We all learn in different ways. As a visual learner, I really appreciate seeing ideas drawn out or presented through images. Give me a page of text, and I can read it, no problem, but not a huge amount is retained by my little grey cells.

Unfortunately, not everything can be boiled down into a simple image, diagram, or video. Some concepts are just too complex to be simplified. When I am forced to read a body of text, I prefer to hear someone read to me rather than read it for myself.

The problem is that not every resource has an accompanying audio feature. I could use my web browser’s reading mode, but there’s usually only a limited number of voices, and they often sound electronic and overprocessed. That’s why I’ve recently started using Speechify.

This simple and straightforward app features over 200 lifelike voices, each of which can be customized by type, pitch, and accent. The app can read uploaded files, images, and pasted text and integrates seamlessly into a range of workflows and file repositories. You can even choose the reading speed to be up to 4.5 times the normal speed, although I wouldn't recommend that!

AI voices that sound natural

Whatever you like to read, Speechify has so many voices on offer that you’re bound to find one that you enjoy listening to. The app guides users through a series of questions that help you narrow down the best choice for your requirements. It begins by asking you which type of voice you’d like. You can choose between conversational, narration, acting, professional, meditation, and educational.

From there, the app asks you whether you’d like the voice to sound bright, soft, neutral, crisp, warm, or deep, and whether you like a low, mid, or high pitch. The final option is to choose between British, American, and Australian accents. Unfortunately, these are the only three possibilities at the moment, although I’m sure they’ll add more in time.

With these simple questions answered, Speechify scans its 200+ voices and tells you which voices are the best fit. All you have to do is select your favorite, choose a document to read, and sit back and enjoy. And if you fancy a change, picking a different voice is easy.

An abundance of workflows

Speechify offers a number of different workflows, all of which are accessible through the Home tab of the app. First up is an AI-driven option where the app asks you, “What do you want to work on today?” Anyone who has used ChatGPT, Gemini, or similar will be familiar with this workflow.

Simply describe your task or ask anything, either with text or through the microphone, and Speechify will look it up for you. You can even attach files to complement your search request. Answers are presented as text but can be ‘read’ by the voice assistant. You can also ask follow-up questions to delve deeper into a topic.

If you already have a document that you’d like read out, you can choose from the list of seven workflow options. These are upload files from your phone, upload from a cloud repository, scan pages, paste text, find a book, paste a link, and dictate text.

I expected Speechify to handle PDFs and web pages with ease, but what I was most impressed with was its ability to analyze and read out images. I tested the app with several different photos, and it was able to read all types of information, including technical details. The images also didn’t have to be the highest quality or the best lit.

One of the best things about Speechify is that it lets me do a lot more multitasking. Prior to using the app, I would have to allocate a lot more time to sitting down and having focused reading time. Now I can upload a file or take a picture of something and crack on with house chores at the same time. It’s transformed how I spend my time.

Getting the most out of Speechify

The free version of Speechify provides a reasonable number of features, but it lacks offline listening, advanced voices, faster playback, and additional features such as dictation. To access these, you’ll need a Premium account, which costs $175 / £129.99 per year. There’s a free 3-day trial so you can test out the additional features before committing.

Also, if you love audiobooks, Speechify also has a library of over 100,000 books across every genre. This includes fiction, classics, self-help, and more. This costs $80 / £60 for lifetime access but is often discounted down to $35 / £25. At this price, Speechify Library is an affordable alternative to Amazon’s Audible service.

Whether you read to study, for leisure, learn a language, or simply want to boost your productivity, Speechify will help you realize your goals in super-fast time.

Download Speechify on iOS and Android.

Samsung R95H review: Two-minute review

Samsung’s Micro RGB lineup is its first foray into the RGB TV market, and the Samsung R95H is the flagship model in that lineup. It's an impressive TV, and a very strong performer in key areas such as movies and gaming; and, while I don’t think it quite beats the best OLED TVs, it's a good showcase for how RGB models are shaping up against the best TVs in general.

The R95H delivers great overall picture quality, with vibrant colors which also look accurate in most scenes, as well as strong contrast and refined detail. While its black levels don’t quite match those of OLED, they’re still very rich for a backlit TV. It’s not all smooth sailing, as the R95H can get overly bright, especially in Movie mode, and it’s not immune to blooming in very dark scenes. Still, its overall picture quality is of a high standard.

Sound quality on the R95H is solid for the most part, with good accuracy and detail, as well as commendable bass and solid mid-range tones. Speech is clear in most scenes I watched, and there is some sense of surround. However, the soundstage could be wider, and the volume does need to be pushed sometimes, so I’d recommend one of the best soundbars for those wanting a more of a home-theater experience.

The R95H is up there with the best gaming TVs, offering four fully-specced HDMI 2.1 ports along with a low 11.7ms input lag time for smooth gaming performance. There are tons of cloud gaming options available too, and Samsung's Gaming Hub is still an excellent feature. While its Game picture mode could be more accurate, this is still an excellent gaming TV.

Tizen is a good smart TV platform, giving you access to all the major streaming apps, as well as a plethora of AI tools for picture, sound and general usage. Its menus are generally well laid out and easy to navigate, and, while there are some frustrations, such as autoplaying Samsung TV Plus and large banner ads on the home screen, these don’t detract too much from what is a solid smart TV interface.

The R95H is a premium TV, with the 65-inch model priced at $2,799 / £2,899 / AU$4,999. This puts it at a similar price level to flagship OLED TVs, and while I don’t think it quite tops OLED, it shows how rapidly RGB tech is advancing.

A quick note on the images in this review: the TV may appear to have a red tint, but this is caused by the camera reacting to the anti-glare screen, and it not something that's discernible when viewing content on the TV.

Samsung R95H review: Prices & release date

• Release date: July 2026
• 65-inch: $3,199 / £3,099 / AU$5,299
• 75-inch: $4,499 / £3,999 / AU$7,999
• 85-inch: $5,499 / £5,899 / AU$9,999

The Samsung R95H is the flagship model in Samsung’s Micro RGB TV lineup, sitting above the Samsung R85H. It’s available in 65, 75 and 85-inch sizes. The launch price for the 65-inch model I tested is $3,199 / £3,099 / AU$5,299, putting it at the premium end of the market.

Since its launch in July 2026, prices have dropped across all sizes in both the US and UK. The 65-inch has dropped to $2,799 / £2,899, putting it in similar price brackets to Samsung’s flagship S95H / S99H OLED (priced at $2,899 / £2,899) and LG’s flagship G6 OLED ($2,699 / £2,999). In the US and UK the R95H is cheaper than Sony’s rival RGB, the Bravia 9 II, which is priced at $3,499 / £3,499 / AU$5,995.

Samsung R95H review: Specs

Samsung R95H review: Benchmark results

Previous

1 / 4

Next

Brightness measurements

HDR FilmmakerHDR StandardSDR FilmmakerSDR Standard

Samsung R95H

HDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window)

1977

HDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen)

612

Samsung S95H/S99H

HDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window)

2739

HDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen)

449

Sony Bravia 7 II

HDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window)

1114

HDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen)

829

07501,5002,2503,000

nits

HDR Filmmaker Data

Product	HDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window) (nits)	HDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen) (nits)
Samsung R95H	1977	612
Samsung S95H/S99H	2739	449
Sony Bravia 7 II	1114	829

Samsung R95H

HDR Standard Mode (10% window)

2066

HDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen)

647

Samsung S95H/S99H

HDR Standard Mode (10% window)

2831

HDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen)

463

Sony Bravia 7 II

HDR Standard Mode (10% window)

1295

HDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen)

788

07501,5002,2503,000

nits

HDR Standard Data

Product	HDR Standard Mode (10% window) (nits)	HDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen) (nits)
Samsung R95H	2066	647
Samsung S95H/S99H	2831	463
Sony Bravia 7 II	1295	788

Samsung R95H

SDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window)

115

SDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen)

185

Samsung S95H/S99H

SDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window)

220

SDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen)

219

Sony Bravia 7 II

SDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window)

90

SDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen)

94

075150225300

nits

SDR Filmmaker Data

Product	SDR Filmmaker Mode (10% window) (nits)	SDR Filmmaker Mode (Fullscreen) (nits)
Samsung R95H	115	185
Samsung S95H/S99H	220	219
Sony Bravia 7 II	90	94

Samsung R95H

SDR Standard Mode (10% window)

413

SDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen)

187

Samsung S95H/S99H

SDR Standard Mode (10% window)

229

SDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen)

229

Sony Bravia 7 II

SDR Standard Mode (10% window)

608

SDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen)

476

0200400600800

nits

SDR Standard Data

Product	SDR Standard Mode (10% window) (nits)	SDR Standard Mode (Fullscreen) (nits)
Samsung R95H	413	187
Samsung S95H/S99H	229	229
Sony Bravia 7 II	608	476

HDR color gamut

Closer to 100% is better. Taken using a colorimeter and test pattern generator.

Samsung R95H

UHDA-P3

148

BT.2020

94.1

Samsung S95H/S99H

UHDA-P3

99.9

BT.2020

89.2

Sony Bravia 7 II

UHDA-P3

98.6

BT.2020

89.6

037.575112.5150

HDR Filmmaker Data

Product	UHDA-P3 ()	BT.2020 ()
Samsung R95H	148	94.1
Samsung S95H/S99H	99.9	89.2
Sony Bravia 7 II	98.6	89.6

Picture accuracy

A lower score is better. Taken using a colorimeter and test pattern generator.

SDR Delta-E

Samsung R95H

3.7

Samsung S95H/S99H

1.6

Sony Bravia 7 II

6.5

01234567

SDR Delta-E Data

Product	Value
Samsung R95H	3.7
Samsung S95H/S99H	1.6
Sony Bravia 7 II	6.5

Input lag

Lower is better. Taken using a Leo Bodnar 4K HDMI Video Signal Lag Tester.

Samsung R95H

4K 60Hz

11.7

1080p 120Hz

9.4

Samsung S95H/S99H

4K 60Hz

9.5

1080p 120Hz

5

Sony Bravia 7 II

4K 60Hz

10.4

1080p 120Hz

5.7

03.757.511.2515

ms

HDR Filmmaker Data

Product	4K 60Hz (ms)	1080p 120Hz (ms)
Samsung R95H	11.7	9.4
Samsung S95H/S99H	9.5	5
Sony Bravia 7 II	10.4	5.7

Samsung R95H review: Features

• RGB backlight
• Glare-free screen
• Samsung Vision AI and Tizen smart TV platform

The R95H uses Samsung’s ‘Micro RGB’ backlight technology, which uses LEDs that are smaller than mini-LEDs, and which consist of red, green and blue LEDs (hence RGB) rather than the traditional white in order to deliver bolder colors and brightness.

It comes equipped with the Samsung Micro RGB AI Engine Pro processor, which has features such as Micro RGB Precision Color, 4K AI Upscaling Pro and Color Booster Pro. The TV itself also has a Glare Free screen, an anti-reflection matte screen that has featured in several of Samsung's TVs, including the Samsung S95H / S99H.

In terms of HDR support, the R95H supports HDR10+, but as usual, there is no support for Dolby Vision.

For gaming, the R95H has four HDMI 2.1 ports, which support 4K 165Hz, full VRR including Freesync and G-Sync, ALLM and HDR10+ gaming. It also supports cloud gaming apps from the likes of Xbox and Nvidia GeForce Now. The R95H is also compatible with the Wireless One Connect Box, which can be used in tandem with the TV’s built-in ports, meaning there are a potential eight HDMI 2.1 ports on offer.

The R95H has a 4.2.2 channel speaker array, totaling 70W of power. Supported sound features include Object Tracking Sound+ (OTS+), Active Voice Amplifier Pro, Adaptive Sound Pro and AI Sound Controller Pro. The R95H supports Dolby Atmos, but not DTS:X.

The R95H’s smart TV platform is Samsung’s own One UI Tizen, which supports major streaming apps including Netflix and Prime Video, and for those in the UK it supports all major apps including BBC iPlayer and ITVX. There's also support for Samsung Vision AI, which enables AI features such as AI Soccer Mode Pro and Generative Wallpaper.

• Feature score: 5 / 5

Samsung R95H review: Picture quality

• Strong contrast and detail
• Bold colors
• Effective anti-glare

Starting with some brightness measurements, the R95H registered 1,977 nits and 2,066 nits peak HDR brightness in Filmmaker mode and Standard mode respectively. These are solid brightness results, but surprisingly lower than those of Samsung’s flagship OLED, the S95H/S99H, which registered 2,739 nits and 2,831 nits in the same modes respectively.

Where the R95H has an advantage over OLED is in its fullscreen HDR brightness, which hit 612 nits and 600 nits in the same Filmmaker and Standard picture modes, roughly 150 nits higher than the S95H/S99H OLED. While these numbers are solid, they're lower than those of rival RGB TVs such as the Hisense UR8, which hit over 750 nits in both picture modes, and even the Sony Bravia 7 II, which hit over 800 nits in its own Filmmaker mode.

The R95H showcases good upscaling when watching lower-resolution and SDR content. Watching various channels on Samsung TV Plus, from America’s Got Talent re-runs to news channels, the picture looked more detailed than anticipated, showing the R95H’s effective upscaling.

Moving on to the reference 4K Blu-rays I use for testing, the R95H demonstrated very good picture quality. RGB’s selling point is its color reproduction, and the R95H succeeded here. Throughout The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, colors were bold and vibrant, shown in particular whenever the Lumas were on screen. Colors also appeared accurate throughout, with the red of Mario’s overalls looking true to life. I did notice that while watching in Movie mode, there was some clipping of bright objects, and color luminance could look a little distorted at times. Dropping the brightness down to 40 improved this.

In the live-action movie, Speed Racer, I was impressed at how the R95H rendered the gaudy, saturated color scheme of the Racer household, with its vibrant greens and oranges. It captured the oversaturated look, while still delivering realistic colors. While I did prefer the Sony Bravia 7 II’s colors in my Bravia 7 II vs R95H comparison, in isolated viewing, the R95H’s colors were impressive. The R95H did, however, reproduce accurate and realistic skin tones throughout my viewing.

Measuring the R95H’s color gamut coverage, it registered a staggering 148% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, as well as a 94.1% of the BT.2020 color space. These are incredible results, rivaling the best projectors, and the BT.2020 result rivals QD-OLED, found in Samsung's flagship S95H/S99H TVs.

Switching to The Batman for higher-contrast and darker scenes, the R95H demonstrated strong contrast in almost every scene, with a great balance between light and dark tones. This was most evident in the crime scene at Mayor Mitchell’s house, and in the Batcave. The R95H also delivered excellent shadow detail, with objects like paintings on the wall of Mitchell’s house still legible even in the most shadowed areas.

I did find that while I could watch The Batman in bright conditions, thanks to the R95H’s effective glare-free screen, it was best watched in Filmmaker mode in more ambient/dimmer conditions. In Movie mode, The Batman had a tendency to look over-sharp and over-bright in places.

While its black tones weren’t quite OLED-level, the R95H did deliver some seriously rich, deep blacks in Alien: Romulus. Shots of space looked as inky as I could have hoped for, and were impressive for a backlit TV.

The R95H also demonstrated strong viewing angles, and while there was some blooming present in some scenes in The Batman and Alien; Romulus when I viewed the TV off-center, its backlight control was far more effective than you’ll see from standard LED and mini-LED TVs.

Finally, for motion, the R95H is capable of handling fast-paced scenes from movies like Speed Racer, as cars weave around the track. It showed some judder as commentators panned across the screen, but I’ve found every TV has struggled with this. For the best motion, I found setting blur and judder reduction to 3 looked smooth without venturing into soap opera-effect territory.

