about it, but I wanted to put NotebookLM to the test in a real-world situation when I was using it for real — and not just tinkering, when nearly anything seems impressive when it does what you tell it to.

I decided to create a new notebook and make my crude notes (which looked like a series of bad haikus at first glance) the only source, just to see what came out on the other end. Not only did NotebookLM fill in the blanks, but the overall summary read almost as well as the press release I received the following day. I was impressed. It felt like alchemy — NotebookLM took some fairly unintelligible language and didn’t just turn it into something passable, but rather, a pretty impressive description.

Funny enough, I’ve since become a more thorough note-taker, but I’m relieved to know I have something that can save the day if I need it to.

Video Overviews are on the way

Another feature that was announced during Google I/O was Video Overviews, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. There’s currently no time frame outside of “coming soon” from the blog post, but it should be a good way to get a more visual experience from your notebooks.

We’d previously heard that Video Overviews might be on the way, thanks to some sleuthing from Testing Catalog. The article also mentioned that the ability to make your notebooks publicly available and view an Editor’s Picks list of notebooks will eventually make their way to NotebookLM. The Editors Picks feature has yet to rear its head, but you can indeed now share notebooks directly or make them publicly available for anyone to access.

While we’re waiting on View Overviews, here’s a preview of one.

If you need more from NotebookLM, consider upgrading

Most people will likely never have the need to pay for NotebookLM, as the free version is robust enough. But if you’re using it for work and need to be able to add more sources or the option to share your notebook with multiple people, NotebookLM Plus is worth considering. It gives you more of everything while introducing more customization, additional privacy and security features as well as analytics. It’s worth noting that NotebookLM Plus will also be packaged in with Google’s new AI subscriptions.

For more, don’t miss Google’s going all-in on AI video with Flow and Veo 3.

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Okay, Apple Vision Pro’s ‘Spatial Personas’ Don’t Look Like Trash Anymore

by admin June 11, 2025

For the average person, $3,500 is still too much money for Apple Vision Pro. The price is even more exorbitant when you compare it to a $300 Quest 3S or $500 Quest 3 headset with similar VR and XR capabilities, though the visual fidelity and responsiveness are not on the same level. At WWDC 2025, Apple announced visionOS 26 with a slew of new features, including “spatial Personas,” widgets that you can anchor into your physical space like your walls, and a new spatial web browsing feature that converts 2D photos on websites into 3D ones. As genuinely cutting-edge as these features are (I kept saying “wow,” “whoa,” and “holy sh*t” my entire demo time), it still costs you three-and-a-half grand to experience them.

When Apple Vision Pro launched last year and then added spatial Personas—a 3D-generated avatar of yourself that can be used during FaceTime or in a virtual meeting—everybody laughed at them. Literally pointed and (in Nelson Muntz’s voice) Ha-Ha-ed at how comically bad they could look. Many people’s Personas had holes in the back of people’s heads, hair without volume, and skin tones that looked just a bit too bright and clinical. And despite resembling the uncanny valley, there was something just a bit off about them. Here’s what my Persona looked like at the time:

I’m happy to report that spatial Personas are getting a, um, major facelift (pun intended). The capture process still involves holding the Vision Pro in front of you and using the cameras to 3D scan your face, but the detail of the avatar is so much more realistic. Here’s what my new spatial Persona looks like in visionOS 26:

There are still some imperfections (like the crookedness of my striped shirt), but my face—my god—it’s almost like staring into a mirror. My long hair part was rendered accurately, and when I smiled and laughed, my teeth, cheeks, and eyebrows moved more naturally as opposed to before, which was kind of stiff. My Persona no longer looks like a PS3 character. If you’re paying $3,500 for Vision Pro, your virtual self damn well better look more realistic than a console from almost 20 years ago!

Apple’s not saying what it did specifically to improve the quality of Personas (perhaps using more polygons?), but here’s what the press release says: “Taking advantage of industry-leading volumetric rendering and machine learning technology, the all-new Personas now have striking expressivity and sharpness, offering a full side profile view, and remarkably accurate hair, lashes, and complexion.”

