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WhatsApp starts rolling out message translations on iOS and Android

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WhatsApp is now rolling out message translations on its iOS and Android apps. Starting today, Android users will be able to translate messages between six languages: English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic. On iPhone, there’s support for translation between the following languages (i.e. all of the ones supported by Apple’s Translate app):

To convert a message into a different language, long press on it, select Translate, then the language you’d like to translate the message to or from. Android users will get an extra-handy bonus feature with the ability to switch on automatic translation for an entire chat.

Translations are handled on your device to help protect your privacy — WhatsApp still won’t be able to see your encrypted chats. Your device will download relevant language packs for future translations. WhatsApp says translation works in one-on-one chats, groups and Channel updates. The platform will also add support for more languages down the line.

There’s no word as yet on if or when WhatsApp will support message translations on the web or in its Windows app. “Translating messages on WhatsApp is only available on certain devices and may not be available to you yet,” a note on a support page reads. “In the meantime, we recommend keeping WhatsApp updated on your device so you can get the feature as soon as it’s available.”



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Rolling Stone’s parent company sues Google over AI Overviews
Gaming Gear

Rolling Stone’s parent company sues Google over AI Overviews

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Disclosure: Penske Media Corporation is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

Penske Media Corporation, the publisher of Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, has become the first major American media company to sue Google over its AI summaries. The company claims that the AI Overviews that often appear at the top of search results leave users with little reason to click through to the source, hurting traffic and illegally benefitting from the work of its reporters.

While Penske Media is the biggest name to take on Google over its AI Overviews, it’s not the first. Online education company Chegg sued Google in February, as did a group of independent publishers in Europe. The News / Media Alliance has also spoken out about the feature, calling it the “definition of theft” and seeking action from the DOJ.

Google spokesperson José Castañeda defended the summaries to the Wall Street Journal saying, “with AI Overviews, people find search more helpful and use it more.” But Penske and other publishers say there is little reason to follow the links provided in search results and, as a result, they have seen significant drops in traffic and revenue. Penske claims in the suit that revenue from affiliate links is down by over 1/3 this year, and it attributes that directly to a drop in traffic from Google.

The company also claims it’s in a tough situation. It can either block Google from indexing its content, essentially removing itself from all search results, which would further devastate its business. Or, it can continue to provide training material to Google for its AI, “adding fuel to a fire that threatens PMC’s [Penske Media Corporation] entire publishing business,” the complaint states, according to the Wall Street Journal.



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Rolling Stone Publisher Sues Google Over AI Overview Summaries
Gaming Gear

Rolling Stone Publisher Sues Google Over AI Overview Summaries

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Google has insisted that its AI-generated search result overviews and summaries have not actually hurt traffic for publishers. The publishers disagree, and at least one is willing to go to court to prove the harm they claim Google has caused. Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, sued Google on Friday over allegations that the search giant has used its work without permission to generate summaries and ultimately reduced traffic to its publications.

Penske’s argument is pretty simple: by showing an AI-generated summary of an article at the top of the page via Google’s AI Overview panel, users have little reason to click through to read the full article, resulting in dwindling traffic finding its way to the publisher’s platforms, which it needs in order to monetize its content, either through ads or subscriptions. The search engine, the company argues, uses its monopoly over search to basically make publishers give up access to their content for next to nothing.

Notably, Penske claims that in recent years, Google has basically given publishers no choice but to give up access to its content. The lawsuit claims that Google now only indexes a website, making it available to appear in search, if the publisher agrees to give Google permission to use that content for other purposes, like its AI summaries. If you think you lose traffic by not getting clickthroughs on Google, just imagine how bad it would be to not appear at all.

A spokesperson for Google, unspurprisingly, said that the company doesn’t agree with the claims. “With AI Overviews, people find Search more helpful and use it more, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered. We will defend against these meritless claims.” Google Spokesperson Jose Castaneda told Reuters.

That has basically been the company line since rumbles of traffic declines started getting louder. Last month, the company published a blog post in which it claimed that click volume from Google Search results to websites has been “relatively stable year-over-year”—notably without offering a definition for what “relatively stable” is. The company also made the case that “click quality” has increased, so people who do click through are spending more time on the sites they get sent to.

That doesn’t match up with what publishers claim to be seeing. DMG Media, owner of the Daily Mail, claims click-through-rates by as much as 89% since AI Overviews were rolled out. A Wall Street Journal report from earlier this year said Business Insider, The Washington Post, and HuffPost have all reported traffic declines. Pew Research also found that people don’t click through nearly as often when an AI overview is available, finding that people who are served search results that don’t have an AI summary click through to an article nearly twice as often as those who see an AI-generated result.

