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Product Reviews

Major League Baseball will adopt an automated challenge system in 2026

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Next year, baseball reasons will have one less reason to rage at the umpire. Major League Baseball announced today that it will introduce the Automated Ball Strike challenge system in the 2026 season for all spring training, championship season and postseason games. In other words, next year there will be a way for the players to attempt to overturn an umpire’s call about whether a pitch counts as a strike or a ball if they disagree with the initial decision. 

ABS uses a network of a dozen camera to record every pitch thrown. The umpire will still call the pitch a ball or strike as usual, but under the new system, the pitcher, catcher or batter can immediately challenge that decision. Coaching staff and other players cannot offer input on whether or not a challenge is initiated. If the cameras show any part of the ball touching the batter’s strike zone, the pitch will be counted as a strike. All teams will begin a game with two challenge opportunities, and only lose them if they challenge unsuccessfully. For games that go into extra innings, a team will get an additional challenge if it has none remaining at the start of the additional gameplay.  

Baseball has taken a gradual path to introducing this tech. ABS has been tested at the Triple-A level since 2022, and it finally got a chance in the majors during spring training and in the All-Star Game this year. Other sports have also been leveraging electronics to ensure that gameplay rules and scoring are consistent. Football/soccer has implemented a video assistant referee (VAR) system in several leagues, including FIFA and the UK’s Premier league. Tennis is also adopting electronic line calls at Wimbledon and other tournaments. Even the electronic systems are not infallible, but considering how much any high-level athletic endeavor can be won or lost by millimeters, having a backup for the human eye seems like a net positive.



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MLB approves robot umpires for 2026 as part of challenge system
Esports

MLB approves robot umpires for 2026 as part of challenge system

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Sep 23, 2025, 01:58 PM ET

NEW YORK — Robot umpires are getting called up to the big leagues next season.

Major League Baseball’s 11-man competition committee on Tuesday approved use of the Automated Ball/Strike System in the major leagues in 2026.

Human plate umpires will still call balls and strikes, but teams can challenge two calls per game and get additional appeals in extra innings. Challenges must be made by a pitcher, catcher or batter — signaled by tapping their helmet or cap — and a team retains its challenge if successful. Reviews will be shown as digital graphics on outfield videoboards.

Adding the robot umps is likely to cut down on ejections. MLB said 61.5% of ejections among players, managers and coaches last year were related to balls and strikes, as were 60.3% this season through Sunday. The figures include ejections for derogatory comments, throwing equipment while protesting calls and inappropriate conduct.

Big league umpires call roughly 94% of pitches correctly, according to UmpScorecards.

ABS, which uses Hawk-Eye cameras, has been tested in the minor leagues since 2019. The independent Atlantic League trialed the system at its 2019 All-Star Game and MLB installed the technology for that’s year Arizona Fall League of top prospects. The ABS was tried at eight of nine ballparks of the Low-A Southeast League in 2021, then moved up to Triple-A in 2022.

At Triple-A at the start of the 2023 season, half the games used the robots for ball/strike calls and half had a human making decisions subject to appeals by teams to the ABS.

MLB switched Triple-A to an all-challenge system on June 26, 2024, then used the challenge system this year at 13 spring training ballparks hosting 19 teams for a total of 288 exhibition games. Teams won 52.2% of their ball/strike challenges (617 of 1,182) challenges.

At Triple-A this season, the average challenges per game increased to 4.2 from 3.9 through Sunday and the success rate dropped to 49.5% from 50.6%. Defenses were successful in 53.7% of challenges this year and offenses in 45%.

In the first test at the big league All-Star Game, four of five challenges of plate umpire Dan Iassogna’s calls were successful in July.

Teams in Triple-A do not get additional challenges in extra innings. The proposal approved Tuesday included a provision granting teams one additional challenge each inning if they don’t have challenges remaining.

MLB has experimented with different shapes and interpretations of the strike zone with ABS, including versions that were three-dimensional. Currently, it calls strikes solely based on where the ball crosses the midpoint of the plate, 8.5 inches from the front and the back. The top of the strike zone is 53.5% of batter height and the bottom 27%.