The rest of my Vision Pro demo was comparably mind-blowing (as Vision Pro still tends to be), but it also further drove home the fact that you need to have deep pockets in order to enjoy visionOS 26. I saw various widgets—clocks, calendars, a Lady Gaga poster that I could pinch with my fingers to play music, and even a framed window with a #shotoniPhone panorama of Japan’s Mount Fuji that I could look “into.” The higher resolution of Vision Pro’s displays and the ability for the widgets to stay anchored or pinned on a wall without jittering or moving made them look very convincing as real objects. The only thing that broke the illusion was almost walking into walls trying to look more closely at the widgets.

I also tried out the new spatial browsing in Safari. When toggled on, it turns the browser window into a Reader-ish mode view that removes all of a website’s design and only shows the text and the media. As I scrolled down a page, 2D photos would convert into 3D ones with depth—Apple calls these “spatial scenes.” And man, do they look good. The depth isn’t like some cheapo 3D movie conversion. They look like they’re shot with expensive 3D cameras, and unlike most 3D content that has a certain sweet spot for feeling the depth, you can actually view them from different angles. It’s really neat.

Before I took the Vision Pro off my head, I was teleported to the shore and taken ski gliding via 360-degree videos. Apple says visionOS 26 can play native 180-degree and 360-degree videos from Insta360, GoPro, and Canon cameras. There’s no need to convert the video files into a compatible format for Vision Pro—they just work out of the box. While not as professional as Apple’s own “Immersive Video” content, this should at least get the ball rolling on expanding user-created content. It’s a baby step, but a necessary one considering one of the biggest roadblocks to the Vision Pro, besides the large price tag, is having enough spatial/immersive content for users to consume.

Apple didn’t have a demo for using PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers to play games in Vision Pro, but I’m sure I’ll get to try that out at some point. I have the controllers at home, so whenever that’s ready to go, I’ll give it a whirl.

I left my visionOS 26 demo impressed at the progress Apple’s making. Spatial computing is starting to take a more solid shape. I just wish Apple would drop the price on Vision Pro or hurry up and release a cheaper version so more people could try out this cutting-edge tech. I always feel like nobody believes me when I tell them how awesome Vision Pro and visionOS on a technological level. They just look at the price and stop listening, which is a real shame.

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Your character’s attribute letter grades in Elden Ring Nightreign don’t really mean much, but you can still use them to your advantage

by admin June 11, 2025

Elden Ring Nightreign is, at its core, an RPG with character stats that grow each time you level up. Because of the rapid pace of runs, however, FromSoftware simplified that process and turned it into a one-button affair.

When you reach a Site of Grace, you press that to gain new levels, without having to worry about stat allocation. The game does that in the background, though in different ways depending on your chosen class.

But what about those starting attributes and their letter grades? Well, it’s complicated.

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FromSoft dataminer and all-around Souls investigator, Zullie the Witch, have revealed some interesting details about the way stats and levelling work in Nightreign. Their latest video attempts to show the true stats of each of the game’s different classes.

Each class has an attributes screen that lists a few of the more common stats: HP, FP, Strength, Faith and so on. It also assigns a letter grade to each to signify which areas of that spectrum they’re strong/weak in. It does this, however, without revealing any hard numbers, or really explaining what each grade corresponds to.

As you may have already guessed, each class does have a traditional stats screen, which we see in the Zullie’s latest video. Looking at that screen, you can also see that the jump from level 1 to 2 is the biggest across the entire system, with level 12 being the softcap.

Watch on YouTube

The true nature of each class, of course, is dictated by which attributes they favour, but the grading system itself does not appear to follow a set formula. The Duchess, for instance, has a B in in DEX and an A in INT, despite their values being almost identical.

The video also reveals that Relics that boost attack stats are more powerful at lower character levels, but tend to not matter much once you upgrade your weapon, and gain damage bonuses through other sources.

As Zullie points out in the video, of course, Nightreign’s random nature doesn’t make it easy to target specific builds, but knowing each characters’ true stat sheet means you can better pick Relics and other items that you know will benefit your class the most.

In other Nightreign news, the game received a new update yesterday that brought a couple of balance changes, as well as some bug fixes. It’s not a big one, but more is on the way. For more on FromSoft’s latest, hit up our mega Elden Ring Nightreign guide for some juicy tips and walkthroughs.

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Airlines Don’t Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS

by admin June 10, 2025

A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected US travelers’ domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media. The data includes passenger names, their full flight itineraries, and financial details.

CBP, a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says it needs this data to support state and local police to track people of interest’s air travel across the country, in a purchase that has alarmed civil liberties experts.