For sports, I watched some Major League Soccer highlights via Apple TV, and the R95H not only handled the action well but produced a very natural picture in Standard mode (my preferred picture mode for sports) that I found pleasing to watch.

• Picture quality score: 4.5 / 5

Samsung R95H review: Sound quality

• Effective OTS+ results in great sound positioning
• Decent bass and mid range
• Sound can feel contained to rear of the screen

The R95H’s built-in speaker array is a 4.2.2 channel, 70W system. It supports Dolby Atmos and has two preset sound modes: Standard and Amplify. There are AI sound features such as Adaptive Sound Pro available to use.

Watching the Batmobile chase scene from The Batman and the various race scenes in Speed Racer, with the TV set to its Amplify sound mode, I was unsurprised to hear that the R95H delivered accurate sound that was well mapped with the action on the screen, something I’ve found with a lot of Samsung TVs, thanks to its OTS+ feature. Whether it was a spray of bullets hitting the Batmobile in The Batman or the sound of the Mach 5 grinding a rail in Speed Racer, the sound accuracy was impressive.

The speakers deliver good mid-range tones throughout, as well as some punchy bass that accurately captures the rumble of the Batmobile’s engine and the roar of the race cars in Speed Racer. There were some impressive surround effects in both reference movies too.

While the speakers are generally decent, I did have to push the volume to higher levels (70+ out of 100) to get a more cinematic experience. The bass also felt flat at times, and sound did still feel contained to the rear of the screen. Turning on Adaptive Sound in the AI settings added more width, but at the cost of bass. While its sound is decent, those wanting a more cinematic experience would benefit from a soundbar.

• Sound quality: 4 / 5

Samsung R95H review: Design

• Polished frame
• Thinner than other RGB TVs I’ve tested
• Light but sturdy

The R95H takes a lot of design cues from other Samsung TVs, with a sleek, silver frame that gives the TV a premium look. Compared to other RGB TVs I’ve tested, the R95H is thinner, which again gives it an appealing look. It has a central pedestal stand that feels sturdy when attached, while the TV itself feels light for a 65-inch, and lighter than other RGB TVs I’ve tested.

The screen has a bezel-less design, giving maximum room to the pictures on screen. The R95H also has the aforementioned glare-free matte screen for easier viewing in bright conditions.

The supplied remote is the Samsung SolarCell remote, which can be recharged via the rear solar panel or via USB-C. The remote has shortcut buttons to major apps such as Netflix, as well as an AI button and mic button for voice control.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

Samsung R95H review: Smart TV & menus

• One UI Tizen smart TV platform
• Hubs including Home and Game
• Good range of settings

As with all Samsung TVs, the R95H uses Samsung’s own Tizen OS smart TV platform, now known as One UI Tizen. Tizen has several different hubs, including the Home hub, where apps and TV shows and movie recommendations are presented, and Game hub, where cloud gaming apps are housed. There are also Daily and Art hubs, for lifestyle and art-themed apps respectively.

Tizen supports a wide array of apps, including major streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney. In the UK, streaming services such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX are supported. It should be noted that Tizen doesn’t use Freely or Freeview for live TV, instead using its own Samsung TV Plus system.

Various AI features are supported, including the Samsung Vision AI Companion, which can be used to find specific content, or answer more general questions that you ask the AI. Also included are other AI picture and sound features, as discussed in the Features section above.

Tizen is good at offering recommendations, and the Home hub is well laid out, but as with all smart TV platforms nowadays, there's a large banner ad at the top of the screen that can be intrusive when you're trying to navigate.

Menus are well laid out and easy to navigate, and there are a good number of settings, enabling you to tailor the picture to your preferences. Tizen is fairly straightforward to use, although I did find that Samsung TV Plus would play if I lingered on the Home menu, which could be frustrating.

• Smart TV & menus score: 4.5 / 5

Samsung R95H review: Gaming

• Four HDMI 2.1 ports
• 11.7ms input lag time
• 4K 165Hz, FreeSync and G-Sync supported

The R95H has four HDMI 2.1 ports, all of which are fully equipped for gaming. It supports 4K 165Hz, full VRR including Freesync and G-sync, HDR10+ gaming and ALLM. There's a dedicated Game menu where you can adjust game-specific settings, and the Game Hub, which houses cloud gaming apps such as Xbox, Nvidia GeForce Now, and Luna.

When I measured the R95H’s input lag, it registered an 11.7ms (4K 60Hz) time. This is below the 15ms input lag time we look for, but is higher than other Samsung TVs I’ve tested, which all tend to register sub-10ms times.

Actual gameplay on the R95H is smooth, even during fast-paced action. Playing Battlefield V on Xbox Series X, the R95H easily handled the chaotic gunfights as I had to snap from target to target, showing no signs of judder or stutter. The Game picture mode rendered crisp textures and accurate colors for the most part, though I did find it favored red tones in one desert mission I played. Overall, though, the R95H is a superb gaming TV.

• Gaming score: 5 / 5

Samsung R95H review: Value

• Premium priced TV
• Similar price to OLEDs
• Good performance and features

The R95H is a premium TV, with the 65-inch model I tested available for around $2,799 / £2,899 / AU$4,795 at the time of writing. This puts it in a similar price bracket to flagship OLEDs, such as Samsung’s S95H/S99H, which costs $2,799 / £2,899 / AU$5,295, and the LG G6, which costs $2,699 / £2,999 / AU$4,995 for a 65-inch. Compared to other RGB TVs I’ve tested, it’s one of the pricier models, but is cheaper than the rival flagship Sony Bravia 9 II, the 65-inch model of which costs $3,599 / £3,499 / AU$5,995.

The R95H commands a premium price, but does deliver premium performance and features similar to those rival OLEDs and RGB TV mentioned above. Since its release, prices for the R95H have dropped, and I anticipate they’ll continue to drop from now on, improving its value proposition. For now, I don’t think it can quite outshine rival OLEDs for the money, but it's close, and this is still a very good TV.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Samsung R95H?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also Consider

How I tested the Samsung R95H

• Tested over a few weeks
• Tested in varying light conditions in our testing lab
• Measurements taken using Portrait Displays Calman software

The first step of my testing was casual viewing to establish the best pictures modes. For sports and daytime TV, Standard worked best, and for movies and TV shows, I switched between Movie and Filmmaker depending on the content.

After this, I did my critical viewing using reference 4K Blu-ray scenes to test color, contrast, motion and detail. I also used SDR broadcast TV to test upscaling, as well as sports to test the R95H's sports viewing.

Next, I tested the R95H using specialized measuring equipment, including a Murideo Six G 8K metal test pattern generator, Klein K-10A colorimeter and Jeti Spectral 15VA spectroradiometer and Portrait Displays' Calman color calibration software.

To test brightness, I took SDR and HDR brightness measurements using white window patterns in sizes 1-100%, focusing on peak (10%) and fullscreen (100%) measurements.

After this, I tested color and grayscale accuracy in SDR, using Delta-E values (the margin for error between the test pattern signal source and what is displayed on screen.)

Next, I tested HDR color gamut coverage, using the BT.2020 and UHDA-P3 color spaces. The closer to 100%, the better.

Finally, I measured the R95H's input lag using a Leo Bodnar 4K HDMI Input Lag Tester.

We also do two new tests as part of our testing. The first is the HDR EOTF, which shows the accuracy of a TV's brightness across its range, using 1,000, 4,000 and 10,000 nits targets. Then, there is the Spectral Power Distribution test, which measures how a TV recreates colors.

• First reviewed: September 2026
• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

The A Plague Tale series has become one of the finest in video games since the first game, A Plague Tale: Innocence, released back in 2019.

Its historical background, immersive and deeply compelling yet bleak and miserable narratives, as well as its memorable characters and robust mix of stealth action and survival, are perfect for thoughtful, enjoyable, and deeply memorable experiences.

As a result, with the third and latest game now out in the wild in the form of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy — there's never been a better time to celebrate the bleak and gripping series with a quiz.

As a long-time A Plague Tale fan, I've crafted the quiz below just as Amicia did with her ammo: deliberately and with great thought and care. It's somewhat hard to get three excellent video games' worth of trivia into a short quiz, but I think I've picked some more straightforward teasers and some deep-cut brain ticklers to appeal to fans of all kinds of the series.

Best of luck, and let us know how you get on!

What did you make of our A Plague Tale quiz? The right balance of more obvious questions and tougher ones? Let me know in the comments, and come back for more quizzes soon — and also let me know what other video game quizzes we could do!

As AI continues to take over more and more everyday tasks, there's an increasing amount of people looking to enjoy experiences with more of a human touch.

AI can undoubtedly be useful great at sifting through large amounts of data, and taking away the drudgery of reporting and admin work - but what about areas which require the senses?

So can AI perform in matters of taste, smell and touch?

tAIster steps up

Salesforce has been a leader in pushing forward AI-enabled experiences in recent years, with its wide range of AI agents helping customers from all around the world.

At its recent Dreamforce 2026, I took part in an AI sommelier session powered by an AI agent to see if the technology could be applied to wine tasting.

In a plush executive lounge away from the madness of Dreamforce's campgrounds, we were given three glasses of mystery wines, and then connected to an AI agent by scanning a QR code with a smartphone.

This hooked us up with tAIster, an AI agent which had been educated on around 400,000 different types of wines, including their taste, feel, aroma and other attributes.

Before tasting a wine, the agent asked us to use a few keywords to describe how it looked, and how grippy it was in the glass. We were then asked to describe the wine's aroma, and finally, the taste - with the aim of being as descriptive as we could, so the agent could guess which wine we had been given.

So did it work? I'm not a massive wine buff, but I tried to be as descriptive as possible, with the hope if giving the agent what it needed. Ultimately, it guessed my first two samples correctly, but got the third hopelessly wrong - guessing it was Veuve Cliquot champagne rather than Chardonnay due to me mentioning the glass had some small bubbles in.

So all in all, a fun example of what AI agents could do in previously unexpected areas - and although it's just a proof of concept right now, I don't think any real-world sommeliers will be quaking in their boots just yet.

How is Ted Lasso season 4 going to end? Outside of those who worked on it, nobody knows — but I can tell you when its eighth episode will be released on Apple TV.

Indeed, as one of TechRadar's resident entertainment experts, I'm your best source for all manner of release date and launch time information. So, if you're desperate to know more about when this week's chapter — titled 'Follow the Anger' — will premiere, I've got you covered.

What is the launch time for Ted Lasso season 4 episode 8?

Ted Lasso season 4's next entry is expected to drop in the US and Canada at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Tuesday, September 22.

Apple has always made a habit of telling us that episodes of its new and returning TV Originals will come out every Wednesday at 12am PT in North America. Nonetheless, every single one of this season's episodes has arrived on Tuesday evenings at the times I mentioned above. It's all but confirmed, then, that season 4 episode 8 will do the same.

As for the rest of the world, Ted Lasso's next installment will be released on Wednesday, September 23. Read on to see what time it'll launch where you live:

• US — Tuesday, September 22 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET
• Canada — Tuesday, September 22 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET
• UK — Wednesday, September 23 at 2am BST
• India — Wednesday, September 23 at 6:30am IST
• Singapore — Wednesday, September 23 at 9am SGT
• Australia — Wednesday, September 23 at 11am AEST
• New Zealand — Wednesday, September 23 at 1pm NZST

Ted Lasso season 4 full release schedule: when do new episodes come out?

Unless there's an unexpected alteration to this season's current release schedule, new episodes will make landfall every Tuesday in North and South America, and on Wednesdays on other continents. Read on to see when the final two installments will air near you:

• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 1 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 2 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 3 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 4 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 5 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 6 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 7 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 8 — September 22/23
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 9 — September 29/30
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 10 — October 6/7

• 85% of employees are being encouraged to use AI in the workplace
• Incredibly, 42% don’t know why AI is being used in the first place, raising questions about company strategies with the technology
• Some 112,000 people responded to the survey globally

“Why are we using AI?” That seems to be the view of almost half (48%) of employees, according to new research that looks at AI adoption in business. While a majority (85%) of workers are being encouraged to rely on AI for tasks, many don’t know why.

While employees certainly seem to feel the benefits of AI, citing benefits of increased productivity and motivation, the big question appears to surround their managers. The survey, by Culture Amp, points at a disconnect between corporate strategy around AI and how managers are (or are not) communicating this to their teams.

The survey also emphasizes that it is still early days in the AI revolution, and that the impact of the technology on workforces and individual roles is yet to become apparent.

Decisive insights

Culture Amp’s report, How Employees Really Feel About AI at Work, is described as a benchmark, and as the inaugaural publication looks set to chart the path of AI in the workplace over the coming years.

Its initial findings raise questions about how AI is really being introduced and used in businesses around the world. With 112,000 survey respondents questioned, situated within 123 businesses around the globe, the report offers one of the most decisive insights into business AI use yet.

The unfinished plan

Employees are telling us they understand the risks, they are using the tools, and they feel more productive," notes Amy Lavoie VP of People Science at Culture Amp. "That is not a workforce resisting change. That is a workforce that has done its part and is waiting on leadership to do theirs.”

The lack of decisive direction from management may not be entirely the fault of individual managers. In some cases, the corporate direction for AI use may be “in development” with leaders waiting on clearer instructions to communicate to their teams.

“We do not know with certainty which roles AI reshapes, which skills hold their value, or what a career path looks like three years out,” says Lavoie. “As a result, leaders may go quiet, because saying nothing feels safer than saying something that turns out to be wrong.”

So what is the answer? How do employees struggling to find the sense in using AI come to terms with the lack of direction concerning its use?

Lavoie concludes: “The most useful thing a leader can do right now is admit the plan is unfinished, and then keep talking anyway. Certainty is not what employees need from you right now. Candor is."

If you followed the release of the new Canon EOS R8 Mark II, you might be wondering what the feature pre-continuous shooting is, otherwise known as pre-capture (Sony and Nikon), Pro Capture (OM System), Pre-Burst (Panasonic) or Pre-shot ES (Fujifilm).

The feature has been around for a while now having been introduced by OM System (Olympus), and it’s slowly worked its way across brands and into affordable models, including the R8 II, Sony A7 V and Nikon Z5 II.

I'm here to explain pre-capture, and show you the benefit of this feature with images I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to capture without it. Let’s dive in.

What is pre-capture and how does it work?

Picture this — you’ve got your camera fixed on a subject, poised for the action to happen; athletes on the 100m start line, a kingfisher on a branch that could take flight at any moment, a potential goal in a soccer match.

Sometimes your reactions aren’t up to speed to capture the key moment, and it's gone before your finger has pressed the shutter button. It’s exactly these scenarios that pre-capture is designed for, and it's the feature that helped me get the images of birds in flight, where previously I’d have missed the moment or simply settled for ones of them perched on branches.

Pre-capture gives you up to a 1 second head start (depending on the model) before the shutter is pressed, continually shooting (to a temporary buffer) before you press the shutter button, at which point the images shot in the specified time before the shutter button was fully pressed are recorded retrospectively.

With pre-capture on, it's typically initiated by half pressing the shutter button (or fully pressing an assignable button, such as the autofocus button), as is the case with the Sony A7 V I used to take the pictures in this feature.

The Canon EOS R8 Mark II, for example, can shoot up to 40fps and offers up to 0.5 second pre-capture, meaning you can retrospectively record a 20 photo sequence in the half second before you press the shutter button. The Sony A7 V can shoot up to 30fps with up to 1 second pre-capture, so that’s up to 15 images.