This will be MLB’s first major rule change since sweeping adjustments in 2024. Those included a pitch clock, restrictions on defensive shifts, pitcher disengagements such as pickoff attempts and larger bases.

The challenge system introduces ABS without eliminating pitch framing, a subtle art where catchers use their body and glove to try making borderline pitches look like strikes. Framing has become a critical skill for big league catchers, and there was concern that full-blown ABS would make some strong defensive catchers obsolete. Not that everyone loves it.

“The idea that people get paid for cheating, for stealing strikes, for moving a pitch that’s not a strike into the zone to fool the official and make it a strike is beyond my comprehension,” former manager Bobby Valentine said.

Texas manager Bruce Bochy, a big league catcher from 1978 to ’87, maintained that old-school umpires such as Bruce Froemming and Billy Williams never would have accepted pitch framing. He said they would have told him: “‘If you do that again, you’ll never get a strike.’ I’m cutting out some words.”

Management officials on the competition committee include Seattle chairman John Stanton, St. Louis CEO Bill DeWitt Jr., San Francisco chairman Greg Johnson, Colorado CEO Dick Monfort, Toronto CEO Mark Shapiro and Boston chairman Tom Werner.

Players include Arizona’s Corbin Burnes and Zac Gallen, Detroit’s Casey Mize, Seattle’s Cal Raleigh and the New York Yankees’ Austin Slater, with the Chicago Cubs’ Ian Happ as an alternate. The union representatives make their decisions based on input from players on the 30 teams.

Bill Miller is the umpire representative.



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New AI System Predicts Risk of 1,000 Diseases Years in Advance
GameFi Guides

New AI System Predicts Risk of 1,000 Diseases Years in Advance

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In brief

  • Researchers unveiled Delphi-2M in Nature, an AI that forecasts risk for 1,000+ diseases up to 20 years out.
  • The model outperformed single-disease tools, predicting co-morbidities and generating synthetic health trajectories from medical records.
  • Trained on UK Biobank and validated on 1.9M Danish health records, Delphi-2M shows promise but faces bias, privacy, and deployment hurdles.

Researchers have built an AI system that predicts your risk of developing more than 1,000 diseases up to 20 years before symptoms appear, according to a study published in Nature this week.

The model, called Delphi-2M, achieved 76% accuracy for near-term health predictions and maintained 70% accuracy even when forecasting a decade into the future.

It outperformed existing single-disease risk calculators while simultaneously assessing risks across the entire spectrum of human illness.



“The progression of human disease across age is characterized by periods of health, episodes of acute illness and also chronic debilitation, often manifesting as clusters of co-morbidity,” the researchers wrote. “Few algorithms are capable of predicting the full spectrum of human disease, which recognizes more than 1,000 diagnoses at the top level of the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) coding system.”

The system learned these patterns from 402,799 UK Biobank participants, then proved its mettle on 1.9 million Danish health records without any additional training.

Before you start rubbing your hands with the idea of your own medical predictor, can you try Delphi-2M yourself? Not exactly.

The trained model and its weights are locked behind UK Biobank’s controlled access procedures—meaning researchers only. The codebase for training your own version is on GitHub under an MIT license, so you could technically build your own model, but you’d need access to massive medical datasets to make it work.

For now, this remains a research tool, not a consumer app.

Behind the curtain

The technology works by treating medical histories as sequences—much like ChatGPT processes text.

Each diagnosis, recorded with the age it first occurred, becomes a token. The model reads this medical “language” and predicts what comes next.

With the proper information and training, you can predict the next token (in this case, the next illness) and the estimated time before that “token” is generated (how long until you get sick if the most likely set of events occurs).

For a 60-year-old with diabetes and high blood pressure, Delphi-2M might forecast a 19-fold increased risk of pancreatic cancer. Add a pancreatic cancer diagnosis to that history, and the model calculates mortality risk jumping nearly ten thousandfold.

The transformer architecture behind Delphi-2M represents each person’s health journey as a timeline of diagnostic codes, lifestyle factors like smoking and BMI, and demographic data. “No event” padding tokens fill the gaps between medical visits, teaching the model that the simple passage of time changes baseline risk.

This is also similar to how normal LLMs can understand text even if they miss some words or even sentences.