The documents reveal for the first time in detail why at least one part of DHS purchased such information, and comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detailed its own purchase of the data. The documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), tells government agencies not to mention where it sourced the flight data from.

“The big airlines—through a shady data broker that they own called ARC—are selling the government bulk access to Americans’ sensitive information, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used,” senator Ron Wyden said in a statement.

ARC is owned and operated by at least eight major US airlines, other publicly released documents show. The company’s board of directors include representatives from Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Canada’s Air Canada. More than 240 airlines depend on ARC for ticket settlement services.

ARC’s other lines of business include being the conduit between airlines and travel agencies, finding travel trends in data with other firms like Expedia, and fraud prevention, according to material on ARC’s YouTube channel and website. The sale of US fliers’ travel information to the government is part of ARC’s Travel Intelligence Program (TIP).

A Statement of Work included in the newly obtained documents, which describes why an agency is buying a particular tool or capability, says CBP needs access to ARC’s TIP product “to support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify persons of interest’s US domestic air travel ticketing information.” 404 Media obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The new documents obtained by 404 Media also show ARC asking CBP to “not publicly identify vendor, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the Reports unless the Customer is compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena and gives ARC immediate notice of same.”

The Statement of Work says that TIP can show a person’s paid intent to travel and tickets purchased through travel agencies in the US and its territories. The data from the Travel Intelligence Program (TIP) will provide “visibility on a subject’s or person of interest’s domestic air travel ticketing information as well as tickets acquired through travel agencies in the U.S. and its territories,” the documents say. They add that this data will be “crucial” in both administrative and criminal cases.

A DHS Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) available online says that TIP data is updated daily with the previous day’s ticket sales, and contains more than one billion records spanning 39 months of past and future travel. The document says TIP can be searched by name, credit card, or airline, but ARC contains data from ARC-accredited travel agencies, such as Expedia, and not flights booked directly with an airline. “If the passenger buys a ticket directly from the airline, then the search done by ICE will not show up in an ARC report,” that PIA says. The PIA notes that the data impacts both US and non-US persons, meaning it does include information on US citizens.

“While obtaining domestic airline data—like many other transaction and purchase records—generally doesn’t require a warrant, there’s still supposed to go through a legal process that ensures independent oversight and limits data collection to records that will support an investigation,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Security and Surveillance Project, told 404 Media in an email. “As with many other types of sensitive and revealing data, the government seems intent on using data brokers to buy their way around important guardrails and limits.”

CBP’s contract with ARC started in June 2024 and may extend to 2029, according to the documents. The CBP contract 404 Media obtained documents for was an $11,025 transaction. Last Tuesday, a public procurement database added a $6,847.50 update to that contract, which said it was exercising “Option Year 1,” meaning it was extending the contract. The documents are redacted but briefly mention CBP’s OPR, or Office of Professional Responsibility, which in part investigates corruption by CBP employees.

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June 10, 2025 0 comments

The Earfun Tune Pro atop a bronze table.

Product Reviews

Earfun Tune Pro review: budget cans with an amazing battery that sadly don’t sound good

by admin June 10, 2025

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Earfun Tune Pro: Two minute review

Budget audio brand Earfun has continued its foray into the over-ear headphone game with the Earfun Tune Pro, an affordable pair of over-ears which unfortunately don’t live up to Earfun’s usually-impressive track record. Some of the best cheap headphones I’ve tested, they are not.

Earfun’s first over-ears, the Wave Pro, were some of our top-rated affordable headphones, easily earning (for a while, at least) a place on our list of the best headphones you can buy. And they were always going to be a tough act to follow. The fact that they’re still available to buy now also makes them a big (and honestly, more viable) rival to the Tune Pro.

I won’t beat around the bush: the big problem with the headphones is that they just don’t sound good. Earfun’s typical ability to punch well above its weight somehow didn’t grace the new and rather ironically-named Tune Pro. The cans lack serious bass, endure frequent peaking that ruins percussion, and don’t offer much in the way of an organised, layered soundstage to let you appreciate the separation and detail of instruments.