Just for kicks, if you ask Google Gemini if Google’s AI Overviews are resulting in less traffic for publishers, it says, “Yes, Google’s AI Overview in search results appears to be resulting in less traffic for many websites and publishers. While Google has stated that AI Overviews create new opportunities for content discovery, several studies and anecdotal reports from publishers suggest a negative impact on traffic.” It might be fun to ask Google, “Are you lying about AI Overview’s impact on traffic, or is your AI assistant providing false and unreliable information?”



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mrbeast for president
Esports

Caleb Hearon says MrBeast personally apologized after Rolling Stone controversy

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Comedian Caleb Hearon says everything is settled after MrBeast reached out to him directly to apologize following backlash over a Rolling Stone creator ranking.

In late August 2025, Rolling Stone published its annual list of most influential creators, placing Caleb Hearon at number six, just ahead of YouTube star Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson at number seven. MrBeast reacted on X with a since-deleted post questioning how someone with fewer followers could outrank him.

The reaction drew heavy criticism, with many defending Hearon and calling MrBeast entitled for taking the ranking too seriously. Donaldson later deleted the post and softened his stance, saying he had checked out Hearon’s content after the fact.

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Hearon, meanwhile, took the moment in stride. He reposted the screenshot of MrBeast’s tweet to his Instagram story and joked about being in “peace talks” with the YouTuber. He later told fans he found the whole ordeal funny and didn’t take the comments personally, saying he believed people online had blown it out of proportion.

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Hearon recalls MrBeast apology during Mythical Kitchen

On September 11, Hearon appeared on the YouTube series Mythical Kitchen, where the hosts brought out a cake decorated with the words “Sorry Mr. Beast.” The gag referenced the online clash and Hearon’s joking claim that peace negotiations were underway.

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Hearon explained that MrBeast had in fact called him directly after the backlash. “Mr. Beast called me and said, ‘I’m so sorry about that,’” Hearon recalled, adding that he was never offended and thought the entire ordeal was hilarious. “I legitimately thought it was funny. I laughed so hard. It meant nothing to me.” Hearon also noted that he did not believe the Rolling Stone feature was ever meant to be a strict ranking, suggesting the order was designed to keep readers engaged.

The segment ended with and improvised cake gag, changing its message from an apology to MrBeast to an apology from MrBeast. For Hearon, the controversy was overblown, and MrBeast’s personal apology was enough to put it behind them.

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Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable
Product Reviews

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable review: Rolling in screen real estate

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Why you can trust Tom’s Hardware


Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Typically, the best ultrabooks don’t rock the boat too much. They might have lighter designs than previous years or improve performance with new chips. But the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is a unique device, with a rolling screen that turns a “short” 14-inch display into a very tall 16-inch diagonal experience.

It’s the type of device you would expect to see shown off at a trade show like CES (where it debuted) and then never seen again — except that for $3,299.99, you can actually own it.

  • Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable at Lenovo USA for $3,299.99

Design of the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

Out of the box, the ThinkBook looks like a pretty standard (if not dull) laptop, with a two-toned silver design. The screen has some odd bezels, wider on the sides than on the top and the bottom. The power button, which also features the fingerprint reader, is on the right side.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The aluminum deck is sturdy and features a backlit keyboard. The left side of the notebook features the laptop’s sole trio of ports: a pair of Thunderbolt 4/USB Type-C ports and a headphone jack. That’s not a lot of ports for any laptop, especially one seemingly meant for productivity, but I suppose something had to go in order to make room for the display.

The laptop is 11.95 x 9.08 x 0.78 inches and weighs 3.72 pounds, which is hefty for a 14-inch PC. But this laptop is also a 16-inch PC, thanks to its rollable display, which makes the ThinkBook far more interesting than it looks at first.

The system comes with a 65W GaN charger. It’s rare the charger gets a mention in our reviews, but it’s great to see the latest charger technology, including a removable USB Type-C cable, in a premium machine. Other laptop vendors should do this more often, and Lenovo should bring it to more of its own machines.