When tested against established clinical tools, Delphi-2M matched or exceeded their performance. For cardiovascular disease prediction, it achieved an AUC of 0.70 compared to 0.69 for AutoPrognosis and 0.71 for QRisk3. For dementia, it hit 0.81 versus 0.81 for UKBDRS. The key difference: those tools predict single conditions. Delphi-2M evaluates everything at once.

Beyond individual predictions, the system generates entire synthetic health trajectories.

Starting from age 60 data, it can simulate thousands of possible health futures, producing population-level disease burden estimates accurate to within statistical margins. One synthetic dataset trained a secondary Delphi model that achieved 74% accuracy—just three percentage points below the original.

The model revealed how diseases influence each other over time. Cancers increased mortality risk with a “half-life” of several years, while septicemia’s effect dropped sharply, returning to near-baseline within months. Mental health conditions showed persistent clustering effects, with one diagnosis strongly predicting others in that category years later.

Limitations

The system does have boundaries. Its 20-year predictions drop to around 60-70% accuracy in general, but things will depend on which type of disease and conditions it tries to analyze and forecast.

“For 97% of diagnoses, the AUC was greater than 0.5, indicating that the vast majority followed patterns with at least partial predictability,” the study says, adding later on that “Delphi-2M’s average AUC values decrease from an average of 0.76 to 0.70 after 10 years,” and that “iIn the first year of sampling, there are on average 17% disease tokens that are correctly predicted, and this drops to less than 14% 20 years later.”

In other words, this model is quite good at predicting things under relevant scenarios, but a lot can change in 20 years, so it’s not Nostradamus.

Rare diseases and highly environmental conditions prove harder to forecast. The UK Biobank’s demographic skew—mostly white, educated, relatively healthy volunteers—introduces bias that the researchers acknowledge needs addressing.

Danish validation revealed another limitation: Delphi-2M learned some UK-specific data collection quirks. Diseases recorded primarily in hospital settings appeared artificially inflated, contradicting the data registered by the Danish people.

The model predicted septicemia at eight times the normal rate for anyone with prior hospital data, partly because 93% of UK Biobank septicemia diagnoses came from hospital records.

The researchers trained Delphi-2M using a modified GPT-2 architecture with 2.2 million parameters—tiny compared to modern language models but sufficient for medical prediction. Key modifications included continuous age encoding instead of discrete position markers and an exponential waiting time model to predict when events would occur, not just what would happen.

Each health trajectory in the training data contained an average of 18 disease tokens spanning birth to age 80. Sex, BMI categories, smoking status, and alcohol consumption added context.

The model learned to weigh these factors automatically, discovering that obesity increased diabetes risk while smoking elevated cancer probabilities—relationships that medicine has long established but that emerged without explicit programming. It’s truly an LLM for health conditions.

For clinical deployment, several hurdles remain.

The model needs validation across more diverse populations—for example, the lifestyles and habits of people from Nigeria, China, and America can be very different, making the model less accurate.

Also, privacy concerns around using detailed health histories require careful handling. Integration with existing healthcare systems poses technical and regulatory challenges.

But the potential applications span from identifying screening candidates who don’t meet age-based criteria to modeling population health interventions. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, and public health agencies may have obvious interests.

Delphi-2M joins a growing family of transformer-based medical models. Some examples include Harvard’s PDGrapher tool for predicting gene-drug combinations that could reverse diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, an LLM specifically trained on protein connections, Google’s AlphaGenome model trained on DNA pairs, and others.

What makes Delphi-2M so interesting and different is its broad scope of action, the sheer breadth of diseases covered, its long prediction horizon, and its ability to generate realistic synthetic data that preserves statistical relationships while protecting individual privacy.

In other words: “How long do I have?” may soon be less a rhetorical question and more a predictable data point.

Generally Intelligent Newsletter

A weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI model.



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Samsung HW-Q990F Soundbar System Review: Glorious Atmos
Gaming Gear

Samsung HW-Q990F Soundbar System Review: Glorious Atmos

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Most people aren’t using physical media anymore, which is why I spent the majority of my time testing the HW-Q990F with streaming media. I find that Apple TV has the best audio quality of any of the major streaming services, which tracks with my experience testing this bar: Atmos-mixed shows like sci-fi hit Foundation come through with gorgeous clarity and dynamic bass as you’d expect with any soundbar worth its salt.