Earfun Tune Pro review: Specifications

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Component

Value

Water resistant

N/A

Battery life (quoted)

120 hours (ANC off) 80 hours (ANC on)

Bluetooth type

Bluetooth 5.4

Weight

289g

Driver

40mm + 10mm

Earfun Tune Pro review: Price and availability

(Image credit: Future)

Released in May 2025
RRP of $89.99 / £79.99 (roughly AU$160)
Already available at $69.99 / £59.99 (no AU sales)

The Earfun Tune Pro were announced in May 2025 for a retail price of $89.99 / £79.99 (roughly AU$160 though they’re not on sale in Australia at the time of writing, unlike many other products from the company).

Don’t tell Amazon that though, because the retailer lists in multiple regions that the cans were released in September 2024. It offers them for the discounted price of $69.99 / £59.99 (at the time of writing) despite them being new.

However much you pay for them, the Earfun Tune Pro are clearly budget headphones. They’re the middle of Earfun’s three over-ear options, sitting equally between the more expensive Wave Pro and cheaper Wave Life.

Earfun Tune Pro review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

Chunky cans with 3.5mm jack and physical buttons
Uncomfortable for long play sessions
No IP rating for waterproofing

As you can see from pictures, Earfun has kept things simple with the Tune Pro, playing close to the formula for over-ear headphones.

The cans weigh 289g and are made from plastic, so they don’t feel too heavy when you’re wearing them. That doesn’t mean they’re exactly comfortable though, and I could only listen for a few hours before needing to give my head a break.

The ear cups are quite thick, sticking from your head about 50% more than your average pair of over-ears (judging by the few pairs I had on hand). I don’t imagine this is to blame for the comfort issues but it does make the cans look imposing when you wear them.

Evidence of how easily-bendable the hook is. (Image credit: Future)

Earfun has ensured that the Tune Pro have some versatility in size as the band can be extended or retracted quite a distance (if you do have a larger head, check out our roundup feature of headphones with longer extendable arms) while the cups can be rotated around 100 degrees – and they also fold up if you want to put them in a bag.

Onto the buttons. On the right cup you’ve got a volume rocker, power button and 3.5mm headphone jack – yes, the Tune Pro supports wired audio – while the left earpiece has an ANC button and the USB-C charging port.

The buttons don’t stick out that far from the casework and so, despite little knobs to make them a bit more prominent, I still found them pretty hard to locate just with my fingers. Instead, I generally relied on my phone to change volume and ANC.

Earfun’s website makes no mention of any kind of IP rating for the Tune Pro so I’d recommend keeping them high and dry.

Earfun Tune Pro review: Features

(Image credit: Future)

Incredbly battery life
Range of ANC modes, all fine
Equalizer with listening test

Earfun headphones always out-rep the competition in the features department and things are no different for the Tune Pro. The real highlight of these cans is the battery life, which according to Earfun stretches to an incredible 120 hours with ANC turned off and a still-admirable 80 hours with it turned on.

I can count on one hand the number of sets of headphones that beat or match that battery life, and it’s a vital figure for people who rarely get time to charge up their headphones for one reason or another. I would’ve loved cans like these when I last went travelling.

Next up, ANC is… present, I’ll say that much. It’s fine, but far from best-in-class and about what you’d expect for the price. It’s useful for covering up certain annoying background noises like a dishwasher in another room or distant traffic going past your house, but it won’t make your commute near-silent or ensure you can hear your music when vacuuming at home.

A few different ANC presets are available in the Earfun app. Default, which I take to be ‘off’, is Normal but there’s Ambient Sound to allow nearby noises through, Wind noise cancellation which is just designed for the infuriating sound of wind that always baffles headphone ANC, and lastly Comfort ANC and Strong ANC. I take these latter to be ‘medium’ and ‘high’ strengths to Normal’s ‘off’, but this is based purely on the icons in the app and nothing else.

(Image credit: Future)

I’ve complained in past reviews about Earfun’s array of ANC modes being a bit overwhelming. Why? Because it’s hard to know which mode you should be using at any one time, and it’s also a chore to open up the Earfun app to switch if you decide you want to (the ANC button on the cans only cycles through the first three options, not the two full-blooded ANC ones).

A few more features available through the the Earfun app include the ability to toggle low-latency modes for gaming or a wide-soundstage mode for movies and TV, and a way to change what the buttons on the ear cups do. However, the major one to note is an equalizer.

As with past Earfuns, the Tune Pro offers a wide range of EQ modes based on different genres of music or increasing or decreasing bass or treble. There are plenty of options and it’s worth playing around to find your perfect preset, though a 10-band custom EQ mode lets you create your own mix too. A brief test also creates a bespoke equalizer mix for you and I was pretty happy with the mix it created for me.

