Earlier this month, OnePlus brought out its flagship smartphone of 2023, the OnePlus 11, out of China to international markets. Now, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer is gearing up to unveil a new concept phone – the OnePlus 11 Concept – at the MWC 2023. OnePlus has shared a teaser of its upcoming concept phone — the OnePlus 11 — showing off the back or the ‘flowing back’ of the smartphone. The design features a meandering stream-like LED lighting pattern with a ring encircling the camera module and a unibody glass construction that gives the impression of “flowing back.”
The company says that the flowing back “shows the engineering breakthroughs of the OnePlus 11 Concept by highlighting the icy blue pipelines which run through the entire back of the phone, almost like OnePlus 11 Concept has its own series of blood vessels.” OnePlus revealed its first concept phone, the OnePlus Concept One, in 2020, featuring a McLaren-inspired design and an invisible camera island. In 2021, the company presented the OnePlus 8T Concept at MWC, which incorporated electrochromic glass with Electronic Color Material and Finish that allowed for a colour-shifting glass effect. OnePlus 11 comes with 120Hz AMOLED, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and up to 16GB RAM The OnePlus 11 is equipped with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, up to 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It also features a 5000mAh battery with 100W SuperVOOC charging, with the charger included in the box. The smartphone has a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with an adaptive refresh rate of 120Hz that can decrease to as low as 1Hz. The panel supports HDR10+, and Dolby Vision playback has a peak brightness of 1300 nits and is housed in a black hole-inspired camera island. The camera setup includes a 50MP main camera, a 48MP ultrawide camera, and a 32MP telephoto camera, all calibrated by Hasselblad. So far, it is not known if this OnePlus 11 will ever go on sale or will remain an one-off concept phone that is just for showcase.
Launching back in April 2018, ESPN Plus brings much of ESPN’s prowess to its very own on-demand streaming platform. Get top tier sporting coverage on the go, from exclusive live streams of baseball, soccer, UFC, hockey, and plenty more. A fantastic service for cord cutters, ESPN Plus offers an alternative way to spectate sports from traditional cable and satellite TV.
Offered as a standalone streaming service to ESPN’s regular linear coverage, ESPN Plus hosts live games, access to what was formerly known as ESPN Insider content, as well as exclusive on-demand documentaries and shows.
Keep reading to learn more about ESPN Plus. We’ll give you more of an idea about what’s included, how much it costs and where you can stream all of your favorite sport action on ESPN Plus.
What is ESPN Plus?
ESPN Plus is one of the best streaming services for those looking to stream sport, offering a package from sports stalwart ESPN. The package brings together live events, on-demand content and original programming not found on any other ESPN network – and puts them alongside free content from ESPN’s mother service.
It’s important to point out that while it’s separate in terms of content from anything else on ESPN, it shares a lot of the same attributes to the content you’re used to watching. Namely, its highly produced sports content that focuses on the biggest leagues, players and teams in the NHL, MLB, MLS, NFL and NBA. Subscribe to it, and you’ll often float between the different leagues, selecting teams to follow and watching highlights from their last game or predictions about what’s going to happen for them next.
So you can think of ESPN Plus as an affordable, supplementary streaming service that gives you extra shows, behind-the-scenes content and, most importantly, an ad-free environment to watch the content you already love. While ESPN Plus may not offer exactly the same content you’ve come to love on standard ESPN, it brings you much more of the same type of content.
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What does ESPN Plus offer?
Watch every out-of-market MLS match, alongside one NHL and MLB game per day during their respective regular seasons. You’ll also be able to watch live sporting events like golf’s PGA Tour, top-tier boxing matches and a whole ton of international soccer.
But perhaps the biggest coup ESPN Plus has pulled off so far is the right to live stream all UFC events in the US. Every Fight Night and numbered PPV event is now shown on ESPN Plus – although the latter requires PPV-spends, of course.