It’s the overhead, object-based Atmos audio effects that really stagger me. Raindrops and creaky chairs seem to exist in my testing room with me; the burbling engines of Ford GT prototypes fill the room when watching Ford v Ferrari.

Samsung has both stellar processing and the ability to bounce sounds around smaller and medium-size rooms nailed. The side speakers on the satellite drivers and the various angled speakers on the main bar really make you feel like you are being attacked on all sides by audio. I really loved the way sounds swirled around me when watching my 4K Blu-Ray copy of Blade Runner 2049, with wavy synths meeting ship sounds and rainy backgrounds among other on-screen noises in 3D space.

Photograph: Parker Hall

There’s tons of adjustability when it comes to sound modes (Standard, Game, Surround, and Adaptive), EQ levels, and volume of each speaker, and I’d recommend tuning the settings to your personal taste in your specific room. I found the settings to be pretty bang-on out of the box; I have a fairly traditional home theater setup with two speaker stands behind my listening position and the subwoofer next to the TV stand, and it sounded great almost instantly (I did have to adjust the subwoofer level slightly up).

The soundbar can pair with modern Samsung TVs like the S95F in a mode Samsung calls Q-Symphony, allowing it to use the TV speakers in addition to the bar, subwoofer, and surrounds. I didn’t find this particularly enticing; it seemed to boost the highs a bit but didn’t really do much for overall immersion. If you have a Samsung TV, it’s worth trying both on and off, but this feature isn’t a deal breaker if you want an LG, Sony, TCL, Panasonic, or Hisense TV.

The best part of this system is that it works just fine with any other products in TV land, not just Samsung’s. I love how easy it is to set up, and I love that it really does feel like it is offering me the highest-quality sound in the most compact package. The fact that last year’s bar is still for sale (and still very similar sounding) is actually a plus: Samsung has pretty much nailed the existing needs of listeners at this point. There are very few soundbar systems that compete, but I’d say that higher-end bars from Sonos, Bose, and LG do give this system a run for its money. That said, none of them have this many channels done this well, which makes Samsung’s HW-Q990F the top of the pile for me in 2025 so far.



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New PS5 system update finally makes using a DualSense controller on multiple devices far less hassle
Game Reviews

New PS5 system update finally makes using a DualSense controller on multiple devices far less hassle

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A PS5 system update is due tomorrow that will finally add controller pairing across multiple devices.


It means if you’re using your DualSense controller across more than one console – or for PC or mobile play, for instance – you will no longer need to pair it each time.


This update was detailed by Sony back in July, but finally it will be available globally for users from tomorrow, 17th September.


The update will also add Power Saver mode, which will scale back performance to reduce power consumption. Future updates for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Demon’s Souls, and Ghost of Yōtei will make use of this feature.


Full details can be found on the PlayStation Blog.



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Cryptocurrencies Will Modernize The Entire Capitalist System
Crypto Trends

Cryptocurrencies Will Modernize The Entire Capitalist System

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Calling crypto “Web 3.0”, the third layer of the internet that enables permissionless asset ownership on the Web, “undermines” crypto’s true significance, which is a complete overhaul of the capitalist system, according to Mert Mumtaz, CEO of remote procedure call (RPC) node provider Helius. 

Mumtaz said that crypto supercharges all the necessary ingredients for capitalism to function properly, including the free flow of information in a decentralized way, immutable property rights, incentive alignment, transparency, and “frictionless” capital flows. Mumtaz added:

“Crypto’s endgame will be that it fundamentally evolves the most impactful human invention of all time: capitalism. We said crypto was Web 3.0, but that undermines it — it is actually capitalism 2.0.”Source: Mert Mumtaz

In September, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), two US financial regulatory agencies, released a joint statement teasing the possibility of 24/7 capital markets in the country.

If the agencies succeed in establishing always-on capital markets, the move would mark a significant and seismic departure from the legacy financial system, which is slow to move and closes on nights, weekends, and most holidays.