How to use pre-capture effectively

I recently got into bird photography and it didn’t take me long to bag some beautiful photos of the varied birdlife in my local nature reserve and wetland, using some superb review gear — including the Sony 400-800mm F6.3-8 super telephoto zoom lens.

As enjoyable as this hobby is (and it really is), soon enough I was considering how I could mix up the kind of photos I was making, besides stationary birds on branches. Pre-capture came to mind. How about capturing photos of the birds taking flight?

Birds in flight is one of the toughest photography challenges — as I found out during a recent hands-on with the Fujifilm XF 400mm F4.5 R LM WR lens at a birds of prey experience. And that was when I had some idea of where the birds would be flying. But wild birds in flight? Nigh on impossible, I thought.

I chose the most appropriate autofocus mode (in this case bird subject detection), the continuous high drive mode (30fps), set a suitably fast shutter speed to freeze movement (1/1000sec, wasn't fast enough it turned out) and, of course, activated pre-capture. I started with the maximum time possible of 1 second, though the camera in question has options from 0.1 sec to 1 sec in full decimal points.

Pre-capture helped me get the shots you see in this article, but there were a couple more non-technical ingredients in the recipe: an eye for the shot and, ultimately, patience.

Once I had the composition and subject I liked, I kept the camera locked in with the shutter half pressed and waited for the bird to take flight. Many times the bird was content for several minutes, and I could feel my finger / thumb burning by the time it moved.

On my first attempt I thought I had missed the moment even with pre-capture active, but low and behold my slow reactions were redeemed.

I think my patience has paid off. Yes, the photos of the birds stationary are still lovely, but the ones of them in flight in an already well-composed scene take them to new heights.

There are plenty of other scenarios that benefit from pre-capture, and if you’re a keen sports or wildlife photographer it’s well worth trying out — I’ve included a list of recent cameras equipped with the feature, plus shopping links, below.

Cameras with pre-capture

The following cameras are listed as having each company's version of pre-capture:

• Canon EOS R1, EOS R5 Mark II, EOS R6 Mark II, EOS R6 Mark III, EOS R8 Mark II
• Nikon Z9, Nikon Z8, Nikon Z6 III, Nikon Z5 II, Nikon Z50 II
• Sony A9 III, Sony A1 II, Sony A7R VI, Sony A7 V
• OM System OM-1, OM1 Mark-II, OM-5 Mark II, Olympus OM-D E-M1 X, E-M1 Mark III, E-M1 Mark II, E-M5 Mark III, Tough TG-6, Tough TG-7
• Panasonic Lumix G9, Lumix G9 II, Lumix S5 II / X, Lumix S1 II, Lumix S1 II R
• Fujifilm X-T5, X-T4, X-T3, X-T30 III, X-T30 II, X-T30, X-H2S, X-H2, X-Pro3, X100VI

It’s been eight years since I last played a match in Heroes of the Storm.

For the majority of my late twenties, though, it was the MOBA my group of friends and I played night after night. Sure, everyone else was on League of Legends or Dota 2 as they were deemed to be the superior games in the genre, but we enjoyed our home in Blizzard’s crossover brawler, battling away as iconic faces such as Thrall, Jim Raynor, Tracer, and Diablo himself.

I fondly remember the nights spent playing HOTS, and our group would regularly reminisce about the hours we spent together on the game. We’d retell the same stories of the incredible plays and frustrating losses that we would experience every session — and never tire of joking about all the times someone would overextend in mid lane.

However, in that time between my last game and now, and following Blizzard’s decision to put the game into maintenance mode in July 2022, I had fully moved on.

But suddenly, that all changed. At this year’s BlizzCon, the opening keynote presentation kicked off with a surprise that no one could have anticipated. Heroes of the Storm is getting a new hero: Xal’atath, the Harbinger of the Void.

Cue a flurry of messages in the group chat, a Robin Williams ‘what year is it?’ gif, and exclamations of “we’re so back.” The game’s subreddit, a near-dormant sanctuary for players still fighting away in the Nexus, exploded back to life as well. The passion and excitement were reactivated in an instant — and I felt the same too.

A surprise return

Naturally, I had to reinstall the game, and over the past week I’ve dived in for a couple of hours nearly every night. I’ve amazed myself at how quickly I’ve picked it up again and how much I’ve remembered about each map, hero, and the flow of a game. It’s felt so good to be back, and it’s reminded me why I think it’s such an unsung hero in the MOBA genre.

See, Heroes of the Storm strips out a lot of the more, let’s say, hardcore aspects that were found in a lot of the top MOBAs of the time.

There’s no last-hitting creeps to get extra resources, no shop at which to spend gold to build your character, experience is shared team-wide to (theoretically) keep everyone on a level playing field, and there are generally fewer secondary features to think about during a match.

That led to some thinking that Heroes of the Storm is a ‘dumbing-down’ of the MOBA, but I’d argue that the game isn’t lacking in complexity.

One way is with the talents that are earned as you level. These allow you to build your character in a chosen way, adapting your strategy to your strengths and countering the team composition you’re facing.

Surprising depth

The main gimmick, though, is that rather than playing in a single arena over and over again, HOTS offers several maps that feature different main objectives. These require you to prepare and be ready for those moments when you need to defend an area, escort a payload, or gather scattered resources.

Achieving these gives you a temporary boon that works towards destroying your opponent’s home base, or Nexus. That might be a giant bone golem that lays siege to any structures in its path, or a barrage of missiles that directly attack buildings. At one point, a player could take control of a massive plant abomination to root enemies in place and smash up the other team’s defences.

These objectives add dynamism and give players a direction to move towards at regular intervals throughout a match. They also encourage more teamfighting, which I find is the most exciting and enjoyable part of any MOBA, where positioning and smart engagements are rewarded over repeatedly clicking on a creep at just the right time to build a pot of gold.

While I can appreciate there’s a skill to farming creeps efficiently in the opening phases of a Dota 2 or League of Legends game, I’d rather not be spending my time doing that. I’m also not a huge fan of the downtime in those games, going back to buy items and fiddling around in menus to buy a bigger sword or stock up on wards that you scatter across the map to give vision.

In comparison, Heroes of the Storm is a game of near-constant action, with matches that generally last a glorious 20 minutes or so. Sometimes shorter if you go on a tear, and sometimes longer if things are tight, but rarely too long that it starts to feel like a slog — especially in those painful situations where you can see the writing’s on the wall in the first 15 minutes.

This is all before I’ve even dug into the roster, which is a joy for any Blizzard fans and anyone who loves to have a diverse range of fighting styles at their fingertips.

As well as its satisfying selection of tanks, assassins, brawlers, and supports to master from across WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and more, Heroes of the Storm has fun experimenting with all sorts of characters.

Abathur is a classic: a creature of the Zerg who hides in the backlines, but can assimilate with other players anywhere on the map to provide support. There’s Cho’Gall: a two-headed ogre who has its movement controlled by one player and abilities controlled by another — cue chaotic attempts to work together. And there’s the Blizzard deep cut, The Lost Vikings, who challenge you to control three different characters at once, almost bringing the stress of a full RTS experience to the game.

It’s these new and fascinating ideas in its map and hero design, as well as a focus on the more thrilling aspects of a MOBA, that make me think Heroes of the Storm has always been such an underrated gem.

I’m hoping this new spotlight on the game not only brings back a lot of old fans like me, but also introduces it to an entirely new audience so Blizzard sees reason to release heroes and updates in the future.

It’s almost time for Meta Connect, with the brand hosting its annual event on September 23 and 24. Here, we’re expecting to see several new devices, with a focus on smart glasses.

Software updates are also likely, including to Meta Muse, but between the RAM crisis and a privacy backlash against the company’s smart specs, this might not be an entirely rosy affair.

So below, we’ve detailed the seven major things to expect at Meta Connect 2026 — covering both the good and the bad.

1. Camera-free Meta smart glasses

While smart glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta can be extremely useful, they’re also facing a major backlash right now, with many people worrying about them being used as spy glasses to photograph and video people without their knowledge or consent. As a result, Meta might respond by launching camera-free smart glasses.

These are rumored to land at Meta Connect, and would likely focus on conversational interactions with Meta’s AI chatbot. It makes sense for Meta to launch these, though how useful or appealing they will be when the AI can’t see what you’re looking at remains to be seen.

2. The Project Phoenix mixed reality headset

We’ve been hearing for a while that Meta is working on a mixed reality headset codenamed Project Phoenix, and while this reportedly won’t launch until 2027, we might get an official look at it during Meta Connect.

From what we’ve seen so far, this might look more like smart glasses than the Meta Quest 3S headset, despite featuring both AR and VR functionality. However, Project Phoenix has been pictured with a cable running down from it, suggesting that perhaps the battery and/or processor are external, thereby allowing for a slim design.

We don’t know much else about this yet, but that might change at Meta Connect.

3. New Oakley and Ray-Ban glasses

We’re probably due a second generation of the Oakley Meta glasses by now, and there’s also a chance we’ll see the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, though it might be too soon for them at this year's Connect.

The Oakley Meta specs are sportier than the Ray-Ban line, with things like wrap-around designs and better water resistance, so expect the second generation to continue with that focus.

As for the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, leaks suggest these could have better battery life, smarter AI, and improved audio.

4. A global launch for the Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses

The Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses are currently only available in the US, but hopefully at Meta Connect we might see these display-packing specs go global.

It’s certainly about time — originally these were planned to get a wider launch in early 2026, but thanks to "unprecedented demand and limited inventory" this was delayed.

But if you’re hoping to get your hands on them you’ll also have to be prepared to pay a lot, as in the US they retail for $800, so you can expect similarly high pricing elsewhere.

5. Price hikes

Alongside new and improved products, we might also see new and not at all improved prices for some things, thanks to the ongoing RAM crisis.

In other words, don’t be surprised if prices for new generation models of the likes of Oakley Meta and Ray-Ban Meta glasses are higher than the current generation.

In the case of Ray-Ban Meta glasses we already saw a price hike for the second generation, so another for the third would be extremely undesirable, but may also be unavoidable.

6. A Meta Muse AI update

Meta Muse — Meta’s AI agent that can send emails, fill out forms, shop, and do other tasks for you — only launched recently, but as a major new service it’s likely to be getting a lot of attention from Meta, so improvements are probably already in the works.

Meta Connect then would be a prime time to find out about any upcoming changes — and perhaps even for Meta to roll out a software update for it or a new model. Or perhaps Meta will announce availability in countries other than the US, so that more of us can try it.

7. Updates addressing the privacy backlash

As well as launching some camera-free smart glasses, Meta may use Connect to announce some software updates aimed at addressing privacy concerns in its existing specs.

Already, the company has rolled out an update that will stop the glasses recording if you cover the LED once a recording has started, but Meta may well be cooking up additional changes to further prevent surreptitious photography and video recording.

Indeed, Meta's VP of Wearables Alex Himel recently said "we’re going to keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery." So while it’s unclear what exactly those updates will be, we might learn about some of them at Meta Connect.

• Watch Bengals vs Texans FREE on 5 (UK)
• Unlock your stream with IPVanish (save up to 83%)
• Bengals vs Texans kick-off: Sun, Sep 20 at 1pm ET / 6pm BST / 3am AEST (Mon)

Watch Cincinnati Bengals vs Houston Texans after the vaunted Texans defense getting shredded in their opening NFL 2026 fixture wasn't on anybody's bingo card – and things may well get worse before they get better. The Bengals racked up 33 points last weekend, and they now have a defense befitting Super Bowl contenders.

Joe Burrow has, however, been dealing with a back issue this week. Considering his injury history, Cincinnati can't be too careful with their quarterback, who threw for 254 yards and a touchdown in a 33-27 victory over the Buccaneers last Sunday, but they'll also want him to re-establish that connection with Ja'Marr Chase as quickly as possible. And with Zac Taylor's position as precarious as it is, patience is thin on the ground in Cincy.

CJ Stroud's first outing of the campaign held plenty of promise, considering how last season turned out, but despite going toe-to-toe with Josh Allen and nearly coming out on top, there were two fumbles to go along with his pair of touchdowns and 274 passing yards against the Bills. If he's able to cut those moments out and the Houston defense can show that last week's display was an aberration, DeMeco Ryans' men will go far.

Read on as we explain how to watch Bengals vs Texans for free.

Can you watch Bengals vs Texans for free?

Yes. Bengals vs Texans is being shown on free-to-air 5Action and 5 in the UK.

Traveling abroad right now? You can use a VPN to watch Bengals vs Texans for free as if you were right at home.

Use a VPN to watch Bengals vs Texans live streams

A VPN is a handy piece of software that can make your device appear as if it's back in your home country, so you can unlock your usual streaming services. One of our favourites is IPVanish – it does everything and comes with up to 83% off.

How to watch Bengals vs Texans live streams in the US

In the US, the Bengals vs Texans game is being shown on CBS and Paramount+.

Paramount+ starts at $8.99/month or $89.99/year, and is also home to Champions League soccer. However, you can access Paramount+ virtually for free with a Walmart Plus 30-day trial for $1.

Alternatively, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, DirecTV Stream and the Fubo Sports + News plan each carry CBS and will provide near-comprehensive NFL coverage this season.

Outside of the US? IPVanish can unblock your stream from anywhere in the world.

How to watch Bengals vs Texans live streams in the UK

In the UK, Bengals vs Texans is free-to-air on 5Action, with live streaming available via the 5 platform.

If you're traveling outside of the UK, you can make use of IPVanish to access that free Bengals vs Texans coverage.

How to watch Bengals vs Texans live streams in Australia

In Australia, the Bengals vs Texans game is being shown exclusively on NFL Game Pass on DAZN, which is showing every remaining game, including the Super Bowl.

Prices start at AU$339.99 for the season if you pay upfront, rising to AU$34.99/month if you commit to 12 months, and AU$33.99/week on a rolling basis.

Not in Australia right now? You can simply use a VPN like IPVanish to watch the action as if you were back home.

How to watch Bengals vs Texans live streams in Canada

The Bengals vs Texans game is available to watch on DAZN in Canada.

DAZN, which is showing every 2026 NFL fixture, starts at CA$24.99/month.

It's also being shown on TSN Premium, which costs CA$29.99/month or CA$249.99/year.

If you're out of Canada but still want to tune in, explore the VPN route set out above, which will help you access your accounts from anywhere.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

• Look out for the small blue 'hello' signs in Apple Stores
• They're to help test the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max cameras
• The new phones are now available to purchase in retail stores

The next time you head into an Apple Store, you should be able to spot a small blue 'hello' sign somewhere, as per reports on social media — and the appearance of these little signs is apparently connected to the launch of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.

As per MacRumors, the signs are there to help customers test out the optical zoom capabilities of the new handsets. Both models offer up to 8x optical zoom, so having something specific to zoom in on is going to be helpful.

While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max have a variable aperture feature on one of their three rear cameras now, the optical zoom capabilities are actually the same as the iPhone 17 equivalents that launched in September of last year.

There are also new Pro controls on the latest handsets, so settings for lens aperture, shutter speed, and white balance can be tweaked shot by shot — something else you might want to test out in an Apple Store.

Now available

The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max arrived in Apple's retail stores on Friday, September 18, six days after preorders started. Prices for the handsets start at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099 and $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,299 respectively (for 256GB of storage).

New Apple CEO John Ternus made an appearance at the Apple Store in New York to help celebrate the wider availability of the flagship iPhones — as well as the Apple Watch Series 12, the Apple Watch Ultra 4, and the AirPods 5.