Soccer
Bundesliga
Emirates FA Cup
LaLiga
Copa del Rey
Carabao Cup
EFL Championship
US Open Cup
Combat
College
Atlantic A10 Conference
Big Sky Conference
ECAC Hockey
OVC
Patriot League
Sun Belt Championship
The Ivy League
Baseball
Tennis
Australian Open
Wimbledon
US Open
World Table Tennis
Golf
PGA Tour
Masters
PGA Southern Hills
In addition to all the live sport on offer to stream with a subscription, ESPN Plus adds value to your monthly payment with plenty of original programming, too. For those MMA fans who are only in it for the UFC, there’s original content including Dana White’s Contender Series, UFC Destined, and Ariel & The Bad Guy, plus classic fights, replays, and there’s also the perk of fewer adverts.
All that said, if you’re not a cable subscriber and the only service you buy into is ESPN Plus, you’ll be missing out on a fair amount of programming: While we were busy watching that English EFL Championship match, ESPN was playing Pardon the Interruption; ESPN2 had NFL Live and ESPN3 had a number of upcoming boxing matches.
Without cable, you can’t tune into any of them – and because the services are so closely tied together, you’re constantly reminded of all the content you can’t watch.
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ESPN Plus trial and plans at a glance
One of ESPN Plus’ biggest selling points is fairly affordable. With the ESPN Plus cost seeing a second price increase in the latter half of 2022, you can now choose to pay $9.99 per month (opens in new tab) (from $6.99).
Better still, you can save 15% when signing up for its annual plan, now costing $99.99 a year (opens in new tab).
While we said farewell to the ESPN Plus free trial for new members back in 2020, this affordable rate allows you to check out the service and see if its catalogue of content is the one for you.
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How to get the ESPN Plus bundle
If you can’t really justify yet another streaming subscription – and one that’s solely for sport – then there’s another option that might suit.
ESPN is jointly owned by Disney, so there’s a bundle that lets you get ESPN Plus, Disney Plus and Hulu for a flexible monthly sum of a mere $12.99 – alternatively called the Disney Plus bundle. You can sign up for the great value bundle by heading to Disney Plus’s website here (opens in new tab).
This means that alongside all the sports content that ESPN Plus provides, you’ll also get access to a vault of Classic Disney Animations, Pixar movies, 31 seasons of The Simpsons, and documentaries from National Geographic plus the entire Marvel and Star Wars film library via Disney Plus. On top of that, get incredible entertainment from Hulu’s top notch library of originals like Nine Perfect Strangers and The Handmaid’s Tale.
What devices can I watch ESPN Plus on?
All things considered, ESPN Plus is pretty easy to tune into. That’s because ESPN Plus is built off the back of ESPN’s already robust omnipresence on PCs, tablets and the ESPN Plus app on smartphones. ESPN Plus is now available on Xbox One and PS4 consoles, too.
Specifically, you can tune into ESPN Plus on your web browser by heading to the service’s website (opens in new tab) and signing up for the service.
If you’re more of a mobile sports watcher, download the ESPN app from either the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and sign up for the service there. Or, if you like the traditional feel of sitting on the couch to watch the game, ESPN Plus is available on Apple TV, Chromecast and the Amazon Fire TV platform – and now on the Roku platform, too.
There’s no price difference between the platforms, and one account can be carried over to the other platforms just by signing in – which is pretty convenient. Speaking of convenient, because ESPN Plus ties into your existing ESPN account, you can use the same login info.
One last thing that’s worth pointing out here despite its very obvious nature, is that you’ll need access to the internet to watch ESPN Plus – i.e. even if you decide to cut the cord, you’ll still need to pay your cable company (or ISP) for internet access. If you’re reading this website right now, it’s something you pay for already – so just don’t cut your cable provider off entirely should you decide to cut the old cable TV cord.
Can I watch ESPN Plus in 4K and HD?
While you’re unable to watch ESPN Plus in 4K, the sports streaming service offers content that is mostly available to stream at 60fps 1080p. In other words, Full HD. In some circumstances, depending on the strength of your internet connection, etc. you can expect streams to downgrade to 720p when necessary.