Related: Tokenization could unlock capital markets growth in Latin America

US regulators signal that 24/7 financial markets are coming

The SEC and CFTC outlined several points that could modernize the existing financial system, including always-on markets, regulatory frameworks for perpetual futures contracts — futures contracts without an expiry date — and regulations for event prediction markets. 

“Certain markets, including foreign exchange, gold, and crypto assets, already trade continuously. Further expanding trading hours could better align US markets with the evolving reality of a global, always-on economy,” the joint SEC and CFTC statement read.

These proposals would further intertwine the traditional financial system with digital assets and migrate the legacy financial system to internet capital markets through digital rails, including the tokenization of real world financial assets on the blockchain.

An overview of the real-world tokenized asset market, including stablecoins. Source: RWA.XYZ

Tokenized assets can include stocks, fiat currencies in the form of stablecoins, private credit, bonds, art, collectibles, and even real-estate.

In July, the Solana Foundation, the organization that oversees the development of the Solana blockchain network, revealed a roadmap to develop internet capital markets through 2027.

The roadmap came amid several blockchain companies and traditional financial firms announcing tokenized products, including mixed brokerage platform Robinhood, which introduced tokenized stock trading in July for European users.

Magazine: Can Robinhood or Kraken’s tokenized stocks ever be truly decentralized?



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OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro lens in photographer's hands
Product Reviews

OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro review: an incredible wildlife and sports zoom

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OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro: two-minute review

Having shot with the OM System 50-200mm F2.8 zoom, I’m now an even bigger fan of the Micro Four Thirds format for wildlife photography than I was previously. It’s a fabulous lens in every regard, with superb build quality, excellent handling and top-drawer image quality.

Above all, its bright maximum f/2.8 aperture – which is a first for a 100-400mm equivalent lens – delivers super-fast shutter speeds and better light intake than cheaper alternatives, which levels up the kind of telephoto wildlife action it’s possible to capture.

I tested the telephoto zoom with an OM System OM-1 II; together the IP53-rated weather-resistant pairing are impressively lightweight at just 59oz / 1,674g, and deliver incredible image stabilization and subject-detection autofocus performance, especially for birds – the lens’s autofocus can continuously keep up with the camera’s blazing 50fps burst shooting speeds.

I love how the lens balances with the camera, and I happily carried the pairing all day, rain or shine. Its internal zoom further protects against potential dust ingress over the long run, and I’ve no doubt it’ll last for many years of heavy use.

Image 1 of 3

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Detail is impressively sharp, even at f/2.8, which is the aperture I used the most. This setting also enables the use of the fast shutter speeds that are crucial for high-speed wildlife photography.

Bokeh at f/2.8 is smooth for the most part, though in some scenarios it appeared a little fussy. Close the aperture down and you lose the circular shaping, and get harder edges instead. Bokeh is fine overall, but this is probably the only real negative to mention regarding optical quality.

Close focusing impresses – just 0.78m at any focal length, for up to half-life-size macro capture.

I do have to get the small matter of the price out of the way at this point. At £3,000 (US and Australia pricing is TBC), the 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro is less than half the price of OM System’s other pro ‘white’ lens, the 150-400mm F4.5, but almost three times the price of the 40-150mm F2.8.

In fact, it’s pricier than similar full-frame lenses – Nikon’s 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S comes to mind. However, considering the features on board, the build and optical quality, and that maximum f2.8 aperture, it’s still decent value, even if many will be priced out.

I can’t fault the OM System 50-200mm F2.8 as an overall package. It’s a superb telephoto zoom, and one that I can only dream will one day live in my gear bag. If you’re a serious wildlife shooter, OM System has produced one of the best camera and lens pairing you can find.

OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro specs

Swipe to scroll horizontallyOM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro specs

Type:

Telephoto zoom

Mount:

Micro Four Thirds

Sensor:

Micro Four Thirds

Focal length:

50-200mm (100-400mm effective)

Max aperture:

f/2.8

Minimum focus:

0.78m

Filter size:

77mm

Dimensions:

91.4 x 225.8mm

Weight:

38oz / 1,075g (without collar)

OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro: Design

  • IP53-rated weather-resistant design, internal zoom
  • Relatively lightweight at 38oz / 1,075g
  • 0.78m close focusing for 0.5x (equivalent) magnification

I can’t find any fault in the 50-200mm F2.8’s design. It’s IP53-rated, and is weather-resistant and freeze-proof to -10C; its internal zoom – a feature you’ll generally only find in high-end optics – is further evidence of its rugged credentials, as it’s one less place for potential dust ingress.