He didn't mention anything about the new 'hello' signs in stores, but they've been spotted by customers nevertheless. They look to be located on higher shelves and fixtures, perhaps to put off anyone wanting one as a souvenir.

And if you're wondering where the iPhone 18 is and when you'll be able to test that out, don't panic — it's rumored to be showing up around March time, alongside the iPhone 18e and the iPhone Air 2.

In the UK, we're exceptionally good at producing legal dramas. From Silk to Kavanagh QC, we've been offering the world a strictness and sense of traditionalism that the likes of Law & Order just can't touch.

Nowhere was this more apparent that The Split, one of the most popular dramas on BBC iPlayer in recent years. Exploring the world of divorce law, we follow the Defoes, a family of sisters working as divorce lawyers, who come face-to-face with their past after their estranged father returns to the fold.

The series came to an end in 2024, but two years later, spinoff The Split Up is ready to take up the mantle. This time, we're following Kishan Law, a powerhouse British South Asian family law firm.

Aria (Ritu Arya) is poised to take over leadership from her father Dhruv (Sanjeev Bhaskar), but the death of Aria's mother six months prior causes Dhruv to hesitate. Add in a workplace love triangle, complicated siblings and a messy divorce trial walking through their doors every week, and we've got something to get our teeth into.

It's a brilliant and delicious watch — so much so that I binged all six episodes in one sitting. Speaking to writer Ursula Rani Sarma, I learned that she already has ideas for more (though no official renewal has been made). On top of that, they're not ruling out a Nicola Walker cameo further down the line.

'If a storyline created that opportunity, we could 100% do it'

"My personal hope is for three seasons minimum," Sarma tells me. "I feel like I'm only just getting started with writing these characters and their journeys. As I was coming up with these storylines for season 1, I also had ideas for seasons 2 and 3 in my head."

This last statement alone immediately makes The Split Up worth investing in. We're living in an age of routine TV cancellations and one-season miniseries, so for Sarma to be taking the time to think further ahead means there's a natural richness that (surely) the BBC can't say no to.

"The three-season arc also emulates The Split," she continues. "But of course, that turned around and surprised everyone with a special. It's endless, my hopes and dreams for this family."

No spoilers, but we leave The Split Up at a place where enough is resolved and left unspoken simultaneously — which, frankly, is exactly where you want be heading into another season.

But what about a direct crossover? "I don't think anything's off the table," Sarma adds. "It was really important for the first series to establish this family to hopefully make audiences fall in love with them in the same way. To build that up without wondering what would happen if Hannah [Walker] were to walk in.

"But this is the gift of being part of The Split. If a storyline created that opportunity, we could 100% do it. Its cast are clearly so fond of that show."

That's the sense of optimism I like to see... now I just need to keep my fingers crossed.

When the original Steam Deck was first announced back in mid-2021, it was a revelation. Valve proved that handheld gaming PCs could be cost-effective and still powerful enough to run demanding software at playable framerates. The first-generation Deck would ship in February 2022, with the Steam Deck OLED model later innovating with a larger, prettier screen, improved refresh rate, and a superior battery in November 2023.

The Steam Deck impressed at the time with its respectable semi-custom AMD APU complete with its four-core (eight threads) CPU clocked between 2.4 and 3.5 GHz, and 8 RDNA 2 Compute Units clocked at 1.6 GHz.

In short, the hardware inside meant that pushing the best PC games to 30 FPS (and above in some cases) at its native 1280 x 720p resolution was a possibility, but the competition has proven that it's time for Valve to go back to the drawing board if it wants to stay competitive.

That's because the Steam Deck is now fairly underpowered when compared to the best PC handhelds on the market. The competition have Full HD (1080p) displays (or better), and feature vastly superior hardware in the form of AMD Ryzen Z1/Z2 or Intel Arc G3 APUs that run rings around the previous-generation frontrunner. So, what does Valve need to do to ensure the Steam Deck 2 can compete if, and when, it launches?

1. A 120Hz Full HD (1080p) OLED display as standard

Both the Steam Deck LCD and Steam Deck OLED models feature a native resolution of 1280 x 720p with either a 60Hz or 90Hz refresh rate. Considering when the former was launched, this was an acceptable trade-off for providing playable framerates. However, every competing product in the oversaturated space has since eclipsed this, meaning the Steam Deck 2 absolutely needs a 120Hz 1080p display at a minimum to be viable.

You only need to look as far as the biggest rivals from back in 2023; the Steam Deck's panel was passé less than a year after the hardware debuted, as evidenced by the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go. Both devices could confidently be called true Steam Deck rivals. The first-generation ROG Ally had a 7-inch 120Hz 1080p panel, whereas the original Legion Go had a 144Hz 8.8-inch QHD+ screen.

I'll always argue that anything above 1080p on a display as small as seven or eight inches ultimately results in a waste of resources, and it seems hardware companies got the hint in 2024. More than two years ago, the MSI Claw A1M launched with a 7-inch Full HD screen, as did the Zotac Zone, Asus ROG Ally X, Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, Lenovo Legion Go S, and Lenovo Legion Go 2, as well as recent releases such as the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. There's no need for Valve to look to 1440p (QHD), but the company needs to get with the times to avoid being left behind; lacking a decent screen would kill the Steam Deck 2.

2. A semi-custom AMD Zen 4 and RDNA 3.5 APU (or better)

It's never been Valve's style to throw standardized components into its hardware. While the competition was comfortable using the AMD Ryzen Z1 or Z2, or gave Intel Arc graphics a go, the Washington-based company had to go a different route. We saw this with the semi-custom APU inside the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED, but this design philosophy has since been repeated with the recently released Steam Machine.

Valve's living room PC features a semi-custom AMD APU that utilizes a six-core (12 threads) Zen 4 CPU and an RDNA 3-powered GPU with a total of 28 Compute Units and 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM. This home-console rival was said to offer "six times the horsepower" of the Steam Deck, and the tech could act as the perfect blueprint for what should be inside the Steam Deck 2.

Now, considering the portable nature of a Steam Deck successor and the lack of an active cooling solution, combined with the price tag (I'll get to that further down the page), it's unlikely that the Steam Deck 2 will be as powerful as the Steam Machine, but it could close the gap. The Steam Machine uses around 170W of its total power draw when plugged into mains, with 110W dedicated to the GPU, 30W for the CPU, and the rest of the components (RAM, fans, SSD, etc.) accounting for the other 30 to 60W of draw.

When plugged in, the Steam Deck OLED draws a maximum of 45W (or 15V at 3000mA). When on battery power, Valve's handheld draws anywhere from four to 27W depending on the task at hand. Obviously, battery life has to be a huge consideration here as well, so we aren't going to see upwards of 100W for a handheld. Today's competition, chiefly the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, can provide 30-60 FPS in High settings in 1080p in either 17W or 35W on battery, but that comes at its own (literal) cost.

That's the power potential, but what about a close approximation of how a semi-custom RDNA 3 or RDNA 3.5-backed APU could perform inside the Steam Deck 2? Well, the closest we can get is with the performance jump from the AMD Ryzen Z2 compared to the Z1. At lower TDPs, the Z2 offers a generational leap anywhere from 4W to 40W, offering playable framerates of at least 30 FPS in 1080p, which is the only standard requirement for a Steam Deck Verified game in 2026. In particular, the Z2 Extreme features 16 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units with a total boost clock of up to 2.9 GHz and 24GB LPDDR5x-8000 memory; Valve could use something similar.

3. A sub-$1,000 / £1,000 price tag

When the Steam Deck was first revealed and distributed, it was sold at a loss. Prior to the original model's release, Gabe Newell said this decision was "painful" but "critical" for the hardware to break through to the market. Affordability and competitive performance took priority over outclassing the competition, and that was the core appeal of the Steam Deck, especially in the early years.

Well, it's nearing the end of 2026 now, and hardware companies (including Valve itself) have not learned from this example. The Steam Deck was successful because it was an affordable and powerful entry point into PC gaming, but that's a reality that's (unfortunately) becoming harder to remember as time marches on. The ongoing RAM crisis has meant the Steam Deck OLED shot up in price by 50%, and sales are also plummeting, and consumers have already begun to argue that handheld gaming PCs are back into the unaffordable niche product they were pre-2021.

To course-correct, Valve needs to offer the Steam Deck 2 for less than $1,000 / £1,000 / AU$2,000, at least for its base and mid-range configurations. We've seen growing backlash from gamers against rising prices recently, particularly with the eye-watering MSRPs of the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 (starting at $1,299.99 / £1,299.99) and the aforementioned MSI Claw 8 EX AI's shocking $1,799.99 / £1,399.99 entry point. To remain competitive, Valve needs to undercut the competition here, even if it means sacrificing some superficial features and maybe even peak performance.

In other words, Valve needs to remember why the Steam Deck succeeded in the first place: it was powerful enough and affordable enough to make everyday people consider PC gaming. It's a tall order given we're currently in one of the worst times in the computing industry in recent memory, where the price of GPUs, RAM, SSDs, and anything else that uses memory are skyrocketing with no signs of slowing down. Even if the Deck 2 is originally sold at a small loss, it would go a long way to prove that Valve can be pro-consumer again, as it lost favor with the Steam Machine's so-so performance for the price tag.

4. TMR sticks and mechanical buttons

Now that we've covered a prospective Steam Deck successor's price tag, specs, and screen, it's time to talk about ergonomics. While both versions of the Steam Deck are comfortable in the hand for long play sessions, the actual buttons and sticks leave a lot to be desired. Likely due to a price constraint, the handhelds utilize the standardized potentiometers, with physical parts that can cause wear and tear over time. If left unchecked for long enough, it can eventually lead to stick drift, which can be frustrating (and expensive) to repair.

Magnets are the way to go, then. It's tough when weighing up what would be the better technology for the Steam Deck 2's analog sticks, as both Hall Effect and TMR (Tunnelling Magnetoresistance) have their pros and cons. However, it's TMR that pulls ahead in this case for a couple of key reasons: it's more sensitive, accurate, and (thankfully) cheaper to implement now than a couple of years ago. There's a reason why so many of the best PC controllers on the market are already using TMR, so Valve would be missing an open goal if it cheaped out unnecessarily here.

TMR sticks and magnetic sensing technology as a whole are far superior and lead to fewer points of failure, ensuring longevity. It's essential for a handheld like the Steam Deck 2. Modern PC controllers, such as the Scuf Envision Pro 2 and the Scuf Omega, have led the charge with microswitch buttons and D-pads.

They not only provide instant actuation for more precise inputs, but they will also last longer than a pure membrane alternative. It's not just about immediacy and feel in the hand, but also about how this design decision could influence long-term use. Ideally, you would want a Steam Deck 2 to feel as good as the day you bought it, even five years afterwards.

5. A bigger and more efficent battery for longer (or more demanding) sessions

Any good portable device, whether it's the best phone or a Steam Deck successor, lives and dies on how good the battery life is. The original Steam Deck featured a 40 Wh (or 5200 mAh battery, whereas the Steam OLED bumped things up to 50 Wh (or 6,470 mAh). That netted you anywhere from two to 12 hours depending on the kinds of games you were running, with indies at low brightness yielding better playtime than a AAA release at full brightness would. On average, though, around two to four hours is considered the standard.

That's fine, sure, but Steam Deck rivals have since included larger batteries with longer average playtimes, and this is something Valve can directly address. For example, the Asus ROG Ally X has an 80Wh battery, meaning it can last anywhere from four to six hours of playback of intensive games played at 25 to 30W under the right conditions. That's a battery size increase of 60%; considering how many more lithium-ion batteries are being made in a compact or portable form factor, it means that this component cost could be cheaper than in 2021/22, and a larger battery could be among the top features of the successor device.

Ultimately, we want the ability to sit down and play our games on the sofa or on the move for longer, so offering a bigger battery with a superior lifespan would give the Steam Deck 2 the edge it would need. If Valve can bump the resolution up, tighten the ergonomics, increase the horsepower, and keep the costs down, then the second-generation of its handheld could be the best on the market.

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been seeing how Reality Fracture will conclude the multiverse-tearing Omenpath saga of Magic: The Gathering’s story. Jace’s domination of his Echoverse rings through his presence on seemingly every other card as the Empower Jace mechanic — which brings forth a Planeswalker token of himself, as a sort of simulacrum of the popular Amass mechanic.

But before Jace attempted to break the multiverse, Wizards of the Coast was already dabbling in powers beyond their control with Universes Beyond. This sees non-native IP break into the Magic: The Gathering game, and it has proven itself both incredibly popular and divisive.

One setting that has managed to unite both sides of the aisle, however, is Middle Earth: the land of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and dark forces attempting to enact Sauron’s corrupting plans on the world.

We recently returned to this setting through The Hobbit set, a return which felt much more like a return to a classic Magic world such as Ravnica, Lorwyn, or Dominaria rather than a return to a UB world like… New York City, which we experienced through both Marvel Super Heroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles after first swinging through with Spider-Man.

Through his YouTube channel Good Morning Magic, Gavin Verhey (Principal Magic Designer at Wizards of the Coast) details the design philosophy and origins of cards from throughout Magic’s history, including its most recent releases. At Gamescom, I got some time to chat with him, deep diving into Wizards’ approach for The Hobbit — and its approach to Universes Beyond more generally.

A return to a Magic plane normally means the return of mechanics associated with that world. Case in point, after debuting a variant of Amass with Amass Orcs in its Lord of the Rings: Tales from Middle Earth set, another variation appeared with Amass Goblins in The Hobbit — enabling players to assemble a Goblin Army, one of the five armies that battled in the book’s climax.

However we didn’t see the return of The Ring Tempts You, not even as a cameo on a Bilbo or Gollum game piece (a term designers use to denote a mechanic we see on only a couple of cards rather than as a core feature).

Verhey explained the team did look into including it, but ultimately decided against it.

“The Ring Tempts You was a mechanic that did not play out super great, and was quite complicated, and doesn’t make a lot of sense because the Ring is such a small part of The Hobbit,” says Verhey.

He explained that it could have fit as a one-off cameo, but “There’s no reminder text on the card for what The Ring Tempts You does, that’s on an entirely different card you have to track. Maybe it could have worked as a Jumpstart card, but we decided it would be a lot of work for a little gain so we didn’t bring it back.”

At least my Food and Fellowship precon deck got a couple of food token and lifegain support pieces in the set.

There, and back again?

Now that we have returned to Middle Earth, a question I’ve had rattling through my brain is which UB plane could we planeswalk back to next? Gavin Verhey wasn’t about to spoil anything, but I did ask if the possibility of returning meant Wizards of the Coast was more cautious about what it did or didn’t use from a partner’s IP.

The Lord of the Rings set only included one The Hobbit reference through the card There and Back Again, meanwhile The Last Airbender didn’t include any ties to The Legend of Korra — not even as a Secret Lair.

“In general we want our designers to use everything they can, because there’s no guarantee we’ll ever make another set in that world. So you should make as much as you can, and what makes sense. But we’re often making them based on very specific properties.

“So with Avatar: The Last Airbender the set was Avatar: The Last Airbender not Avatar: The Legend of Korra. So Korra was off the table for that set. The same for The Lord of the Rings set, The Hobbit was off the table.

“It’s a bit of preservation for the future, but also just a bit of what we have access to.”

Verhey adds this is contrasted by sets like Final Fantasy or Doctor Who where the designers knew they had access to the whole franchise’s history for one set.

The Marvel collab is also a bit different as Wizards of the Coast knew there would be multiple sets from the get go: “So we actually figured out, before we did anything else, how we were going to divvy all of those sets up to make sure cards ended up in the right place.”