For call handling, the Earfun Tune Pro feature five mics (presumably per earpiece, although Earfun doesn’t express this as such. But anything else would be odd) as well as an algorithm to clear up your voice when others hear you.

Earfun Tune Pro review: Sound performance

(Image credit: Future)

40mm + 10mm drivers
Distorting sound, lacking bass
Limited sound stage

Given the price you’re paying for the Tune Pro, you’re probably not expecting the most ear-pleasing audio in the world, and it’s a good thing to set your expectations low because these Earfun headphones don’t sound great, even for the money.

Specs-wise, the headphones pack both a 40mm and 10mm driver in each can which should ostensibly provide extra oomph in the bass department, but theory is a far cry from fact.

Perhaps the biggest issue, noticeable constantly, is the audio peaking through the treble, which crushes hi-hats into mere hisses and devolves powerful guitar lines into crunchy oblivion. At the other end of the frequency scale, the tuning here boosts the bass drum so much that it frequently overrides vocals. It’s hard to enjoy songs without percussion and detail through the mids to provide rhythm, and the Tune Pro don’t offer much of that.

You’re not getting much expansion or detail through the soundstage here either, with music presented as a somewhat homogenous mush instead of a collection of separate, distinct and layered instruments given enough room to be impactful. The confusing mix here also masks the detail and dynamic nuance in my music, while also sapping some of the charm and emotion from vocals. If you care about the musicality within your favorite songs, these sadly aren’t the cans for you.

If there’s anything to be said for the Earfun Tune Pro’s audio quality, it’s that the max volume goes pretty loud, so you’re never going to struggle to hear songs even if you turn ANC off.

Sound performance score: 2.5/5

Earfun Tune Pro: Value

(Image credit: Future)

Usually when qualifying the value of cheap headphones, I simply point to the price and say “yes”, but it’s not quite as easy as that for the Tune Pro.

While the headphones are admittedly very affordable, they’re not the only cheap headphones in existence, and others will get you more bang for your buck. That’s literal, with many other low-cost options getting you better audio quality.

The only other important factor is the feature set, which admittedly is pretty competitive on the Earfun Tune Pro. So if you aren’t that bothered about the sound and care more about longevity and the presence of an equalizer, these claw back some value points.

Earfun Tune Pro review: scorecard

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Earfun Tune Pro: Should I buy?

(Image credit: Future)

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

Also consider

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Component

Earfun Tune Pro

1More Sonoflow Pro HQ51

Earfun Wave Pro

Water resistant

Battery life

120 hours (ANC off) 80 hours (ANC on)

100 hours (ANC off) 65 hours (ANC on)

80 hours (ANC off) 55 hours (ANC on)

Bluetooth type

Bluetooth 5.4

Bluetooth 5.3

Weight

289g

246g

268g

Driver

40mm + 10mm

40mm

How I tested

(Image credit: Future)

I used the Earfun Tune Pro for three weeks in order to write this review, and some extra time during the writing process itself.

During testing I used the Earfun alongside a few devices, most frequently my Android smartphone via Bluetooth but sometimes an iPod Classic via 3.5mm. Listening was generally music but I also listened to some some spoken-word, games and TV shows too. Testing was done at home and around my neighborhood.

I’ve been testing audio products for TechRadar for over 6 years and currently test several headphones or earbuds each month. This has included many past Earfun products – including the slightly older Wave Pro.

I don’t know how good Mario Kart World’s Free Roam actually is, but it’s perfect for me

by admin June 10, 2025

A caveat here first, explaining why my thoughts on this are probably irrelevant, and then some thoughts on this. Caveat: I don’t think I’ve ever truly loved Mario Kart since one magical evening at university in which a bunch of us played Mario Kart 64, then newly released, on split-screen all night long and into the morning. I loved that game so much – each moment was such a hectic joy. And it used me up a bit. I haven’t really been able to engage with the series with quite the same thrill since.

I appreciate that makes me a terrible person, and an idiot, since I gather Mario Kart 8 is a game for the ages. (The last Mario Kart I properly got to know, incidentally, was the GBA version, so again, please feel free to write off everything I’m about to say.) Anyway, I fired up World and played a few races, and they were pretty and imaginative and gently non-thrilling to me, and I thought again: what’s wrong with me, idiot? Everybody loves this. Why don’t you?