Check out the images below, which show how the lens barrel remains unchanged as you zoom through the focal range.

Considering its features – particularly that focal length and maximum aperture combo – it’s lightweight too, at 38oz / 1,075g (without the removable collar). Paired with an OM System camera like the OM-1 II, the total weight is only 59oz / 1,674g, making for a comfortable all-day carry.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

All the external controls you’d want in a telephoto zoom are here: optical stabilization, manual / autofocus switch, custom buttons, and a focus range limiter.

Focus range can be limited to 0.78-3m, which is handy for macro photography (for which the lens has that impressive minimum close-focusing distance 0.78m), or to 3m to infinity, which is the option I’d pick when shooting telephoto wildlife. A third option is the full focus distance range, which could increase the risk of focus hunting.

The lens is supplied with a tripod collar, and I tend to keep this attached even when shooting handheld, as it provides another point of contact or place to hold when shooting.

Image 1 of 5

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

There’s no built-in teleconverter, which is a feature you’ll sometimes find in high-end telephoto lenses, including OM System’s own monster 150-400mm F4.5. However, I’d happily use OM System’s 1.4x teleconverter with this lens – I’ve used it before, and I wouldn’t expect to see any significant drop off in image quality.

Adding the 1.4x teleconverter extends the maximum reach of the lens at the cost of 1EV of light, effectively turning this into a 560mm f/4 lens. That’s still seriously impressive, and a better reach for bird photography, where subjects tend to be small and tricky to get close to.

OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro: Performance

  • 100-400mm effective focal length with maximum f/2.8 aperture
  • Optical and camera stabilization combine for up to 7.5EV stabilization
  • Sharp detail and, for the best part, smooth bokeh
  • Supports 50fps burst shooting with continuous autofocus

The OM System 50-200mm F2.8 is an impressive performer in every respect. Its autofocus speed and precision are top drawer; when paired with the OM-1 II, it quickly latched onto subjects such as birds, and was able to support 50fps burst shooting with continuous autofocus.

The lens’s optical stabilization can also combine with the OM-1 II’s in-body image stabilization to deliver up to 7.5EV of stabilization.

In real terms, OM System says you can shoot handheld at the maximum focal length, which is 400mm (effective), using shutter speeds as slow as 1/3 sec, and still get sharp results.

Of course, if the action is moving then 1/3 sec won’t be of much use, unless you want to intentionally blur your subject, but static objects will indeed appear sharp based on my testing.

Image 1 of 10

I used the continuous high burst shooting to increase my chances of freezing the action at the right moment in these two scenarios. (Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

For me, what’s even better to have than the superb stabilization performance is the bright maximum f/2.8 aperture. This enables fast shutter speeds to freeze action, which is personally what I’m looking for a lens like this to do – for wildlife, you can do so much more with a f/2.8 telephoto than, say, an f/5.6 one.

The 100-400mm effective focal length range easily covers a range of scenarios – it’s my go-to range for grassroots sports like soccer, and for large wildlife. To give you an idea of the difference between 100mm and 400mm, I’ve taken pictures of the same scene at those extremes, and you can see some examples in the gallery below.

Image 1 of 6

400mm(Image credit: Tim Coleman)400mm(Image credit: Tim Coleman)100mm(Image credit: Tim Coleman)400mm(Image credit: Tim Coleman)100mm(Image credit: Tim Coleman)400mm(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

I also explored macro photography with the 50-200mm F2.8, and you can see some of those pictures below. The 0.25x maximum magnification (which is 0.5x full-frame effective) is half-life size and super-versatile – there’s no such full-frame lens with such a feature set.

It was while using the lens to shoot macro, including a dew-covered backlit spider’s web at first light, that I started paying particular attention to the bokeh – the quality of the out-of-focus orbs of light.