Riddles in the dark

Gavin Verhey explained there are plenty of positives that come from working in a Universes Beyond set — chiefly the distinct characters the worlds are filled with are a delightful design puzzle to bring to life in MtG. But what are the challenges?

“The place that you get into the most trouble is figuring out how the characters translate into colors — because a well-written character is usually many different colors over the course of their lifecycle.”

Verhey explained players have different expectations of the characters. Someone will reasonably see Bilbo as Blue for his riddles expertise, another person sees him as Black as he embraces thievery, another as Green for hobbits’ embrace of food and nature in the Shire — we’ve seen him represented across all five colors in fact across both Middle Earth-based sets.

We’ve seen how the designers solve this: make multiple versions of the same character at different points throughout their story. This prevents every legend becoming five-color soup, and keeps things simple and accessible for newcomers — who are more likely to open a card belonging to a popular character if there’s multiple of them, and cards with fewer colors are usually less complex as they don’t need to mechanically justify why they’re multi-disciplined.

That said, Verhey said there do need to be multi-color legends to encompass other similar legends so folks can play them all in the same deck more easily if they want — “For example, we make sure there’s a Red-White Dwarf lord that all other Dwarves can go into a deck for.” (Note: A lord is a term for a card which offers a static benefit to all cards of a certain creature type).

This doesn’t just account for creatures in The Hobbit. The designers also try to make sure the cards pair well with the Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, and Hobbits they’ve released before.

Universes Beyond can also create almost the reverse challenge for the designers: not having enough characters in each color.

Verhey explained. “You know, this is not the case for The Hobbit but a funny Universes Beyond problem is usually most worlds have heroes — that makes for easy White characters — and they have villains which tend to want to be Black characters. Then there’s usually someone who’s a little aggressive or impulsive, so our Red characters. And there’s always the smart people so that’s the Blue. But Green?”

For The Hobbit Elves, Bears and other nature-aligned figures fill this slot, but that’s not always the case.

“Figuring out what Green means in a world without Elves, growth, or lots of nature is really challenging — that’s what many Universes Beyond can live or die on.”

A Warm Welcome

Universes Beyond has been a standout success for Magic: The Gathering. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that Wizards of the Coast would want to apply this to its other world-famous brand: Dungeons and Dragons.

So far it has announced collaboration plans with World of Warcraft and Star Wars — partnerships which will bring iconic characters, worlds, items and archetypes (as classes and subclasses) into the tabletop roleplaying game.

However no Universes Beyond property has yet to feature in both games, so I asked Verhey if any rivalry or jealousy has developed between the teams — Star Wars fans on the Magic side or The Last Airbender lovers on D&D wishing they could be building inside those worlds.

Unsurprisingly Verhey said there’s nothing but excitement around the office, “It’s honestly very cool to see D&D be like ‘Hey this thing’s been great for Magic, Let’s have us give that a try as well’. I’m stoked to see what they do with it.”

The Last Stage

There’s only a few months left of 2026, but we have a lot more Magic: The Gathering to enjoy. Verhey says reality is “huge. It’s the capstone event of the current story arc, and like nothing we’ve made before.”

Previews have showcased dozens of alternate reality pairings — showing original and Echoverse versions of characters from across Magic’s worlds — and in Verhey’s words the team has done “a heck of a lot better a job than we did with Planar Chaos” in terms of warping Magic characters and mechanics without warping the color pie in ways designers regret later.

We also have Star Trek, another Universes Beyond property. This may seem like an odd inclusion for a fantasy focused game, however space has featured in several sets now — Unfinity, Doctor Who, and Edge of Eternities — and Star Trek actually featured all the way back when MtG was still in early testing. Spock performing a Vulcan salute was placeholder art for a card called Blessing.

Verhey also said we can expect a set filled with the new Dilemmas — a new mechanic for the set related to mimic the tough choices characters face — and for us to “try an experience that’s a little different than normal”. Verhey mentioned combat isn’t a massive part of the Star Trek shows, so perhaps we’ll see Limited games play out very differently when this set rolls around.

Finally, there’s Mystery Booster Commander Edition. This event-exclusive set has been filled with exciting Commander cards, including several brand new game pieces that break the rules of the format, and harken back to Magic’s past in creative ways — Verhey is currently explaining these callbacks on his YouTube channel.

“I cannot wait for folks to start playing it at MagicCon Atlanta, it’s a blast.” As a Commander lover, I can’t wait either.

• Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid: Sun, September 20
• Kick-Off: 10.15am ET / 3.15pm BST
• Stream free on CazeTV's YouTube (Brazil)
• Use NordVPN to watch from anywhere (save 75% today)

The La Liga table has a familiar look after six rounds of fixtures in Spain's top flight: Barcelona first, Real Madrid second and Atletico Madrid third. But depending on the result of this weekend's tussle in the capital, Madrid and Atletico could swap positions before the extended international break.

Jose Mourinho's second spell at the Bernabeu has begun fairly well, with Madrid winning five and losing one of their first six league games. Atletico, for their part, have won four, drawn one and lost one, but their best performance of the campaign to date came in the 4-0 thrashing of Osasuna on Wednesday.

Julian Alvarez will miss out on the derby with a muscular problem, so Diego Simeone looks set to adopt a counter-attacking approach in which his team will sit deep and look to break forward at speed. Madrid will bank on their attacking quality overwhelming Atletico's defence, with Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappe the players to watch.

Here's where to watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live streams from anywhere today.

Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid team news

Atletico Madrid XI: Oblak, Llorente, Pubill, Romero, Hancko, Simeone, Baena, Cardoso, Grimaldo, Lee, David.

Real Madrid XI: Courtois, Dumfries, Konate, Huijsen, Cucurella, Valverde, Tchouameni, Guler, Bellingham, Vinicius, Mbappe.

Can I watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid for free?

Yes, CazeTV in Brazil will show Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live for free on their YouTube Channel.

Outside of Brazil? NordVPN can help unlock your live streams from anywhere in the world – more on that below.

Use a VPN to watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live streams

A VPN is a handy piece of software that can make your device appear as if it's back in your home country, thereby letting you unlock your usual service. The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and comes with up to a 76% discount.

Using a VPN is incredibly simple:

1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favorite.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're visiting the UK and want to view your usual US service, you'd select a United States server from the list.

3. Sit back and enjoy the action. Head to your usual local streaming service and watch the soccer.

How to watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live streams in the USA

The Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live stream is being shown on ESPN2 (and ESPN Deportes) and ESPN Select in the US.

A subscription to ESPN Select costs $13.99/month or $139.99/year.

Another option is ESPN Unlimited, which costs $31.99/month or $319.99/year and includes live streaming access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes and a whole host of other channels.

Alternatively, ESPN2 is also carried by YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and DirecTV Stream, each of which offers a free trial to new users. Sling TV is another option and currently offers the cheapest monthly price for access to ESPN2.

On holiday overseas? A VPN will allow you to access your usual US subscription from abroad. We recommend NordVPN as the best overall streaming VPN.

How to watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live streams in the UK

Premier Sports 1 is broadcasting the Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid La Liga encounter live in the UK.

Premier Sports costs £18.99 on a rolling monthly basis, or £130/year if you pay upfront. Alternatively, you can add it to an existing Sky TV, Virgin Media or Prime Video plan.

Not in the UK for Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid? You'll need to download a good VPN to access your Premier Sports stream.

How to watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live streams in Canada

In Canada you can watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live on TSN5.

If you don't have cable, the TSN Plus streaming service costs CA$24.99/month but right now you can get an introductory offer of CA$59.99 for your first three months.

For fans travelling outside of Canada, use NordVPN to login to your TSN+ account from anywhere in the world.

How to watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid live streams in Australia

Soccer fans in Australia can watch Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid on beIN Sports 2.

Subscriptions cost AU$16.99/month or AU$169.99/year, with both options including a 7-day free trial.

Missing the Madrid Derby because you're outside of Oz? Use a VPN to login to your beIN Sports account.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

• Man City vs Sunderland: Sunday, September 20 at 2pm BST / 9am ET / 11pm AEST
• Streams: Sky Sports (UK) / Peacock (US)
• Outside the UK? Use NordVPN to unblock your streaming account

Watch Man City vs Sunderland in the Premier League 2026/27 season, as Enzo Maresca's team look to make it five wins from five ahead of the extended international break.

It has been a smooth start to Maresca's tenure at the Etihad Stadium, with Man City boasting a 100 percent record in competitive fixtures heading into this weekend. A 1-0 victory over Man Utd on Sunday thanks to Erling Haaland's controversial winner was particularly sweet especially as Man City played more than half of the match with 10 men after Phil Foden saw red. Maresca rotated for the midweek Carabao Cup victory against Norwich, but the control and confidence were still apparent with first club goals for youngster Floyd Samba and summer signing Allan.

Sunderland pushed Arsenal hard last weekend, only to lose 2-0 to the reigning champions. The Black Cats are capable of making life difficult for Man City with their muscular, counter-attacking approach, although Sunderland have not kept an away clean sheet in any of their last six Premier League assignments. Regis Le Bris' side will be boosted by the midweek victory over AZ in the Europa League, courtesy of the superb Enzo Le Fée, on their return to continental competition after a 53-year wait.

Here's how to watch Man City vs Sunderland in the 2026/27 Premier League from anywhere in the world.

How to watch Man City vs Sunderland from anywhere

A VPN is handy piece of software that can make your device appear as if it's back in your home country, so you can unlock your usual service. The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and you can get our exclusive deal too...

How to watch Man City vs Sunderland live streams in the USA

Soccer fans in the US can watch Man City vs Sunderland in the Premier League on Peacock.

Peacock Premium plans start from $12.99 a month, or $129.99 a year.

You can also watch if you take out a 30-day trial of Walmart+ for $1, which includes Peacock access as a membership benefit.

Outside of the US? Use a VPN whilst you're traveling away from home to unlock your stream. We like NordVPN best.

How to watch a Man City vs Sunderland live stream in the UK

Sky Sports is broadcasting Man City vs Sunderland in the UK on its Premier League channel.

Packages cost £35 per month for new customers, or £22 per month if you already have a Sky TV contract. The Sky Go app lets you watch on your laptop, mobile or tablet.

Fans can also tune in using a NOW Sports Membership, with 24-hour passes costing £14.99.

Not in the UK for Man City vs Sunderland? Use NordVPN to access your usual Premier League streams.

How to watch Man City vs Sunderland live streams in Canada

Fubo is the Premier League's broadcast partner in Canada and it has live coverage of Man City vs Sunderland.

Prices start from CA$31.49 per month for Fubo's Sports Monthly package. However, the best option right now is the Quarterly Package which costs just CA$27.99 CA$14.99 for each of the first three months. You can also watch Fubo's content if you have a select DAZN subscription in Canada.

Not in Canada? Use NordVPN if you're away from home, in order to tap into your preferred coverage from anywhere.

How to watch Man City vs Sunderland live streams in Australia

A Man City vs Sunderland live stream is available in Australia on Stan Sport.

You can pick up a Stan Sport subscription for as little as AU$29.99 per month for the basic plan containing adds. That price consists of the AU$9.99 Stan subscription fee plus the Sport add-on for AU$20.

Outside of Oz? You can use a VPN to access your usual Premier League coverage. We recommend NordVPN.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

It's a legendary fantasy franchise, which has influenced pop culture for almost 90 years now. But how well do you know The Lord of The Rings?

Ever since the first-published story back in the 1930s, the franchise has become a giant. We've seen video games, TV shows, board games, radio plays and, of course, one of the most famous movie trilogies ever made. It's safe to say that The Lord of The Rings is something any fantasy fan should know about.

But do you? To figure out, we've compiled a 30-question The Lord of The Rings quiz, to see if you're a smart elf or a bumpkin Hobbit. These won't pick your brain about the story: you don't need to know about the comings and goings in Rhun, what Beregond does, or what Ancalagon the Black did. Instead, it's about the franchise itself; all the media based on the books (and the books themselves).

The questions are organized by difficulty: we'll start with 10 easy ones (to make sure you're not better suited for our Harry Potter quiz), then 10 medium ones, and finally 10 harder ones.

So let's dive in, to see how much you know about The Lord of The Rings.

Need to brush up on your Middle-earth knowledge? Maybe this will help:

As AI becomes an ever-present in many businesses, most will now be looking to determine not just when AI will genuinely make a difference - as opposed to when it might just add cost and complexity.

So does every business process really need AI, or should companies be focusing on specific needs which will help them the most?

We spoke to Gregg Aldana, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Solutions Consulting at Appian, to find out more.

• There’s a growing assumption that if AI can be applied to a business process, it should be. Is that the wrong starting point? How should businesses decide where AI genuinely adds value - and where it’s simply adding complexity?

The wrong starting point is asking, ‘Where can we use AI?’ because that puts the technology before the business problem. Organisations should start by asking what they are actually trying to solve and where the biggest bottlenecks or inefficiencies sit.

That means looking closely at which decisions they are trying to improve, what data those decisions rely on and where human oversight needs to sit. That discovery should involve the people who understand the process and its challenges, from IT and business teams through to executive leadership.

Only then can businesses judge whether AI is genuinely going to make a difference. The test isn’t whether AI can do something. It’s whether it can make the process measurably better.

• How do you distinguish between a process that actually needs AI and one that can be handled more effectively with traditional automation, rules or workflow?

The key distinction is whether the task follows predictable rules and has a clearly defined outcome. If it does, traditional automation or business rules can often get you there faster and more cheaply. In those cases, adding AI may not improve the outcome and can introduce complexity that simply isn’t needed.

For example, an insurance company would use business rules to review and classify incoming online claims based on what the claimant selected from a drop-down list in a form. Automotive claims go to one department and home insurance claims go to another.

AI agents become more valuable when the work requires adaptive reasoning, complex context or handling variable inputs. In this case, an AI agent could analyse claims from web and mobile forms with structured data, as well as incoming emails with unstructured content. Based on keywords such as ‘motorway,’ ‘clash,’ and ‘passenger,’ a trained AI agent would deduce that the claim is probably about an automotive accident and route it to the appropriate department.

The mistake is assuming that because an AI agent can perform a task, it should. Businesses need to look at what each part of a process actually requires and use the technology that best fits that need, rather than replacing conventional automation with AI for the sake of it. A balanced portfolio approach is essential – use rules for high-volume, repeatable logic and agents for dynamic triage or investigation.

• What’s the hidden cost of putting AI into every process? Beyond the cost of the model itself, are businesses underestimating the costs around data, integration, monitoring, governance, security and managing exceptions?

One of the highest hidden costs lies in the operational infrastructure required around the AI model to make it work effectively and safely. The cost isn’t just the model. Agents need access to the right data and systems, but businesses also need monitoring, security and governance around what they can access and what actions they can take.

There is then the question of accountability. Organisations need to understand why an action was taken, trace what happened if something goes wrong and have a clear way of dealing with situations an agent cannot handle confidently. Without a unified platform to orchestrate data and enforce policy, the overhead of managing exceptions and audit trails will outpace the AI’s productivity gains.

That overhead can absolutely be worthwhile when AI is delivering meaningful value. But every additional agent introduces complexity, so businesses need to be confident the improvement to the process justifies it.

• Where do you think human judgement remains irreplaceable in enterprise processes - particularly when decisions affect customers, employees, finances or regulatory outcomes? And how should organisations decide when a human needs to remain “in the loop” rather than simply being notified after an AI agent has acted?

Human judgement remains critical where the cost or consequence of getting a decision wrong is high, particularly in regulated industries such as financial services, insurance, life sciences and the public sector. AI can accelerate areas such as client onboarding, insurance, underwriting or clinical trials, but there will still be decisions where the consequences mean a person needs to be involved.