Display on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

With the ThinkBook’s screen rolled up, you get a 14-inch, 2000 x 1600 screen with a 5:4 aspect ratio. Unrolled, you get a far taller display, measuring 16.7 inches diagonally with a resolution of 2000 x 2350 and an 8:9 aspect ratio. The screen is a POLED (plastic OLED) display with a 120 Hz refresh rate.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

To let the screen unroll, you push a button on the keyboard. And the first time you try it, it feels absolutely awesome. Unfolding a foldable the first time feels futuristic. Having a motor do it for you feels magical.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The motor isn’t terribly loud, but it does take time to roll and unroll — about 9 seconds from button press to full extension or contraction. I’d like to see that cut in half, though I don’t know what that would do to durability. When Lenovo announced the laptop at CES, it claimed 30,000 hinge openings and closings and 20,000 screen rolls up and down. That’s a lot of rolls and openings, but it’s also a number you basically never have to think about with a traditional laptop design.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The plastic OLED screen looks really nice, and performs pretty well, too. The screen measured 150% of DCI-P3 coverage by volume, and 211.7% of SRGB, easily surpassing the Yoga Book 9i Gen 10’s impressive dual panels. At 381.4 nits of brightness, however, it falls behind the Yoga Book and the MacBook Pro.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The thing is, though, it’s not really great for multimedia. Even at 14-inches, the trailer for Superman had thick black bars on the top and bottom. Those increased to obscene amounts with the taller 16-inch screen unrolled.

What these aspect ratios do allow for is strong multitasking. Having the homepage of New York Magazine or Tom’s Hardware showed an almost overwhelming amount of text. But with the screen extended, I could use the top half for a Google Doc while using the bottom of the screen to keep an eye on Slack, or have the Tom’s Hardware’s morning meeting up at the top of the screen while still getting some work done on the bottom. And there are uses for tall displays; some coders love a desktop display turned vertical to show more text. This does that in a laptop.

I even used it to try playing Ikragua, an old bullet-hell game designed to be played vertically. Unfortunately, in much of my gaming, parts of the game were cut off despite the fact that it should have fit on the screen. This is no gaming device, simply because of that issue. Of course, it also doesn’t have dedicated graphics.

And for all its impressive unfurling, there are limitations to the screen. For one, it’s not a touchscreen, despite the many foldables that use similar technology, all featuring touch capabilities. I don’t feel that all clamshell laptops inherently need touchscreens, but there’s something about a screen this tall that feels like it invites it.

Additionally, the hinge only goes just past a 90-degree angle. This seemingly supports the display and rolling mechanism, ensuring it rolls and unrolls at ideal angles, but it feels quite limiting. It’s not good for lying back on the couch with the system in your lap. (The system also can tell if you have the angle below 90 degrees and won’t make adjustments.)

You have to be careful with the screen. If you attempt to shut the laptop with the 16-inch display unrolled, you’ll be greeted with a faint but annoying alarm until you open the system again.

You also can’t change the resolution or screen orientation in Windows 11 on this laptop. While I doubt many people would actually change it, it’s surprising to get a pop-up that says “The current model does not support resolution adjustment” as Windows reverts to the native resolution whether you tell it to or not. (You can still change scaling, though Lenovo warns it could cause problems with the ThinkBook Workspace app).

The other issue is that at certain angles, you can see where the screen bends to fit in the laptop. This isn’t terribly different from the way you can sometimes see the crease on foldable phones, but it doesn’t feel terribly premium.

Besides pushing the button on the keyboard, Lenovo has an opt-in feature that lets you use your hand and the time-of-flight sensor to raise and lower the screen. It sounds like a magic trick, but in practice it’s extremely finicky. You need your hand in the perfect spot, then the sensor needs to recognize your hand, and only then do you move it up or down. The keyboard button, on the other hand, is foolproof.

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Specifications

Swipe to scroll horizontally

CPU

Intel Core Ultra 7 258V

Graphics

Intel Arc 140V GPU (integrated)

Memory

32GB LPDDR5x-8533, soldered

Storage

1 TB PCIe M.2 2242 SSD

Display

POLED (Plastic OLED), 120 Hz Rolled: 14-inch, 2000 x 1600, 5:4 Unrolled: 16.7-inch, 2000 x 2350, 8:9

Networking

Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE201, Bluetooth 5.4

Ports

2x Thunderbolt 4 over USB Type-C, 3.5 mm head jack

Camera

5MP, infrared, Time-of-Flight Sensor, e-shutter

Battery

66 WHr

Power Adapter

65 WHr GaN USB-C charger

Operating System

Windows 11 Pro

Dimensions (WxDxH)

11.95 x 9.08 x 0.78 inches (303.5 x 230.6 x 19.9 mm)

Weight

3.72 pounds (1.69 kg)

Price (as configured)

$3,299.99

Today’s best Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable deals

Productivity Performance on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

There’s only one configuration of the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. The fancy screen is backed by an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. If you’re buying this, it’s mostly for the display.

The bump to 32GB of RAM is nice, but otherwise the specs are all pretty similar to what you can get in cheaper ultraportables. This price can get you a big, gaming-ready GPUs. With this laptop, you’re getting ultrabook internals and an innovative screen, and you’ll have to live with integrated graphics.