At f/2.8 it’s smooth and rounded, but there are scenarios, such as the cobweb shots, where it becomes a little fussy rather than smooth – stopping the aperture down to f/7.1 to increase depth of field revealed polygonal-shaped bokeh. For less extreme scenarios, bokeh quality is pleasant, but I wouldn’t buy this lens solely for that attribute.

Image 1 of 10

I took this photo at f/7.1 to increase depth of field, and you see that the bokeh has hard edges and polygonal shape, produced by the lens’s nine aperture blades. (Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)Here I’ve opened up the aperture and bokeh is rounder, but detail in the spider is softer because of the shallow depth of field. (Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Where this lens shines is in its wonderfully sharp detail, no matter the focal length or aperture (f/2.8 to f/11, at least). I’ve been really impressed by the quality of detail in my subjects, and I’ve been able to shoot images that simply wouldn’t be possible with cheaper gear, or even with full-frame lenses with darker maximum apertures, like the Nikon 100-400mm.

If anything is holding this lens back, it’s the limitations of the Micro Four Third’s sensor format, which is half the size of full-frame. It’s less clean in low light, and dynamic range is a little limited in high-contrast scenes, like the sunrise shot in the gallery below (scroll past those adorable guinea pigs).

The maximum f/2.8 aperture mostly makes up for any sensor format limitations, though, and in its own right the OM System 50-200mm F2.8 is a top-quality telephoto zoom, with no real drawbacks.

Image 1 of 10

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Should you buy the OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

How I tested the OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro

  • Following an initial testing session with OM System, I used the 50-200mm extensively for an entire week
  • I paired it with the OM System OM-1 II
  • I took telephoto shots of wildlife, macro photos of spiders, and more

I first used the OM System 50-200mm F2.8 IS Pro at an event hosted by OM System at a wildlife trust in the UK, where I had some hands-on experience photographing exotic birds. I subsequently used the camera over a week-long loan period, paired with the OM System OM-1 II camera.

During my own time with the lens I’ve taken it out for sunrise shoots of birdlife on a common, been captivated by the macro world of insects including backlit spider’s webs, and snapped my family’s pet guinea pigs at last light.

I’ve made sure that all lens corrections are switched off in-camera, shot in both raw and JPEG format, used every key focal length and various apertures, then assessed image quality using Adobe Camera Raw, which has OM System profiles.

  • First reviewed September 2025



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Here Are Borderlands 4's PC Specs And System Requirements
Game Updates

Here Are Borderlands 4’s PC Specs And System Requirements

by admin


Borderlands 4 launches this week, on September 12 (on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC), and it’s time to figure out if your PC is capable of handling Gearbox Software’s latest looter-shooter. Fortunately for you, we have the game’s PC specs and system requirements, making it easy to see if you should play the game on PC or somewhere else. 

 

Borderlands 4 PC Specs and System Requirements

Below, we’ll list the minimum and recommended settings: 

Minimum

  • OS: Windows 10/Windows 11
  • Proccessor: Intel Core i7-9700/AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070/AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT/Intel Arc A580
  • Storage: 100 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system; Requires 8 CPU cores for processor; Requires 8 GB VRAM for graphics; SSD storage required

Recommended

  • OS: Windows 10/Windows 11
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-12700/AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
  • Memory: 32 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080/AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT/Intel Arc B580
  • Storage: 100 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system; SSD storage required

Hopefully, your PC is in the recommended range, or at the very least, the minimum specs range. If not, you might want to consider picking up Borderlands 4 on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S. Or, if you can stomach the wait, Borderlands 4 is also coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on October 3. 

 

While waiting for the game’s launch this week, stop by Game Informer’s Borderlands 4 hub for all kinds of behind-the-scenes features, exclusive details, and more about the game.

Are you picking up Borderlands 4 this week? Let us know where you’re going to play it in the comments below!



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Epic finally revokes fraudulent V-Buck purchases on Xbox, but a "malfunctioning" refund system only causes more confusion
Game Reviews

Epic finally revokes fraudulent V-Buck purchases on Xbox, but a “malfunctioning” refund system only causes more confusion

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Epic Games has sped up repercussions for Fortnite players who used V-Bucks and refunded them through an exploit on Xbox, essentially getting the in-game currency for free.