That doesn’t mean a human has to approve every action an AI agent takes. The important thing is understanding the level of risk attached to the decision. Routine activities may proceed autonomously, while sensitive, unusual or more consequential tasks and decisions should be escalated for human review.

Those risk assessments and boundaries need to be designed into the process from the start. Organisations should know which decisions an agent is authorised to make on its own and which require human judgement before an action is taken.

• Is the more realistic future one where people, AI and conventional automation work together, rather than one where AI agents eventually take over entire end-to-end processes?

End-to-end automation isn't about giving an entire process to a single AI agent. The future is orchestration. A more realistic future is one where people, AI agents and conventional automation work together, because tasks vary within a process that require different skills.

Complex processes require a combination of predictable business rules, adaptive AI agents and human expertise. The goal is to build an integrated process where each component handles what it does best. The key is to understand which parts are best handled by an agent, where a simple rule or workflow will work better and where a person needs to be involved.

The aim isn’t to maximise the amount of AI being used. It’s to build the most effective process around the business outcome you want to achieve.

• Could the pursuit of autonomous AI actually make some business processes less efficient? For instance, if you introduce an AI agent into a process that was previously handled by a simple rule, are you potentially adding latency, uncertainty and governance overhead without creating much additional value?

Absolutely. Putting AI into the wrong part of a process can make it less efficient, not more. Replacing a deterministic rule with a probabilistic AI model introduces unnecessary latency, cost and unpredictability. If a task can already be completed quickly and reliably through a simple rule, introducing an AI agent may not materially improve the outcome.

That doesn’t mean businesses should be overly cautious about AI. It means being selective. Agents are incredibly valuable where a task requires unstructured reasoning, extensive research or adapting to changing information. But they shouldn’t replace conventional automation simply because AI is newer or more sophisticated.”

Sometimes the smartest AI decision is deciding you don’t need AI at all. Using them where a simple process rule already works reliably creates technical debt.

• What should a business ask itself before introducing AI into a process? Is it the business outcomes, the nature of the decision, the cost of failure and the availability of human expertise, rather than simply asking where AI can be inserted?

The most important question is very simple: ‘What problem are we trying to solve?’ Too often, organisations start by asking where they can use AI and then look for processes to apply it to. That puts the technology before the business need.

Instead, businesses should look at where their biggest challenges and bottlenecks really are. Which processes are taking too long? Where is there too much manual intervention? Which decisions could be improved, what data are they based on, and where does human oversight need to sit?

That discovery needs to happen upfront and involve the people who understand the process, from IT to business users to executive leadership. Identify where processes stall or manual handoffs create errors. Map out the required data and processes, regulatory requirements and risk parameters.

Ultimately, AI should be driven by business pull rather than technology push. Once you understand the problem and the outcome you want, you can decide whether AI is genuinely the best way to achieve it – or whether rules, automation or human judgement supported by AI would work better.

• How should companies think about risk when an AI system moves from making recommendations to actually taking action?

The move from recommending an action to actually taking one is where bounded autonomy becomes critical. The goal should be to give AI agents freedom to reason and act, but within clearly defined process guardrails and risk parameters.

That means being explicit about what an agent is allowed to do, what information it can access and when it needs to escalate to a person. An agent shouldn’t operate in isolation; it should sit within governed operational processes with relevant business rules and data security. All AI agent actions should be traceable and auditable within the governance framework.

Human oversight remains particularly important for exceptions, outliers and higher-risk decisions. Ultimately, businesses need to know what an agent did, why it did it and who is accountable for the outcome.

• Do you think businesses are at risk of measuring AI success by how many processes they’ve “AI-enabled”, rather than by whether those processes actually became better? What metrics should executives use instead?

The number of processes using AI tells you very little about whether an organisation is actually getting value from it. If anything, focusing on AI adoption as the metric risks encouraging exactly the wrong behaviour, putting AI into processes simply to say they have been AI-enabled.

Businesses should measure AI in the same way they would any other operational and technology investment: by the outcomes it delivers. Has it reduced cycle times? Lowered the cost of running a process? Improved the quality of decisions?

We’ve seen how significant those gains can be. Processes such as client onboarding for a bank that once took up to two weeks being reduced to just a few minutes. (That bank also automated 96% of onboarding processes whilst growing their new customers by 900%.) The cost of running an end-to-end process can fall tenfold or even more. That’s the test that matters. The goal isn’t to have AI everywhere, it’s to make the business work better.

• If you were advising a CEO who had been told they need an “AI strategy” for every part of their organisation, what would you tell them to stop doing, and what would you tell them to prioritise instead?

Stop mandating AI everywhere for the sake of adoption. I’d tell them to stop asking, ‘Where can we use AI?’ and start asking, ‘What problems are we trying to solve?’ Pressure to have an AI strategy everywhere can quickly become technology for technology’s sake.

Start with the biggest bottlenecks in the organisation. Which processes take too long? Where is there too much manual intervention? Which decisions could be improved? Identify your three highest-value operational bottlenecks and orchestrate the right mix of rules, agents and human judgement to resolve them.

Importantly, CEOs should prioritise business value over AI volume. A successful AI strategy isn’t one that puts an agent in every process; it’s one that makes those processes measurably better.

• Watch Celtic vs Rangers FREE on CBS Sports Golazo (US)
• Unlock your stream with NordVPN (save up to 75%)
• Celtic vs Rangers kick-off: Sun, Sep 20 at 7am ET / 12pm BST / 9pm AEST

With Celtic coming off back-to-back shellackings – one of those at the hands of Rangers a week ago – Derek McInnes' men have a golden opportunity to gain ground on the Scottish Premiership leaders. The Bhoys do, however, have one big advantage: all 60,411 seats at Parkhead will be filled by Celtic fans.

It's a role-reversal from last Sunday, when Rangers mauled their arch-rivals by three goals to nil to the delight of a 50,000-strong home crowd. Away fans are unable to attend any of this season's Old Firm Derbies, as punishment for the mass pitch invasion that followed their Scottish Cup quarter-final tie in March.

McInnes' awful start means Celtic are already five clear at the top with a maximum haul of 18 points, but the suspicion has been that results have masked issues... until now. A pair of Dan Neil crackers either side of Kevin Kelsy's first in a Rangers shirt condemned Martin O'Neill's men to a shockingly meek defeat in the League Cup a week ago, and things got worse with a 3-1 home hammering by Hungarian side Ferencvarosi on Thursday.

Approaching his 30th Old Firm Derby, it's possible that O'Neill has never felt quite so ill-prepared. It isn't just that the tinkering with Sam Johnstone and Viljami Sinisalo in goal, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Auston Trusty and Liam Scales at the heart of the backline, and Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran up-front suggest that O'Neill doesn't know his best XI, it's that none of the experiments have worked out as of yet.

Start badly – or select Sebastian Tounekti ahead of World Cup breakout star Haissem Hassan again – and the full voice of Celtic Park might turn into a blessing in disguise for the Gers.

Read on as we explain how to watch Celtic vs Rangers in the 2026/27 Scottish Premiership for free.

Can you watch Celtic vs Rangers for FREE?

Yes. Free Celtic vs Rangers coverage is available in the US, courtesy of the CBS Sports Golazo Network.

No account or subscription is required.

Traveling abroad right now? You can use a VPN to watch the Old Firm Derby free of charge as if you were right at home.

Use a VPN to watch Celtic vs Rangers live streams

A VPN is handy piece of software that can make your device appear as if it's back in your home country, so you can unlock your usual service. The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and comes with up to 75% off.

How to watch Celtic vs Rangers live streams in the US

The Celtic vs Rangers game is free-to-air on the CBS Sports Golazo Network streaming platform in the US. You don't even need an account.

It's also being shown on Paramount+, which is showing plenty of Champions League, Europa League, Europa Conference League and NFL action this season. Prices start at $8.99/month or $89.99/year.

However, you can access Paramount+ virtually for free with a Walmart Plus 30-day trial for $1.

Outside of the US? NordVPN can unblock your stream from anywhere in the world.

How to watch Celtic vs Rangers live streams in the UK

In the UK, Celtic vs Rangers is available to watch on Sky Sports Football.

Sky Sports packages start at £35/month with £20/month pricing available for those who are already customers. You can also tune in via a NOW Sports membership that carries the Sky Sports channels.

Away from home? Unlock your stream of Celtic vs Rangers with NordVPN.

How to watch Celtic vs Rangers live streams in Australia

beIN Sports 1 is showing the Celtic vs Rangers game in Australia, with live streaming available via beIN Sports Connect.

A subscription costs AU$16.99/month or AU$169.99/year after a 7-day FREE trial, and the service includes live and on-demand streaming of European football and tennis.

Missing the game because you're outside Australia? Use a VPN to access your beIN Sports account.

Can I watch Celtic vs Rangers in Canada?

The Scottish Premiership hasn't picked up a broadcasting partner in Canada.

If you're in Canada for work or on vacation from the US, however, a VPN will help you tap into that free Celtic vs Rangers stream. NordVPN is the one we recommend above all others.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

If your shed tends to sit unloved and unused during the darker months, adding power will make it much more useful year-round — whether you want to use a heater, add lights, charge power tools, or just keep your phone and laptop charged up. You don't have to go through the complicated process of laying an electricity cable, either; an off-grid solar generator means you can upgrade your shed in an afternoon.

To find out more, I spoke to Brady Sun, Head of Europe at solar generator company Jackery. He gave his top tips for powering your shed safely, starting with the key question: why go off-grid at all?

"Running 20-metre extension cords across damp lawns and patios creates trip and water-exposure risks, while trapping cold air inside your house through open windows," Sun explains "Installing a plug-and-play solar generator inside your shed creates a completely wireless, self-contained power hub — giving you mains-free electricity without the £1,000+ cost of professional electrician fees, armoured cabling, and trench digging."

Choose the right hardware

You can pick up a whole solar power kit, including panels, cables and battery, for well under £1,000 — and because the battery has UK plug sockets built-in, you can start using it immediately without making any modifications to your shed. But which kit should you choose? Sun says it depends on what you want to power.

"Before choosing your setup, calculate the total running and peak (startup) wattage of the devices you plan to run simultaneously," he says.

"If you’re running LED strip lighting, Wi-Fi extenders, laptops, or small battery chargers (~100W-300W load), a compact 500Wh to 1,000Wh unit (like [the] Jackery Explorer 1000 v2) provides quiet, reliable power.

"High-draw power and garden tools (table saws, lawnmowers etc) and electric heaters demand high continuous output and substantial surge capacity. Opt for a 2,000Wh+ expandable system (like the Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus v2) capable of handling 3,000W+ peak surges."

Set up a workbench charging hub

So you've got your solar panels and power station set up. Now you're ready to start tackling all those DIY jobs you've been putting off.

"Flat 18V tool batteries are a major bottleneck during autumn garden upgrades and DIY projects," says Sun. "Setting up a solar power station as a permanent workbench charging hub ensures you to continuously recharge cordless tool batteries right where you work. Paired with solar input, you can cycle through tool batteries continuously without stepping foot inside the house."

No more excuses — you can now fix those broken fence panels and trim that hedge without worrying about your tools running out of juice. It'll be great for a leaf-blower as well.

Optimise solar input

As the days get shorter, positioning your solar panels correctly is particularly important. Sun advises angling foldable solar panels at 30-45 degrees, facing south, to catch lower autumn sun trajectories.

"Choose a power station that supports pass-through charging," he adds. "This allows solar panels to feed power into the battery while the battery simultaneously powers shed lights or laptops."

You should also bear in mind the wet and cold weather that's just around the corner. "Feed solar cables through a rubber grommet or sealed cable port in the shed wall to maintain weatherproofing," Sun recommends.

Protect your battery

Finally, remember to take care of your battery in an unheated shed, which will experience moisture buildup and sharp temperature drops during autumn and winter nights.

"Always place your power station on a raised shelf, workbench, or cabinet rather than directly on cold concrete or wooden shed floors to protect it from dampness and dust," says Sun.

You should also pay attention to cold-weather charging limits. "Lithium (LiFePO4) batteries perform best when charged above 0°," Sun adds. "During freezing winter spells, insulate your setup or bring the battery unit indoors overnight to maintain optimal charging efficiency."

• Time Trials at the UCI Road World Championships 2026: September 20
• Free Stream: CBC Gem (Can), BBC iPlayer (UK) & UCI YouTube Channel (selected)
• Unlock your stream with Surfshark

An event where riders receive no support, the time trial is the ultimate test of ability as success depends solely on a combination of power, fitness and mental toughness. Always drawing plenty of attention, this year’s elite races at the UCI Road World Championships will feature a mix of established champions and rising stars.

In the men’s race, it is hard to look past Remco Evenepoel. The Belgian has been a dominant force in this event for years and has won all but two races in this discipline since his Olympic gold in Paris in 2024. Seeking a fourth World title in succession, victory would take him level with Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara's ITT World titles.

However, he is also targeting victory in the road race and that distraction could give his rivals a chance. Hoping this is the case will be two-time champion Filippo Ganna of Italy, Switzerland’s Stefan Küng and young Scottish talent Callum Thornley, all of whom are well suited to the flat course.

In the women’s race, defending champion Marlen Reusser is the favourite, but the Swiss rider is set to face a huge challenge from the Dutch contingent. Demi Vollering will be determined to improve on her third-place finish last year, while Lieke Nooijen arrives in good form having finished second in the time trial at the Tour de France Femmes.

Other contenders include Welsh rider Zoe Bäckstedt, Germany’s Antonia Niedermaier and the veteran Italian Elisa Longo Borghini.

Here's where to watch Elite Time Trial live streams at the UCI Road World Championships online from anywhere and potentially for FREE.

How to watch time trial at UCI World Road Championships using a VPN

Away from home at the moment and blocked from watching the cycling on your usual subscription?

You can still watch the UCI Road World Championships live thanks to the wonders of a VPN (Virtual Private Network). The software can make your devices appear to be back in your home country regardless of where you are, making it ideal for viewers away on vacation or on business. One of our favorites is Surfshark – we explain why in our Surfshark review.

Using a VPN is incredibly simple:

1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, SurfShark is our favourite.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're visiting the US and want to view your usual Canadian service, you'd select a Canada-based server from the list.

3. Sit back and enjoy the action. Head to your usual local streaming service and watch the cycling.

How to watch time trial at UCI World Road Championships live streams in the US

Specialist cycling streamer FloBikes has the live coverage of this year's Road World Championships, including the Elite Time Trials, in the US, allowing you to watch it on your laptop, Android (mobile and TV), iPhone, tablet, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV.

It costs $39.99 on a rolling monthly basis that can be cancelled at any time. Or, for top value, commit to a whole year and pay the equivalent of $12.99 per month ($155.99 total for the year).

If you're currently out of the US but still want to watch the cycling on your usual service, then don't forget to explore the VPN route set out above.

How to watch time trial at UCI World Road Championships live streams in Canada

CBC has the rights to broadcast live streams of the Elite Time Trials at the 2026 Road World Championships for FREE.

You can watch events on TV via the free-to-air CBC Sports or live and on-demand coverage through its online CBC Gem streaming platform.

If you aren't in Canada for the event simply use a VPN to tune in to your free Road World Championships cycling streams from overseas.

How to watch time trial at UCI World Road Championships live streams in UK

Those hoping to watch the Elite Time Trials at the 2026 Road World Championships for FREE are in luck as both races will be streamed in the UK on BBC Two, BBC Three and the BBC iPlayer.