Here, we’re comparing the ThinkBook Plus to Lenovo’s own Yoga Book 9i (Intel Core Ultra 7 255H), with dual screens that also lets you work tall, as well as the 14-inch MacBook Pro and HP OmniBook X Flip 14, both of which are more typical laptops with Apple’s M4 and AMD’s Ryzen AI 7 350, respectively, and cost far less.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

On Geekbench 6, the Rollable earned a single-core score of 2,694 and a multi-core score of 10,847 – the lowest of the bunch, including Lenovo’s dual-screen foldable, which uses an H-series chip.

The Rollable copied 25GB of files at a rate of 1,075.92 MBps, just about in line with the Yoga Book, though the HP OmniBook was far faster.

It took the Rollable 7 minutes and 13 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, more than 2 minutes slower than the OmniBook (the M4 won here at 4:27).

We stress-tested the system using Cinebench 2024. The PC was largely stable, with scores settling in the high 490s, without signs of throttling. The CPU’s P-cores averaged 2.62 GHz during this test, while the E-cores measured 2.99 GHz.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

The Rollable’s scallop-shaped keys are great to type on. While I’ve seen some snappier keys on some of Lenovo’s ThinkPad lineup, this keyboard was comfortable and balanced, letting me hit 110 words per minute on the monkeytype typing test with my standard 2% error rate.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

I have no complaints about the haptic touchpad — a computer with a rolling screen doesn’t need more moving parts. It’s responsive to gestures and to clicks.

Audio on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

Maybe it’s the extra bit of thickness the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 needs to fit a screen, but it also allows for surprisingly powerful speakers in an ultrabook. As I worked, Linkin Park’s “Two Faced” screamed through my apartment with clear vocals, clashing drums, strong guitars, and even a hint of bass on the low end. You rarely find that on a business machine.

The song’s rapping and yelling were prioritized over sung vocals, but a quick change to the “balanced” mode in Dolby Access helped account for that, though it did lessen the bass.

Upgradeability of the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Given the complexity of this device, I was shocked that there were any user-replaceable parts.

The base of the notebook is held on with eight Torx screws (a T5 bit fits just right). Removing them, I was able to pull the bottom off from a well-placed space near the chassis’ palm rest.

The inside of the system is packed around the surprisingly wide 66 WHr battery. That cell is removable, though Lenovo recommends disconnecting the Wi-Fi antenna before taking it out, as the cables go right around the top of it (and over the ones that connect the battery to the motherboard). The SSD is also user-replaceable if you want to add more storage. The RAM is soldered.

Be careful while working inside this system, though. You can see some of the springs and rails that power the motorized display. I’d hate to lose a screw in there.

Battery Life on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

An extra two inches of screen real estate (and the accompanying pixels) affects battery life. Rolled up to 14 inches, the ThinkBook ran for 9 hours and 28 minutes on our battery test, which includes web browsing, light WebGL testing, and video streaming with the screen set to 150 nits. With the screen unrolled out to 16 inches it ran for 8:43.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Both are longer than the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i Gen 10, with two screens, and the HP OmniBook X Flip 14, a convertible with one display. Apple’s M4 and a mini-LED display, however, won out by far at 18 hours and 31 minutes.

Heat on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

To measure skin temperatures under load, we took heat readings while running our Cinebench 2024 stress test. The center of the keyboard measured 98 degrees Fahrenheit, while the touchpad was cooler at 92.3 F. The hottest point on the bottom of the notebook was near a vent at 113.5 F.

Internally, the CPU measured an average of 70.01 degrees Celsius during the same test.

Webcam on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

The webcam on the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, despite having a 5MP lens, is just OK. In video calls, I saw some grainy artifacts despite the high-resolution image.

But the tall screen on the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable adds a benefit: making it very easy to look at the camera. The angle changes slightly between 14 and 16-inch modes, but with the screen unrolled, you can look right at the camera.

The webcam features a shutter switch directly on top of the camera bump. I’d prefer a button on the keyboard, but this works fine.

Software and Warranty on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

Lenovo has several pieces of software designed specifically for the rollable, though I’ll be frank — I don’t think any of them are strictly necessary.

The big one is ThinkBook Workspace, which lets you add mini apps like your reminders, to-do-list, and calendar from your Microsoft account. The app also features a user guide, an awkward secondary virtual display, and access to Smart Copy, a clipboard manager. You can also pin your own apps to Workspace’s thick title bar. Personally, I preferred using Windows 11’s Snap Layouts to put apps where I wanted them on the screen. One of the first things I did with Workspace was prevent it from launching every single time I extended the screen (there’s an easy enough keyboard button for it).