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How do I cancel ESPN Plus?
ESPN Plus is one of the better streaming services for commitment-phobes, especially for the shorter term monthly subscription.
As a sub only lasts 30 days, you just need to remember to cancel before it comes to an end – head to manage subscription on the ESPN website or app and confirm your cancellation and you can then walk away from ESPN Plus without difficulty.
We really like the flexible nature of this service, which takes its cues from the likes of Netflix.
Its a similar procedure for yearly subscribers – if you looking to bail from the service, just remember to cancel before your 12 months are up.
People with an interest in all things North Korea are being targeted with a very specific malware.
Cybersecurity researchers from Trend Micro (opens in new tab) (via BleepingComputer) have recently observed Earth Kitsune, a nascent threat actor, breaching a pro-North Korea website, and then using that site to deliver a backdoor dubbed WhiskerSpy.
The malware allows the threat actors to steal files, take screenshots, and deploy additional malware to the compromised endpoint.
WhisperSpy malware
According to the researchers, when certain people visit the website and look to run video content, they’ll be prompted to install a video codec first. Those that fall for the trick would download a modified version of a legitimate codec (Codec-AVC1.msi), which installs the WhiskerSpy backdoor.
The backdoor grants the threat actors a number of different capabilities, including downloading files to the compromised endpoint, uploading files, deleting them, listing them, taking screenshots, loading executables and calling its export, and injecting shellcode into processes.
The backdoor then communicates with the malware’s command and control (C2) server, using a 16-byte AES encryption key.
But not all visitors are at risk. In fact, chances are that only a small portion of the visitors are being targeted, as Trend Micro discovered that the backdoor only activates when visitors from Shenyang, China, or Nagoya, Japan, open the site.
Truth be told, people from Brazil would also be prompted to download the backdoor, but researchers believe Brazil was only used to test if the attack works or not.
After all, the researchers found the IP addresses in Brazil belonged to a commercial VPN service.
Once installed, the malware goes to lengths to persist on the device. Apparently, Earth Kitsune uses the native messaging host in Google’s Chrome browser to install a malicious extension called Google Chrome Helper. This extension would run the payload every time the browser starts.
– Arriving mid-2023 on Disney Plus – Story will pick up right after the first season – Ties into Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – Multiple cast members set to return – New cast announcements made in December – Helmed by Moon Knight directors – Acts as narrative thread throughout the Multiverse Saga
Well well well, Loki season 2 is shaping up to be a hugely important Marvel TV show, isn’t it?
Marvel‘s most popular TV series returns on Disney Plus later this year – and, based on what went down in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Loki’s next outing is going to be an even bigger and multiverse-threatening TV show. You’ll have to read on to find out why, though.
In this Marvel Phase 5 TV series guide, you’ll find everything worth knowing about the second season of Loki. That includes its possible launch date, cast details, story beats, how it’ll impact the MCU, and more.
Full spoilers follow for Loki season 1 and Ant-Man 3. Potential spoilers for Loki’s second season are also discussed.
Loki season 2 release date
When is Loki season 2 going to be released? (Image credit: Disney Plus/Marvel Studios)
Eric Martin – a staff writer on half of Loki season 1’s episodes – serves as showrunner, while Moon Knight directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead helm the show. Season 1’s head writer Michael Waldron has returned as an executive producer. Composer Natalie Holt is also back to create another hauntingly beautiful score.
Loki season 2 trailer
Waiting for a Loki season 2 trailer like… (Image credit: Disney Plus/Marvel Studios)
There’s no trailer yet, but Loki season 2’s first footage debuted during Marvel’s D23 Expo 2022 panel.
The sizzle reel begins with Hiddleston’s Loki greeting someone but he begins to glitch out in the same way that characters in Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse do.