Alternatively, you can watch on TNT Sports. To access this you'll either need to add it to your TV package, or you can take out a standalone subscription via HBO Max that includes TNT Sports. The best value streaming package is £25.99 a month for a 12-month term

If you're currently traveling abroad, don't worry, as you can use SurfShark to watch your usual service from abroad.

How to watch time trial at UCI World Road Championships live streams in Australia

This Elite Time Trials will be shown on Stan Sport in Australia. Stan Sport costs $20 a month on top of a regular Stan subscription costing from $9.99 a month.

Away from Australia? Use a VPN to watch Road World Championships 2026 matches on Stan as if you were back Down Under.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

LaserPecker has been in the laser engraving and cutting sector for a while. Still, the LX2 is its first fully enclosed system of this type, and the first that feels genuinely suited to home and small-business use rather than a workshop with proper ventilation and space to spare.

The LX2 pairs the safety of a full enclosure with a modular head system, swapping between 20W, 40W, and 60W diode and 2W infrared without tools, enabling this machine to cover a far wider range of materials and objects than a fixed single-laser engraver. However, those machines are now becoming scarce.

In this test, I’ve looked at the LX2 with the 40W diode and 2W IR heads, connected directly to a MacBook Pro M1 Max, running LaserPecker Design Space in Beta, since the full release does not yet support the LX2.

LaserPecker LX2: Price & availability

The LaserPecker LX2 is available direct from the manufacturer in the US here, and in the UK here.

At time of review, prices start at $1599 (down from $1999) / £1349 (down from £1799) for the 20W standard bundle. The 40W Standard Bundle is $1799 / £1849.

LaserPecker LX2: Design

The LX2 is relatively heavy at 22.5kg, but despite its size, it is well built and easy enough to lift and move around in the workshop; it’s also lighter than the two other cutters I already have, and at 779.5 x 609.2 x 281.15mm in size, a standard, properly braced project desk is more than sufficient to hold it.

Like most fully enclosed machines, it has a lift-over top lid that lets you watch the cut or engraving in progress, and a handy front-panel opening that makes loading material easier and lets you use the LX2 as a front-loader if you don't have headroom above the machine. It is the only machine I have come across with this feature.

Round the back are all the ports and connectors, including the USB-C that connects to your computer, with both Mac and PC supported. One oddity worth knowing: the USB-C end of the cable goes into the LX2, and the USB-A end into your computer, so a Mac needs an adapter.

Alongside that are a USB-A port for a USB key, a security key port (which needs a key installed for the machine to run at all), the fire extinguisher port, Air Assist, and the smoke outlet.

The Air Assist itself is a surprise. It’s still external to the device, and while it is nicely designed, it sits alongside the machine rather than being integrated. It connects via its own cable, similar to USB-C but with a proprietary fit, and I found the connector rather delicate; a second cable was needed to complete the test after the original broke.

Inside is the 500 x 305mm work area, with markings on the base for camera alignment during calibration and each cut. There are also two cameras, with a live preview back to the software; accurate positioning is easy enough, as you’d expect on this level of machine.

Once again, there is no honeycomb grid included, something that is an increasingly common omission, and LaserPecker supplies only four thin slats to support material. Four is not enough. If you buy this machine, budget for at least four more, since without them you will be constantly repositioning the slats you have to support each new piece of material.

Otherwise, the design is aesthetically stunning, and the build quality is superb. There’s no doubt that this is a solid machine, but even on initial unboxing you can see a few areas that need a little more design attention.

LaserPecker LX2: Features

The feature list mirrors most other fully enclosed laser cutters at this price, and the build quality was obvious as soon as I lifted the machine out of its packaging. If the cutting accuracy holds up, this looks like a great option for a small business, and the modular heads add the flexibility to work across a huge range of materials and objects rather than being locked to one laser type.

The design is aesthetically stunning, and looks good on the workshop bench. The machine is big, but so is the work area it buys you. I like that it has front- and top-loading capabilities.

One of the big features is the ability to fit different modules with three diode options: 20W, 40W and 60W and a 2W IR for metal. This offers one of the most flexible solutions out there, so if you are running a business, this will be a great option.

Fitting a module is simple enough, though it does mean connecting a data cable and an air assist tube each time. I would still prefer these integrated into the head itself, but it is easy enough as it stands.

Once running, the engraving and cutting offer impressive speeds, and speed is one of the LX2’s headline features: 1,000mm/s with acceleration up to 10,000mm/s² which means that if used with some of the larger accessories, such as the optional conveyor, much larger projects can be tackled.

Finally, and this is one of the lead features, there are two internal positioning cameras that help with placement accuracy in the software; this positioning accuracy is essential when working with the 2W IR head, where the finished mark is harder to preview by eye.

LaserPecker LX2: Performance

Setup, calibration and connecting the software took around an hour in total, roughly half an hour unpacking and fitting the head, and another half hour on calibration and getting connected. That is in line with other enclosed engravers of this type I have looked at recently.

Fitting the head was easy enough, if not quite as smooth as some rivals, and plugging in the data cable and Air Assist tube alongside it was straightforward, though I would still rather see it integrated into the head itself. Running the vent to an external filter is worth doing and worth budgeting for, though LaserPecker has not yet listed a price.

Installing the software meant finding the Beta build specifically, since the standard release of LaserPecker Design Space does not yet support the LX2. The first run takes you through mandatory safety training before you can use the machine, then through a USB connection to start with. Calibration is more convoluted than rivals I have used.

LaserPecker Design Space is all well laid out, although there are sections where you can still see that this software is in Beta, such as the WiFi connection, re-running calibration and some stability issues. However, it’s extensive, and once you start to familiarise yourself with how it works, it does generally make sense.

Importing designs requires you to add SVG files as an example project and then open them, but line and fill information is retained and accessing those settings and adjusting power and speed is straight forwrad. I also liked the fact that there is a set of material presets, and the settings for these are close to spot on.

When you first get started with a material there is a test chart installed which will show you the effect at the different powers and speeds, this is well worth running on any new material so that you can fine tune the settings.

Some experimentation is still needed to get the perfect result for a given material and finish, but this is a starting point rather than a blank slate for every job, and it improved noticeably over a couple of weeks of regular use.

One issue that I did have during testing was with the Air Assist or to be more accurate the proprietary cable that looks very much like USB-C, and the one I received was delicate enough that the connector broke partway through the test.

That is why some of the wood samples from this review show scorching; results from earlier in testing, before the cable failed, are noticeably cleaner. Worth knowing if you are relying on Air Assist for consistent results.

Cutting 20mm basswood with multiple passes, with Air Assist working and the settings properly dialled in, produced results with little charring or residue, though getting there took time and experimentation rather than being right first time.

The 2W IR head fitted just as easily as the 40W diode, and its results were excellent; again, with no ready-made preset for every material, building the right settings is part of the process, and this is perfectly normal.

Testing the 40W module, it was able to produce clean and substantial cuts, and I tended to measure the material distance prior to each cut just to ensure the best performance.

LaserPecker LX2: Final verdict

The LX2 is a great machine with a few rough edges and odd decisions. Looking at the negatives, the first has to be the air assist cable to the machine; this is needed for automatic operation.

In the review I ended up just running a power cable directly to the Air Assist and bypassing the auto features. While breaking the cable partway through it was good to see that the Air Assist could be powered in a different way.

In use, the large workspace, high speed when needed, camera alignment and clean cuts definitely make this an appealing machine, but the software at present does hold it back; there are just small issues that need ironing out, such as the calibration process, the loading of files and some stability.

If you’re a serious maker or small business producing a genuine mix of cut wood, engraved products and customised metal items, where the modular approach makes sense at this price and with the flexibility of all those accessories, all makes this look like a great small business solution.

Should you buy the LaserPecker LX2

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

For more crafting tech, I've tested and reviewed all the best 3D printers and the best laser engravers.

I'm sure that you'll be looking for some soothing escapism to stream this weekend, but ITV has other ideas. From September 20, new crime drama The Blame hits our screens, with episodes available to stream en mass on ITVX.

Led by Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth, the six-part series follows the murder of a teenage skater, which not only draws detectives down a dark, treacherous path, but also forces them to investigate their own team.

The call is coming from inside the house, as the kids say. DI Emma Clare (Keegan) is not just the only member of the force to work out what's really going on, but she's the only person brave enough to call out (the fictional) Wakestead police force on its biggest issue: misogyny.

From the moment The Blame begins, the murder investigation becomes shockingly intertwined with just how prevalent casual misogyny is across multiple officers involved in the case. It's a heavy-handed approach, which includes text messages from real officers discovered through whistleblowing operations. They're hideous, and it's tough to watch.

I quickly wondered whether the series needed to be so blatant with the issue to get its point across (in my view, yes it does). But Keegan and Douglas Booth don't just think that this creative decision leads to an "even deeper" storyline, but the original opening to episode 1 was so explicit that it had to be re-filmed.

'If you've done nothing wrong, what would you be worried about?'

"It was a deliberate choice to start with that," Booth, who plays 'nice guy' DI Tom Radley in the series, tells me. "It's on the nose, but I think even if it wasn't that blatant, the effect would be the same. As you go through the story, it goes much deeper.

"You're trying to solve a crime, but the way that men talk to you, the way they interfere or get in the way, even the compliments... this is all explored through many facets," Keegan adds. "But starting with the base of something seeming harmless immediately drops you into the right place."

When we first meet Clare and Radley, they're talking over the day's events in the local pub — before anyone knows that a murder has taken place. Other officers are also scattered around, talking about the best way to try to pick up an attractive woman at the bar. It's a subtle yet all too familiar reminder of the social culture that's become ingrained.

The more grisly action doesn't begin for another 10 minutes or so, but this wasn't always the case. "There were actually a couple of different versions of that scene," Booth adds. "There was a much more explicit one that [creators] decided not to go with. It was explicit... I won't go into what. But they didn't start with it. As you see them, things are still blunt and direct, but things are later dissected from there."

It's this constant moral back-and-forth experience you have as a viewer that I think is the most poignant part of watching The Blame. You don't feel as though you can believe any part of what you're seeing, including the texts that you know for a fact are real. We naturally want to believe that decent human behavior is something more frequent than it actually is.

But is anybody worried about potential public backlash? "When we spoke to police, they understand that there are issues. I don't think anyone can say otherwise," Booth explains. "But you also see all of the brilliant work that the police do. They're doing a really difficult job out there, all the time.

"That doesn't mean that there aren't systemic issues, and a certain institutional rot that is portrayed in this show. But I'm not really worried. Because if you've done nothing wrong, what would you be worried about?"

• UCI Road World Championships 2026: September 20-27
• Free Stream: CBC Gem (Can), BBC iPlayer (UK) & UCI YouTube Channel (selected)
• Unlock your stream with NordVPN (save up to 75%)

UCI Road World Championships 2026 live streams see the cycling action take place in Canada for the first time in 23 years. And while it's set to host many of the world's elite riders, one man will be notable by his absence.

Yes, anybody hoping to get a glimpse of modern great Tadej Pogačar speeding up and down the roads of Montreal will be sorely disappointed. His Vuelta a Espana-ending crash in Spain a few weeks ago means that he's unable to defend the world road race title that he won for the second straight time in Kigali, Rwanda last year. That leaves the field wide open for the likes of Wout Van Aert, Tom Pidcock and previous winners Remco Evenepoel and Mathieu van der Poel to compete for glory in the week's blue riband event.

Before that, however, comes plenty of other pulsating pedalling action, with the elite individual time trials kicking things off on the first Saturday, a mixed relay, and disciplines for U23 and junior riders (you can see a full schedule at the bottom of this page). Evenepoel himself is going for an unprecedented fourth straight title in the men's ITT, while Marlen Reusser (ITT) and Magdeleine Vallieres (road race) are both back to defend their respective crowns – the latter in front of a home crowd this time around.

Here's where to watch FEI World Championships 2026 live streams online from anywhere, potentially for FREE. And there's a full schedule of every single event at the bottom of this page.

How to watch any UCI Road World Championships 2026 stream using a VPN

A VPN is a handy piece of software that can make your device appear as if it's back in your home country, letting you unlock your usual streaming services. The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and comes with a discount of up to 75%.

Using a VPN is incredibly simple:

1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favourite.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're visiting the US and want to view your usual Canadian service, you'd select a Canada-based server from the list.

3. Sit back and enjoy the action. Head to your usual local streaming service and watch the cycling.

How to watch UCI Road World Championships 2026 live streams in the US

Specialist cycling streamer FloBikes has the live coverage of this year's Road World Championships cycling in the US, allowing you to watch it on your laptop, Android (mobile and TV), iPhone, tablet, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV.

It costs $39.99 on a rolling monthly basis that can be cancelled at any time. Or, for top value, commit to a whole year and pay the equivalent of $12.99 per month ($155.99 total for the year).

If you're currently out of the US but still want to watch the cycling on your usual service, then don't forget to explore the VPN route set out above.

How to watch UCI Road World Championships 2026 live streams in Canada

CBC has the rights to broadcast live streams of the 2026 Road World Championships for FREE.

You can watch events on TV via the free-to-air CBC Sports or live and on-demand coverage through its online CBC Gem streaming platform.

If you aren't in Canada for the event simply use a VPN to tune in to your free Road World Championships cycling streams from overseas.

Watch FREE UCI Road World Championships 2026 live streams in UK

There will be limited live action from the 2026 Road World Championships streamed for free in the UK on BBC Two and the BBC iPlayer.

At the time of writing, the broadcaster has confirmed it will be showing:

• Women's Time Trial: Sunday, Sep 20 from 2pm BST (iPlayer)
• Men's Time Trial: Sunday, Sep 20 from 5.30pm BST (iPlayer & BBC Three)
• Women's Road Race: Saturday, Sep 26 from 2pm (iPlayer)
• Men's Road Race: Sunday, Sep 27 from 2pm (iPlayer & BBC Three)

For more extensive coverage, all the races from the 2026 UCI Road World Championships will be shown on TNT Sports. To access this you'll either need to add it to your TV package, or you can take out a standalone subscription via HBO Max that includes TNT Sports. The best value streaming package is £25.99 a month for a 12-month term

If you're currently traveling abroad, don't worry, as you can use NordVPN to watch your usual service from abroad.

How to watch UCI Road World Championships 2026 live streams in Australia

This UCI cycling event will be shown on Stan Sport in Australia. Stan Sport costs $20 a month on top of a regular Stan subscription costing from $9.99 a month.

Away from Australia? Use a VPN to watch Road World Championships 2026 matches on Stan as if you were back Down Under.

UCI Road World Championships 2026 schedule

Sunday, September 20
9am ET / 2pm BST – Women’s Elite Individual Time Trial
12.45pm ET / 5.45pm BST – Men’s Elite Individual Time Trial

Monday, September 21
9am ET / 2pm BST – Women’s U23 Individual Time Trial
12pm ET / 5pm BST – Men’s U23 Individual Time Trial

Tuesday, September 22
8.30am ET / 1.30pm BST – Mixed Team Relay
12.15pm ET / 5.15pm BST – Men’s Junior Individual Time Trial
3.15pm ET / 8.15pm BST – Women’s Junior Individual Time Trial

Thursday, September 24
9am ET / 2pm BST – Women’s U23 Road Race
1.30pm ET / 6.30pm BST – Men’s Junior Road Race

Friday, September 25
9am ET / 2pm BST – Men’s U23 Road Race
2.15pm ET / 7.15pm BST – Women’s Junior Road Race

Saturday, September 26
9am ET / 2pm BST – Women’s Elite Road Race

Sunday, September 27
9am ET / 2pm BST – Men’s Elite Road Race

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

• Premiere: Sunday, September 20 at 9pm BST
• FREE stream: BBC iPlayer (UK)
• Use NordVPN to watch BBC iPlayer from abroad

From the world of hit legal drama The Split, The Split Up brings a new family, a new city, and a whole new heap of turmoil. The show centers around Kishan Law, a British South Asian family law firm whose stellar reputation has earned them an exclusive — and wealthy — clientele, making them the ‘go to’ firm for Manchester’s elite divorcees.