ThinkBook Workspace has a ton of buried settings, many of them turned off by default. If you want a fun animation to play while you extend the screen (which I wouldn’t recommend, as it covers your work), or to try enabling the feature to raise the screen with your hand, you’ll have to dig.

There’s also Lenovo AI Now, a local AI app that lets you feed documents into your “personal knowledge base” to find or easily digest information without using the cloud. Lenovo requires an account for this app, which is a shame, since the point of it is that it uses local computing.

Just like Lenovo’s other devices, Vantage is on board for warranty information, easy access to your serial number, battery, and device settings, system updates, and an advertisement for McAfee Secure VPN.

There’s also Lenovo Smart Meeting, which makes adjustments to your camera, background, or replaces you with a temporary avatar if you have to leave a meeting. There’s also Smart Connect to add Lenovo or Motorola phones and tablets to your PC. Lenovo Now attempts to foist upsells and partner offers on you, and I think for a $3,300 laptop, you shouldn’t have to deal with that.

Lenovo sells the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 with a one-year courier or carry-in warranty, which can be increased for a longer duration or to include more services for additional charges.

Bottom Line

When my colleagues and I see futuristic concepts at trade shows like CES, they tend to stay concepts. But Lenovo made the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable real, and it’s by far the most interesting laptop I’ve reviewed in a long time.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

It’s a good enough performer for typical productivity tasks like writing, spreadsheets, video conferencing, and basic coding. But with the $3,299.99 price tag, you’re really paying for that rolling screen and all of the engineering behind it.

In truth, there’s nothing like it. Perhaps the closest options – the initial slate of foldable laptops that included the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 – are either no longer available or are several generations of chips behind. This device also offers a traditional laptop keyboard and touchpad, unlike the more powerful Yoga Book 9i with dual screens.

You could buy any number of traditional laptops with similar specs and add in one of the best portable monitors on top of it for a lot less money. But if you’re OK with more moving parts in your laptop and you want more screen when you need it, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable sure is easier to carry. If that’s worth the considerable extra expense (and extra weight) for you, then the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is worth considering.

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable: Price Comparison



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Somebody has turned a daft English cheese rolling festival into an even dafter free Steam game
Game Updates

Somebody has turned a daft English cheese rolling festival into an even dafter free Steam game

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Amid the madness of Gamescom, we somehow skipped the most important game of the year. Cheese Rolling is a multiplayer ragdoll game inspired by the ancient Gloucestershire, England pastime of racing a hunk of dairy down a hill.


The hill in question is Cooper’s Hill at Brockworth, and the ceremony apparently dates back to at least 1826 – providing you trust the account of that year’s Gloucester town crier – which makes the sport of cheese rolling at least 47 years older than Rock Paper Shotgun. The cheese in question is usually Double Gloucester – scandalously, they resorted to a foam replica in 2013 – and is given a strict one-second headstart.

Watch on YouTube


I hadn’t heard of Cheese Racing before, but I do have relatives down Gloucestershire way, and now I fear for them. I’m not just saying that because I’m vegan, though yes, I’m tempted to go sabotage the festivities by stealing into what I assume is a closely-guarded tent at night, and replacing the wheel with a large ball of tempeh. But mostly I am concerned for their physical safety and moral wellbeing.

Apparently, four kilograms of cheese can do a royal fuckload of damage when it achieves maximum velocity. 16 people were injured during the 1993 event, says Wikipedia, “four of them seriously”. What. Also, Wikipedia claims that nobody has ever caught the cheese, at least in recorded history. The winner is whoever crosses the finishing line second. So this is just a regular old race, in practice, with a wholly unnecessary and patently unsafe fermented milk modifier.

The official title for the event is “Cheese-Rolling and Wake”, and while local historians insist they don’t mean “wake” as in “funeral”, you do have to wonder if this is the distorted folk memory of a terrible accident at a hilltop dairy. Kind of like how “London’s burning, London’s burning” is now a charming nursery rhyme.


I’m going to contact the organisers and suggest they play the Steam version of Cheese Racing instead. Created by mercurial developer The Interviewed – their very name a brainlocking allusion to a history of media relations that does not, seemingly, exist – it’s more dangerous than traditional Gloucestershire cheese-rolling in that it features an active volcano, but less dangerous in that it is not real. No bones will be broken hounding this cheese, unless you try to play it while driving a bus. Also, it supports eight player sessions and proximity voice chat. There’s some paid DLC in the shape of a suit of armour costing £1.48 – as far as I can deduce, this isn’t some kind of scam, but tread cautiously, ye who fell foul of the evil Banana.