Then I dropped into Free Roam and suddenly? Well, suddenly I was genuinely in love.

Here’s a look at Mario Kart World.Watch on YouTube

Here’s the thing: I don’t know how good Free Roam genuinely is, but I do know it’s absolutely perfect for me and all my personal weirdnesses. Free Roam positions every Mario Kart track on a kind of open world, with lots of gaps and spaces between them so you can just take off and do whatever you like. You ride around, brush up against tracks, lose your way, skate down the back of a dinosaur, rush through a few temples and generally zone out.

Does it feel like Mario Kart? Kind of. But what it really feels like is that special moment I love in an open world game when the campaign is done, and the map is pretty much cleared out of big ticket things to do. But you don’t want to stop playing, so you just groove around, a podcast on, and take pleasure in movement, the surroundings, and any final stuff you’re mopping up. Free Roam in Mario Kart gives you P buttons to track down, for example, each of which fires up a tiny micro-mission. All great. But also great if you don’t find them. It’s fun just to be here, moving and having very little going on in your brain. A landscape of movement, not monument, to quote the great Reyner Banham.

Mario Kart World. | Image credit: Nintendo

There’s more, though. Photo mode is absolutely fabulous. You can pause the action, bring up camera options, move in on a frozen image, tilt the camera, change the player’s expression and do all sorts of weird jazz like that. I have already spent at least two hours just doing this – finding a Banzai Bill, say, and trying to get the most terrifying and dynamic picture of it, blasting past a billboard and trying to make it all look a bit like Jet Set Radio. I enter a new area and a buffalo hops past or birds scatter and I try to catch it all. You could play this Mario Kart exactly as if you’re a wildlife photographer and it would still be great. In fact, I think I probably will.

And here’s the other thing. Mario Kart World is made for Nintendo’s GameChat, in which a prod of the C button – a free service until 31st March 2026, after which it will require that you have an online sub even if you only play F2P multiplayer games – drops you into video chat with your pals, allowing you to play together, drop in and out of games and stick together and generally hang together. It’s wonderfully agnostic about activities, and after setting it up – a welcome bit of security, given the nature of the thing – I was soon chatting to my friend Stu while we played Mario Kart World, together, not together etc.

Mario Kart World. | Image credit: Nintendo

Here is the glory of GameChat, a thing which I thought initially I would not like at all. Stu is an old friend of mine and when it comes to Nintendo games we go way, way back. But he’s moved away, we’ve both had children, we both have jobs (sort of, in my case) and life, as Becky Hill says, has been lifing.

But for an hour this morning we noodled through Mario Kart together and I heard about his new passion for making pizzas, his new pizza oven, his new stamp for making his own pizza boxes, the way he makes his dough. We talked about everything in exactly the way we struggle to do on a phonecall, because we’re both tail-end of Gen X and hate the phone almost as much as Millennials do. If I get to meet up with Stu every few weeks as we play Mario Kart or whatever? I will be very happy.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more we did talk about Mario Kart, too. Because Mario Kart World tells you almost nothing before you start. When I first launched it and saw there was pretty much no tutorial I thought: well, it’s Mario Kart innit? Immediacy is key. But then I started to play Free Roam, and I started to talk to Stu and compare notes, and I feel like Nintendo has applied a bit of Dark Souls thinking to Mario Kart.

Mario Kart World. | Image credit: Nintendo

Just a little. Amongst the many things Stu taught me was that turbo hop you can do by holding down a button and waiting for the sparks and I could have found out about that in the manual. Fine. But then he also talked about how he had been unlocking things, and told me a dazzlingly complex story about travelling between in-game food trucks scattered about various areas.

Then, spoiler, he told me about a UFO on the map, and I told him about a time I got stuck in a boat for a bit and genuinely didn’t have a clue what was going on. GameChat allows you to explore the kinds of secret-filled games that you really need a lunch break to talk about in the real world. It reminded me of coffee with Simon Parkin when he talked about the first Demon’s Souls, or, going back even further, it reminded me of discussing strategies for Impossible Mission on the C64 in my primary school playground before the bell rang.

All that, and it’s so lovely to hear that Stu is really into making pizzas now.

A copy of Mario Kart World was provided by Nintendo.

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June 10, 2025 0 comments