Next, Loki chisels away at a TVA wall to unearth a massive, bronze face of Kang the Conqueror (or one of his variants) before we cut to Loki meeting Ke Huy Quan’s unnamed TVA employee. A quick shot of Sylvie listening to music is then shown, before Loki and Mobius – dressed in tuxedos – are seen attending a black tie event alongside numerous Loki variants. Before we get an explanation about why so many have *ahem* assembled, the teaser ends with Loki falling through a TVA building.
Loki season 2 cast
Loki and Mobius will reunite in Loki season 2. (Image credit: Marvel/Disney)
Major spoilers follow for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Here’s Loki season 2’s cast list so far:
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
Owen Wilson as Agent Mobius
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Renslayer
Jonathan Majors as Victor Timely
Eugene Cordero as Casey
Tara Strong as Miss Minutes
Ke Quy Huan as TBC
Rafael Casal as TBC
Kate Dickie as TBC
Tom Hiddleston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Owen Wilson, and Sophia di Martino are all back. Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones, Everything Everywhere All at Once) and Kate Dickie (Game of Thrones) have been announced as new cast members, but their roles are a mystery.
Eugene Cordero’s scene-stealing TVA employee Casey returns and has been bumped to a series regular. Tara Strong, who voiced Miss Minutes in season 1, has also confirmed she’ll be back (via PopVerse (opens in new tab)). Based on season 1’s ending, Wunmi Mosaku should also return as Hunter B-15, with Loki running into an alternate reality version of her character (along with Mobius) at a different Time Variance Authority (TVA).
Potential spoilers for Loki season 2’s cast follow.
Glorious! Fans at #D23Expo dove further into the Multiverse with a first look at Marvel Studios’ #Loki Season 2: https://t.co/9mv7RUo2nU pic.twitter.com/ytOZ4zY0mYSeptember 11, 2022
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Per Deadline (opens in new tab), Rafael Casel’s unnamed character will have a major role to play. MCU insider DanielRPK (via MCU News (opens in new tab)) suggests Casal is portraying a rogue TVA agent, who escapes into the 1970s and becomes a movie star. Online speculation also points at Dickie being Loki season 2’s primary antagonist, who could have something to do with Casel’s villainous TVA employee.
Jonathan Majors, who played Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man 3, will also appear – but, somewhat surprisingly, not as the time-traveling warlord.
In Quantumania, Kang was seemingly killed by Ant-Man and the Wasp, with the villain being sucked into the multiversal power core of his Time Chair. Unless Kang pulls a Darren Cross/Yellowjacket move and returns (either as himself or another villain, like Cross’ MODOK), we shouldn’t expect to see him again.
So, who will Majors play in Loki season 2? One of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s post-credits scenes confirms he’ll play another Kang variant. This time, Majors will portray Victor Timely, an early 20th century inventor and industrialist. In the comics, Victor Timely travels to 1901 to found the town of Timely in Wisconsin and turns it into a technology-rich city. We suspect this will form the basis of Loki’s second season, with Victor acting as an antagonist (major or secondary) to Loki and Mobius, who time portal to the town to track this variant down.
Why do we say Victor Timely might not be the show’s next major villain? Based on Quantumania’s other post-credits scene – the Council of Kangs one – we could see multiple iterations from this Kang gang turn up, including Immortus, Rama-Tut, and Scarlet Centurion, who appear in the first post-credits stinger. Maybe season 2 will feature multiple Kangs, then, which will give Loki and company some serious headaches.
Loki season 2 plot
Loki and Sylvie should team up again in season 2. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
Unsurprisingly, plot details are scarce. However, the cast has teased some elements of Loki season 2’s plot and themes.
Per Entertainment Weekly (opens in new tab) (EW), Tom Hiddleston says it’ll focus on “the battle for the soul of the TVA”, adding that it’ll pose the questions “Who am I?” and “Where am I?”. That “soul of the TVA” aspect takes on greater significance now, what with the Council of Kangs being introduced and the potentially ensuing battle between them and Loki’s TVA rebel crew.