The real selling point, though, is that you can actually catch the renegade curd in this one. My friends in Gloucestershire: thanks to the miracle of modern technology, you need no longer harm and humiliate yourselves in your hunger for dairy. Here is a computer. Behold, there is cheese in the computer! Now all you have to do is roll the cheese down the hill – no wait, not the ACTUAL COMPUTER



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Jesse Hamilton
NFT Gaming

While CFTC Awaits New Chairman, Acting Chief Pham Gets Rolling on Crypto

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With the chairmanship still an open question for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — likely to be a leading U.S. watchdog for crypto — its interim leader, Caroline Pham, is getting started on recommendations from the recent crypto report of the President’s Working Group.

The CFTC, which regulates U.S. derivatives trading and would assume oversight of the bulk of U.S. crypto trading under Congress’ market structure legislation, was at the center of key recommendations in the Trump administration report. So Pham, who President Donald Trump named acting chairman earlier this year, directed the agency to start taking industry input on meeting what’s become “a top priority” of the White House.

“I am beginning stakeholder engagement on all other report recommendations for the CFTC with the full support of the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets to operationalize President Trump’s promise to win on crypto,” Pham said in a statement. The agency is formally requesting public comments on fulfilling the report’s recommendations, opening a two-month window for input.

The CFTC is facing potential leadership drama, with Pham having said she’s on her way out and the confirmation process to make former Commissioner Brian Quintenz the chairman deliberately delayed by the White House. Quintenz drew open criticism from Tyler Winklevoss, CEO of Gemini, who is among Trump’s inner circle of favored crypto executives, but the bulk of the industry’s lobbyists are asking the president to press for a quick approval of his nomination. For reasons it never detailed, the White House delayed what would have been a final committee vote to send Quintenz’s confirmation to the Senate floor, it’s reportedly still backing him.

After that stitch in his confirmation, the Senate went on its August break, further forestalling the resolution of the CFTC chairmanship, with Pham poised to leave and the only other sitting commissioner — Democrat Kristin Johnson — also planning to go. Even if Quintenz is quickly confirmed after the Senate’s summer recess, he may take over an otherwise empty five-member commission.

Meanwhile, Pham said the CFTC’s renewed crypto effort is meant to operate alongside “Project Crypto” recently announced by Paul Atkins, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is a followup to the “crypto sprint” that Pham most recently promised on Aug. 1.

Read More: U.S. CFTC Considers Allowing Spot Crypto Trading on Registered Futures Exchanges



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A pile of Britons rolling down a snowy hillside after a cheese wheel.
Gaming Gear

Cheese Rolling is the best free Steam game about the age-old English tradition of hurling yourself down a hillside in pursuit of tumbling dairy

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Every year since at least 1826, hundreds of questionably-hinged individuals from around the globe gather at Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire to enjoy the privilege of throwing themselves down a steep slope to chase a rolling wheel of Double Gloucester cheese. Competitors risk any number of bodily injuries, as the annually overtaxed emergency medical services of the region will tell you.

If, like me, you’ve been faintly, distantly jealous of those cheese-crazed tumblers and their yearly submission to gravity’s bone-shattering whims in hopes of claiming praise and prize (the prize is cheese), I have great news: There’s a game for that now, and it won’t cost you any money. Or fractures.

Cheese Rolling launched just two days ago. In it, you play as one of up to eight hapless Britons. Said hapless Britons are perched atop a hillside. There is a cheese wheel there, and it is already rolling, and you must grab it first to win.


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What follows is a physics-based tangle of flailing, flopping peasantry. You have just enough control over your character’s movement to trick yourself into believing you’re improving at the sacred art of cheese rolling, only to watch as you—and everyone else—reach a high enough velocity that you overshoot the cheese wheel and end up at the bottom in a frantic pile trying to be the first to writhe out of the mass.

As is becoming a standard for physics-based chaos simulators, Cheese Rolling has proximity chat. I could only find one other person online while I was playing, but that meant I could clearly hear his fading wail of “Fuck” as he narrowly missed the cheese and bounced impotently into the misted distance.

(Image credit: The Interviewed)

Luckily, there’s a more than adequate singleplayer mode for anyone who wants to get in early and master your technique. For reasons we may never be able to explain, Cheese Rolling doesn’t have much of a following yet. If you ever hoped to secure your place as a cheese-chasing legend, now’s your chance.

Cheese Rolling is available now on Steam.



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Underdogs Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt look to keep good times rolling
Esports

Underdogs Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt look to keep good times rolling

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  • Ryan McGeeAug 19, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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    • Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
    • 2-time Sports Emmy winner
    • 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year

It is so hard for anyone to stand out in Nashville because everyone in Nashville is always trying so hard to stand out.