As we moved into the weekend, the studio said it had now “fixed a delay” and would be claiming back any items that were bought through currency that had been refunded on Xbox or previously gifted from fraudulent accounts.

Acknowledging the system it uses to revoke items on Xbox between December 2024 and July 2025 “malfunctioned”, the company warned some players “may now see a message that their payment was reversed or refunded and see recent items have been removed, even from transactions from several months ago”.

Thank You, Drive Through. Beavis and Butt-Head Are in the Shop!Watch on YouTube

It comes after some Xbox players abused an exploit through which they could buy V-Bucks through Microsoft, apply them to their accounts, and then refund them.

After clarifying this “does not affect regular purchases on Xbox or any other platform that weren’t refunded”, the Fortnite Status X/Twitter account added:

Update on Xbox refund issue:

Ordinarily, when a player receives a refund of a real-money Fortnite purchase, the purchased items are removed from their account. When V-Bucks are purchased, spent, and refunded, causing the player’s V-Bucks balance to go negative, items most…

— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) September 6, 2025

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“Ordinarily, when a player receives a refund of a real-money Fortnite purchase, the purchased items are removed from their account,” Epic explained. “When V-Bucks are purchased, spent, and refunded, causing the player’s V-Bucks balance to go negative, items most recently purchased and gifted with the refunded V-Bucks are removed from the player’s account and the gift recipient’s account.

“Unfortunately, the system we built for this malfunctioned on Xbox between December 2024 and July 2025. During this time, players were receiving refunds, but the refunded V-Bucks and items purchased with refunded V-Bucks remained in the player’s account and gift recipient accounts.”

While Epic accepts that over this period most players “continued using purchasing and refunding in good faith as usual”, some “exploited the situation to make large numbers of purchases, often with many accounts. Some even set up shops to accept payments from players and gifted them items purchased with refunded V-Bucks”.

It’s taken so long to sort the issue, however, that when Epic began processing back-dated refund requests on Xbox on 4th September and confusing players, it’s now “making a correction to distinguish between accounts that made ordinary refund requests, and accounts exploiting the refund system”.

“We’re restoring the items that were removed earlier this week for players who made less than 7 refunds since Dec 2024. It was our fault that we didn’t update the V-Bucks balance in their account immediately as we should have. This will take a few days,” Epic conceded.

“The removed items will stay removed for anyone who received 7 or more refunds, and for items received through gifting from players who made 7 or more refunds during this time. This is the ordinary approach to refunds from our terms of service, and these item purchases were taking advantage of an exploit with the V-Bucks refund system.”

Epic Games recently claimed the return of Fortnite to iOS in the UK is “uncertain” as it’s been unable to bring the Epic Games Store to iOS this year, “if ever”, after the CMA – the UK’s competition regulator – has “deprioritised store competition entirely”, following the lengthy legal battle between Epic and Apple.





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Product Reviews

Unity developers can now tap into system screen reader tools on macOS and Windows

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Unity is updating its game engine to support native screen readers in both macOS and Windows. The feature is available now in the Unity 6000.3.0a5 alpha, and should make the process of making games accessible for blind players cheaper for developers, Can I Play That? writes.

Screen readers narrate on-screen menus so blind and low-vision players can navigate a game or a piece of software without additional assistance. Typically, screen reading software is custom-built for each game, which can make them resource-intensive for developers to implement. “Building something like that from scratch has to be decided upon early in development so you have the time/resources allocated to make it properly,” Steve Saylor, an accessibility consultant and creator, shared on Bluesky. “Having it in-engine can mean the heavy lifting is done for you, and the cost of time/resources now is significantly lower.”

Unity previously offered APIs for both Android and iOS’ built-in screen readers in its Unity 6.0 release, but hadn’t yet added support for Windows Narrator or macOS VoiceOver. With this new alpha and its eventual release as Unity 6.3, developers creating games with Unity will have access to a native screen reader in all of the engine’s major platforms. Considering how popular Unity is as a game engine, that could vastly improve the accessibility of future games.



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