On the cusp of inheriting the keys to the firm from her father Dhruv (Sanjeev Bhaskar) is Aria (Ritu Arya), but following the death of her mother, Dhruv begins to have doubts over her ability to take on the mantle. With her fiancé Neal (Danny Ashok) emerging as a safer option, the stage is set for a clash that tip toes the line between professional and personal, with returning former flames and long-buried family secrets thrown in for good measure.

Fusing the ongoing drama with a case of the week approach, the show looks set to explore various facets of family law, with a slew of guest stars, including Lenny Henry, Jane Horrocks and Jameela Jamil, injecting some one-off characters into the mix.

Giving all the juicy family politics and legal drama we loved about the original show a cultural refresh feels like a masterstroke in a world of stuffy legal dramas, so read on and find out how to watch The Split Up online and from anywhere.

How to watch The Split Up from abroad

For those away from home looking to watch The Split Up, you’ll be unable to watch the show as normal if you're outside the UK due to regional restrictions. Luckily, there’s an easy solution.

Downloading a VPN allows you to stream geo-blocked services online, no matter where you are. It's a simple bit of software that changes your IP address, meaning that you can access on-demand content or live TV just as if you were at home. Our favorite is NordVPN – it's one of the best VPNs on the market.

Use a VPN to watch The Split Up from anywhere:

How to watch The Split Up online in the UK

Can I watch The Split Up online in the US, Canada or Australia?

There's currently no word on streaming options for The Split Up outside of Blighty, meaning those looking to stream in the US, Canada, Australia and beyond are out of luck.

The original The Split is available on Hulu in the US and Stan in Australia, so viewers with access to those streamers should keep an eye out.

If you're a Brit abroad you can use a VPN to stream for free on BBC iPlayer just as you would back home.

What you need to know about The Split Up

The Split Up trailer

• Episode 1: Sunday, September 20
• Episode 2: Monday, September 21
• Episode 3: Sunday, September 27
• Episode 4: Monday, September 28
• Episode 5: Sunday, October 4
• Episode 6: Monday, October 5

The Split Up cast

• Ritu Arya as Aria
• Sanjeev Bhaskar as Dhruv
• Aysha Kala as Maya
• Arian Nik as Kav
• Danny Ashok as Neal

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

• Watch Warriors vs Knights NRL Semi-Final FREE on 9Now (AUS)
• Stream on Fox One (US) / Sky Sports (UK) / Sky Sport (NZ)
• Unlock your stream with NordVPN (save up to 75%)
• Kick-off: Sun, Sep 20, 2.05am ET / 7.05am BST / 4.05pm AEST / 6.05pm NZT

Watch Warriors vs Knights in the second NRL 2026 semi-final of the weekend, as the Wahs of New Zealand seek a third win of the season over the Newcastle side with a place in the preliminary finals the prize for Sunday's victors.

It's probably fair to say that the Warriors didn't expect that they'd be in this predicament when the regular season came to its close. Their sensational season ended with a second-place finish on the ladder, finishing level on points with minor premiers Penrith. But Andrew Webster's men were well beaten by the Dolphins in their qualifying final in Auckland, with a long list of injuries finally taking their toll.

For Newy, it's the chance for a place in a first prelim final for 13 years. Justin Holbrook has worked wonders to take the Knights from the wooden spoon last year to the top eight this time around, and they dispatched the Rabbitohs last time out in relative comfort. In Greg Marzhew and Dominic Young, they have two of NRL's top try scorers and, in defense, the tackling machine that is Phoenix Crossland. They'll head across the Tasman Sea with high hopes of avenging their two losses to the Wahs this year.

The top-ranked Penrith Panthers await the winner in the preliminary finals next weekend.

Here's how to watch Warriors vs Knights from anywhere in the world.

Can you watch Warriors vs Knights for free?

Yes. Every game in the NRL finals series 2026 is being shown on free-to-air Channel 9 and 9Now in Australia – including this New Zealand Warriors vs Newcastle Knights showdown.

NRL fans in the US can also watch this crucial matchup on Fox One thanks the platform's free 3-day trial.

Traveling abroad right now? You can use a VPN to watch the NRL Finals Series 2026 for free as if you were right at home.

Use a VPN to watch Warriors vs Knights live streams

A VPN is a handy piece of software that can make your device appear as if it's back in your home country, so you can unlock your usual streaming services. The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and comes with up to 75% off.

How to watch Warriors vs Knights live streams in the USA

NRL fans in the US can watch Warriors vs Knights in the NRL Semi-Final 2026 on either FS2 or Fox One.

Dedicated streaming service Fox One costs $19.99 per month after a 3-day FREE trial.

If you want a more comprehensive cable alternative, access to the Fox One app is also available through a Sling TV plan. It comes with the provider's Select ($29.99 a month) and Blue plans ($54.99 a month).

FS2 is carried by several other OTT streaming platforms as well, including YouTube TV and Fubo – both of which offer new customers a free trial.

One further way to watch this and the rest of the 2026 NRL finals is through the dedicated Watch NRL streaming platform. It costs $72 for an NRL Finals Pass that includes all the remaining games.

Outside of the US? Use a VPN whilst you're traveling away from home to unlock your stream.

How to watch Warriors vs Knights live streams in Australia

In Australia, the Warriors vs Knights semi-final is on the free-to-air Channel 9 and via the 9Now streaming service.

All you need is an account. Sign up here!

You can also watch on Fox League via Foxtel. While Kayo Sports is a much more cost-efficient option, with plans starting from $30 a month after you've taken advantage of its first month for $1 offer or 7-day free trial.

If you're out of Australia but still want to tune in, explore the VPN route set out above, which will help you access your accounts from anywhere.

How to watch Warriors vs Knights live streams in New Zealand

Sky Sport NZ is the NRL rights holder in New Zealand. The action from Auckland will go out on Sky Sport 1 on TV.

You can access Sky Sport through satellite TV or get a live stream with the Sky Sport Now subscription service starting at $29.99 per day or $59.99 per month.

Overseas? NordVPN will give you access to your home streaming service.

How to watch Warriors vs Knights live streams in the UK

Warriors vs Knights is being shown on Sky Sports in the UK, via the Sky Sports Mix channel.

Sky Sports plans start from £35 a month or £20 if you're an existing Sky television subscriber. Alternatively, grab a Now Sports subscription from £14.99 a day or £34.99 a month.

NRL obsessives can also watch this and every other game of the season with on the dedicated Watch NRL platform. It costs £57 for the remainder of the season.

Outside the UK right now? Use NordVPN to access your preferred coverage of the NRL Finals Series 2026.

How to watch Warriors vs Knights live streams in Canada

Warriors vs Knights coverage in the NRL is going out online via Sportsnet in Canada. Log in with your cable details or, of you're a cord cutter, grab a Sportsnet+ streaming service subscription (from $29.99 a month / $249.99 a year).

The Watch NRL platform will also show the fixture – click through for pricing.

If you already subscribe to one of these services but find yourself outside Canada this weekend, download a VPN and watch NRL Semi-Finals 2026 as if you were back at home.

How to watch Warriors vs Knights live streams in Rest of World

Every single match of the 2026 NRL Premiership season, including the Qualifying and Elimination Finals, will be shown on the dedicated Watch NRL streaming platform, which is available in all territories except for Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and other selected sanctioned jurisdictions (e.g. Russia, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea).

Check the website for pricing in your region. Once subscribed, you can stream Watch NRL on phones, tablets, laptops, or the Apple TV app.

Many countries also show games on TV and online through their domestic broadcasters.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Talk to anyone about Dyson, and you can be certain that pricing will come up before long. It's not unjustified: this is the brand that gave us a $399 (£299 / AU$549) hair dryer, back in 2016 when that kind of price tag was unfathomable for such a product. It's the brand whose current flagship stick vacuum costs $979.99 (£749.99 / AU$1,349). And, most recently, it's a brand that unveiled an electric toothbrush that costs $499.99 (£419.99 / AU$799).

I'm not surprised, therefore, that at a roundtable I attended at the recent Dyson Unpacked launch event, the conversion ended up turning to pricing. Nor was I surprised to hear that the roundtable guest of honor, Jake Dyson — son of brand founder James and company Chief Engineer — had plenty to say on the subject.

[To avoid confusion, throughout this feature I'll use 'Jake' to mean the person, and 'Dyson' to refer to the brand.]

"If you want the best, you have to pay," he begins. "If you want the best engineering, you have to pay. If you want all the features."

If you move past the price tag, Dyson's products often really do achieve something different. That hair dryer's unusual design breathed new life into a market that had been stagnant for years. That flagship stick vacuum can sense exactly the size and number of particles it's sucking up and adjusts its suction in response. And the toothbrush? It has an in-built camera and can detect gaps between your teeth, into which it'll shoot mouthwash.

So the price tag might not be on a par with that of competitor products, but neither are the products.

"We're not interested in doing the cheapest. At all. We want to introduce new technology and do new things. That's what we're interested in," continues Jake. "We're also not afraid to have the most expensive. Because, unfortunately, doing things like this, you can't do cheaply."

He's also, frankly, sick of the constant discussions about it (of which I'm aware this article is a part). "We get quite a lot in America where it's just attacks on price every single time we launch a product," he says. I can sense the frustration from spending months and years developing a product, only for the headlines to be dominated by comments about the price."

He continues: "They've completely missed the fact that… look at what it's doing for you." He gestures to the CameraJet, which is the hero launch from the event. "Look at the advance in oral care. And, you know, we can't make things cheaply because they have high-tech technology in them. And they perform as well as they do."

What is unfortunate about this particular example is that following our roundtable discussion, reports started rolling in from early customers that the CameraJet wasn't performing well. In fact, in many cases, it was refusing to perform at all. I've discussed that in more detail in a separate article, and Dyson is adamant it's an isolated issue with a handful of specific batches of products, rather than a design fault.

It's enough here to state that not every product is going to be a slam-dunk. I've tested a ton of different Dyson products and there are innovations I love, and innovations I don't rate at all, but my overriding feeling is that I'm pleased that someone is out there changing things up. You don't have to buy it, after all.

Combatting copycats

Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but Jake is less than enamored with the copycat products that have a habit of following any successful Dyson launch.

"We obviously patent areas of the product, if we can patent them, to prevent that. But we do that in every product, and they always find a way," he says. "And they find a way, but the product isn't as good. They say that it is, but it isn't."

The brand similarly guards against third-party accessories being subbed in. There are chips in the brush heads that mean the CameraJet will detect if a non-Dyson head is attached — just as the vacuums will know if you've added a fake battery, and the hair stylers know if you've picked up a budget attachment pack on Amazon. That kind of thing does start to sting a little, because Dyson accessories tend to come with their own hefty price tag. The toothbrush heads are $29.99 / £25 / AU$49 for a pack of two, for example.

The engineering flair is one thing, but Dyson products tend to also have a recognizable aesthetic, and part of that is the colors. Some of them have a personal connection, says Jake: "This blue [on the toothbrush] is inspired by Yves Klein, who's an artist that my father really likes. He wasn't allowed to use the same blue, but we created our own. And the first vacuum cleaners have purple in them, because of the lavender from the south of France, which is something he loved as well."

He continues: "So it's about, you know, references, but [also] about art, bringing that creativity into the product, and also recognizing it as a Dyson product."

Doubling up

Blazing new trails inevitably requires a lot of effort and time (and therefore money). Dyson is also keen to be as efficient as possible. "We can make one thing and use it across multiple products," says Jake. "You try not to do things twice that take an awful long time and a lot of investment. You try and use it again in another product."

He talks about certain innovations the brand will seek to "platform". So a version of the shrunk-down motor and heater that's used in the Airwrap also features in the Supersonic r hair dryer, and now also in Dyson's new Airsmooth hot brush.

Similarly, the battery platform developed for the PencilVac also shows up in the PencilWash. "Once we've done the electronics and the management system for the batteries, which is an expensive development, we can all use the same thing in multiple [products]. So platforming is quite important," he adds.

The process for this happens naturally. "You cross-pollinate, you join the dots — 'If we put that with that, we could do this'," he shares. "You're thinking about other areas of the home, things people use every day… As a company, we're getting much better at predicting that before we do it."

He continues: "It makes us realize there are other technologies we need to develop ourselves — which we are, behind the scenes — to enable us to go into those new areas and do something better than anyone else."

So we won't expect Dyson's pace of innovation to slow any time soon, then — but neither should we expect prices to drop. It's a strategy that has paid off so far. As Jake recalls, of the brand's decision to launch its $400 Supersonic when you could get a hairdryer for $40: "It didn't stop anyone buying them."

If you're a fan of tech, you'll no doubt know that Amazon Prime Day is one of the best times to get discounted models. What you might not be aware of, however, is that Prime Day is also a great time to get your hands on some serious freebies.

Amazon just announced a second Amazon Prime Day for October 6th and 7th, and like the main summer event, Prime members can take advantage of extra perks ahead of the official sale.

The perks mostly revolve around Amazon's subscription services, but they're extremely useful nonetheless. Included are extended free trials for Kindle Unlimited, Amazon Music Unlimited streaming service, and Audible. That latter perk is particularly handy as you'll get a few audiobooks to keep forever, even if you don't continue your trial.

All of those are available to both US and UK readers this week, although US readers have a few more options, too. Alongside a free GrubHub+ membership, you can also get a $150 gift card if you sign up for Amazon Visa. That's particularly handy ahead of Prime Day, since you can use it during Amazon's Fall mega-sale.

Just below, you can see all the various perks you can get - which, by my own math, adds up to $275 / £90 in value. Not bad, I'd say.

The best Prime Day perks to claim right now

• Boyagongdao's BG-5 robotic golden arowana was one of the most popular attractions at CIFTIS 2026, with staff saying it plans its own route around obstacles
• The 3 kg, 640 mm robot is rated to operate at 5 meters with a top speed of 0.6 m/s, even as endurance, cameras, and payload remain undisclosed
• The design is not new: the BG-5 has been on the company's site since 2023, and a near-identical arowana robot has been available on their site since 2021

A golden fish doing laps in a small tank at Beijing's Shougang Park has become one of the most shared clips from this month's China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS).

The BG-5, a robotic golden arowana made by Boyagongdao Marine Technology Group, effectively serves as an autonomous underwater surveillance drone.

The fish has gone viral on Reddit since, with footage of it reaching the top of r/Damnthatsinteresting since it was first posted.

Not a new invention, but one that has multiple potential uses

The BG-5 has also received coverage (in Chinese) from mainstream Chinese news sources, and while details are scarce on the product page (also in Chinese), its dimensions are listed as 640 by 204 by 90 mm, with 3 kg in tow.

It can travel at a maximum depth of 5 meters and maintains a top speed of 0.6 meters per second or approximately 2.16 km/h. Boyagongdao has not published endurance, payload, or camera specifics, and it has not made any battery-life figures public.

The BG-5 is not new, however; its product page carries images uploaded in August 2023, and the company used the BG-5 to illustrate a World Oceans Day post (in Chinese) in June 2023. The same description appears on a Chinese equipment marketplace listing (in Chinese) dated July 2024.