All of those off-the-bus would-be country music stars, performing in so many Broadway bars owned by so many actual stars, entertaining all those bachelorettes in pink cowboy hats and those dudes who look like they are attending a Luke Combs lookalike contest. Music City, USA is always a good time, but it also becomes very repetitive. This town aches for someone to come along and finally snap it out of its endless two-stepping loop. Say, a big-haired blond woman from Sevierville, Tennessee. Or a Man in Black on the train a-comin’ from Folsom. Maybe a girl from a Christmas tree farm in eastern Pennsylvania.

Or a Bama-beating water bug of a quarterback who rolled in off a desert wind that blew in from New Mexico.

“Straight out the dirt, son,” Diego Pavia says, the 24-year-old laughing as he sits up and slaps his hand on a meeting room table in Vanderbilt football’s quarterbacks meeting room. “When I first got here, you would walk down to Broadway and everyone had on Alabama stuff or Georgia stuff or the bars would just have Tennessee flags out front. Now I see a lot of Vandy V’s out there. I think maybe people didn’t see that coming. Just like they didn’t see me coming.”

They see him now. We all do. One year ago, we saw the 6-foot QB (well, that’s how tall the Vanderbilt media guide says he is, but most everyone lists him at 5-10 … but, when a 5-10 sportswriter looks him in the eye, he might be 5-9 … but who cares because he’s also built like a BMW X4) lead the Commodores to the program’s first winning season, first stint in the AP Top 25 and first bowl win since the 2013 campaign. On Oct. 5, 2024, we saw him emulate his childhood hero, Johnny Manziel, by running past No. 1 Alabama, Vandy’s first win over the Tide in 40 years and first win over a top-5 team ever, ending an 0-60 drought.

And in more recent days, the world has seen Pavia at SEC media days and on Netflix, proclaiming that longtime lowly SEC cellar dweller Vandy can be a national title contender. And as the world entered last weekend, it did so dancing along with No. 2 in a music video that dropped for the song “Pavia Mafia,” as artist Axel Varela declared: “From the 505 to the world, baby!” and “Yo me enamoré del juego,” which translates to “I fell in love with the game.”

What none of us saw were those days when that love affair began for Pavia. It was on the outskirts of Albuquerque, where he grew up as the third of four children, with two older brothers and a kid sister. They were raised by Antoinette Padilla, who found herself in the role of a single mother as Diego was becoming a teenager and realized that her job as a front desk office worker wasn’t going to cover the bills. She had grown up as one of 14 siblings, also in a single-parent home, and refused to put her kids through that same struggle. So she enrolled in nursing school.

“I remember all of her books and papers spread out all over the kitchen table,” Pavia recalls. “She would cook dinner for us and we’d all eat and I’d see she hadn’t eaten anything. I’d ask her about it and she’d just say, ‘Oh, I’m not hungry.’ Now I realize that she was hungry, but that’s all we had. We were kids, so all we knew was that ‘we good, man.’ But now we know it’s because she was always sacrificing.”

Padilla was also always working. Once she began her career as a long-term care nurse, she refused to be saddled with the loans she had taken out to pay for school. She studied house flipping and started buying fixer-uppers around Albuquerque. And who do you think did the fixing?

“We would work in the yards, paint, install new windows, all of it, as kids,” Pavia says with a little shake of his head. “She would rent them out, save up and then sell them. Then she started doing cars on the side. Buy a car cheap at auction, for like $2,000, fix it up and resell it for $6,000.”

So, if one were to buy a house with windows installed or a car detailed by 13-year-old Diego Pavia, were they going to be happy with the results?

“I haven’t received any complaints yet, man.”

Diego Pavia enjoys the moment after Vanderbilt’s stunning win over No. 1 Alabama. Butch Dill/Imagn Images

In their mother’s sizable wake, the three boys attacked every aspect of their lives at full throttle, especially when it came to football and wrestling. Oldest brother Roel participated in both sports at Briar Cliff University, an NAIA school in Sioux City, Iowa. Just as Mom had shown Diego how to scramble out of debt, his brother showed him the benefits of attending college.

“As he got older, he developed into a rock,” Roel says. “He hit that growth spurt and it was all muscle. That’s when the older brothers stop picking on little brother because little brother can kick your ass.”

That growth was in the shoulders and legs. It was not in height. So, even as Diego led the Volcano Vista Hawks to a perfect regular season and the state semifinals, no one in Division I college football gave the QB a serious look. But what hurt the most was when the hometown New Mexico Lobos said they were passing not because they thought he was too small, but because he was too cocky.

“He still isn’t over that one,” Vandy football consultant Jerry Kill says with a laugh. “I don’t think he ever will be over that one. That’s always been part of his gasoline.”

Instead, Pavia settled for New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where he led his team to the 2021 junior college national title. That night, his heroics for the Broncos were being shown on local New Mexico television. Bellied up to the bar in the Las Cruces Hooters were Kill and longtime mentee Tim Beck, the just-hired head coach and offensive coordinator at New Mexico State. They were watching the game to scout a quarterback — initially, Pavia’s opponent. But when the fire hydrant playing QB for NMMI ran through Iowa Western for a 34-yard touchdown and an early 14-0 lead, Kill looked at Beck and said, “Hell, man, we’ve been watching the wrong guy.”

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That wrong guy became the right guy for the New Mexico State Aggies, as Pavia led the bottom-10 stalwart to a 7-6 record in 2022. The following year, the Aggies went 10-5, the program’s first double-digit-win season in more than six decades. Pavia most relished the Aggies’ win over New Mexico in Albuquerque, even more than their stunning upset at Auburn. Unfortunately, he went viral after that Rio Grande Rivalry win when video surfaced of him urinating on the UNM logo at its indoor practice facility. That incident came up again at season’s end, when New Mexico State earned an invite to the New Mexico Bowl, hosted by the Lobos, and the Aggies weren’t allowed to use that facility to prepare for the game.

“That was embarrassing and inexcusable and no one knows that more than Diego Pavia,” Kill says. “But I also told you he was still mad about what happened coming out of high school.”

“We all make mistakes,” Pavia admits now.

When Kill retired following that magical 2022 season, Pavia nearly made another mistake, though at the time most believed his mistake to be the decision that he made, not the one he backed out on. Suddenly a hot commodity at the dawn of the NIL era, Pavia accepted an invite and a nice payout to transfer from New Mexico State to Nevada. Then his phone rang. It was Kill, whose retirement had lasted all of a few weeks.

“I went to Las Cruces to try and convince Tim Beck to come help us with our offense,” Clark Lea says of the trip he took in late fall 2023, just as he had wrapped up his third season as head coach at Vanderbilt, his alma mater. It was a crushingly disappointing year, the Commodores starting 2-0 but finishing 2-10. “Jerry sat in on some of our conversations and we all connected immediately.”

Diego Pavia takes a selfie with the Roman god Vulcan depicted on the Birmingham Bowl trophy after Vandy’s first bowl win since 2013. Matthew Maxey/Icon Sportswire

Soon Beck was headed to Nashville with several of his offensive players in tow. Kill tells the story that he was on the beach in Mexico, three margaritas deep, when Beck and Lea finally convinced him to join them. Pavia tells the story that Kill then called him and said, “Don’t make a mistake and go to Nevada. I’m moving to Nashville and you’re coming with me.”

Pavia loves Kill and Beck so much that he made the move without hesitation, even leaving money on the table at Nevada. He also refused to leave Vandy after the storybook tale of 2024, telling the “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast that he had passed on a $4 million-plus NIL offer from an SEC rival to remain in Music City. What’s more, he won an injunction versus the NCAA for one more year of eligibility, instead of being penalized for time served at the junior college level.

“I think that it is easy to see the guy who likes to talk a little and who likes to celebrate a lot and think, ‘Oh, he’s that guy,'” Lea says. “But look at what he has done to be here and stay here, and look at the 50 people who come from New Mexico to be with his family at our games. That’s someone who loves this place.

“Talk to our basketball office or [Vandy baseball head coach] Tim Corbin, and they will tell you that Diego is in their offices, asking about what it takes to win. He has big dreams for himself, but he came here and all of those people come here with him because they love it here.”

Now, everyone else is coming, too, to be with the Pavia Mafia to watch college football at, of all places, Vanderbilt. Yes, he is most definitely prone to hyperbole, but Pavia’s observation about the gentle transfusion of black and gold into the college football identity of the bars along the Cumberland River is no exaggeration. It’s visible. As are the construction cranes that cover FirstBank Stadium, long the SEC’s time capsule of football venues, and the ground being broken to replace the team’s cramped subterranean 1990s football facilities.

All of that renovation was already on the books before Pavia arrived. But the kid who used to flip houses with his mother has injected that sweat equity investment mentality into Nashville’s business community and Vanderbilt’s alumni base.

Nashville is a city that has been constructed atop the idea of having a good time. Residents and visitors alike have never had a problem finding that good time everywhere from Tootsies to the Titans. Now, thanks to the QB that no one saw coming, they are discovering a good time at a place that has been hiding in plain sight since it hosted the state of Tennessee’s first college football game in 1890.

“Building stuff is fun, man,” Pavia says. “It isn’t easy. But nothing worth it is ever easy. So when that work pays off, let’s enjoy it, Vandy. We earned it because we built it.”

Straight out the dirt?

“Straight out the damn dirt.”



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