We might also find out more about the inner workings of the TVA; Hiddleston telling Marvel.com (opens in new tab) that the “moral complexity” of the TVA is a fascinating subject. It was only touched upon in Loki season 1, so we could get a better look at how it functions, its values, and the moral compass of its work force.
In a chat with Entertainment Tonight (opens in new tab), Mbatha-Raw also said: “[In season 2] selfishly, Renslayer makes it out of the TVA, which I’m really excited about. Fans are in for a real treat because the show is bolder and more surreal. And, in many ways, goes to some bigger, bolder places than season 1.”
📸NEW: Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson on the set of season 2 of Loki. pic.twitter.com/TSrYUTPoYMJuly 13, 2022
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It seems Loki season 2 will examine the character’s emotional side in greater detail, with executive producer Michael Waldron telling Deadline’s Hero Nation podcast (opens in new tab): “It felt like we had new emotional ground to cover with Loki. That’s the only way into season 2. We absolutely found that. It’s a great continuation of that story that feels different from season one and hopefully will subvert expectations.”
Don’t expect any plot leaks from Owen Wilson this time around, though. Speaking to Variety (opens in new tab), Wilson confirmed he’d had his knuckles rapped by Marvel for revealing his character had a moustache (before season 1 arrived), leading fans to deduce he was playing Agent Mobius.
Potential spoilers for Loki season 2 follow.
Jonathan Majors could return as Kang the Conqueror in Loki season 2. (Image credit: Disney Plus/Marvel Studios)
It appears one episode will be set in the 1970s, with Loki and Agent Mobius dressed in tuxedos in a period setting in the Disney Plus “Feels Like Home” 2023 release schedule teaser. Elsewhere, leaked photographs show a McDonald’s restaurant will be a key location (per TikTok user Joel Sutton (opens in new tab)).
Plot wise, one of Loki season 2’s early storylines should deal with Loki turning up at a different TVA.
In the season 1 finale, Loki found himself in a TVA that he recognizes, alongside people that he knows, but none of them are aware of who he is. Clearly, He Who Remains’ death – at Sylvie’s hands – causes the Marvel multiverse’s various timelines to start intersecting – events known as Incursions, as explained further in Doctor Strange 2 – which are already causing havoc across the MCU.
It seems, then, that Loki will tell them Mobius and company about Kang (and his variants) and call on them to help him stop them. We don’t expect them to be completely successful, however, with the Council of Kangs installed as the main antagonist of the Multiverse Saga (i.e. MCU Phases 4, 5, and 6).
Elsewhere, industry insider DanielRPK (via the Marvel CineVerse Twitter account (opens in new tab)) suggests a new temporal concept called the Time Loom will play an integral role in explaining the TVA’s formation and how it exists outside of time and space. Could this tie into Victor Timely’s role in the show?
As for He Who Remains, will he reappear? Seeing as he was killed by Sylvie in season 1’s finale, no – but we’ll definitely see other Kangs, including Victor Timely. Based on the Council of Kangs post-credits scene in Ant-Man 3, a few other big Kang variants might show up in Loki season 2, such as Mr Gryphon (owner of Qeng Enterprises, whose headquarters showed up as an Easter egg in Loki episode 5).
Speaking of Kang, Renslayer has a close relationship with the time-traveling evil genius in Marvel comics. But, chatting to Digital Spy (opens in new tab), Mbatha-Raw admitted she wasn’t sure about the direction of Renslayer’s character arc, saying: “Honestly, I genuinely don’t know where it’s going. I feel like there’s so much potential, especially when you’re dealing with time, as Renslayer does, you know?”
As for Sylvie, what role will she play in the show’s next outing? We’re unsure, but leaked images suggest she’ll be working at the McDonald’s restaurant we mentioned earlier, which is where Loki and Mobius track her down to. Are they trying to recruit her or are they simply looking for some vital information on how to find Victor Timely? We’ll find out soon.
Finally, could Mobius’ wish about owning a jet-ski come true in Loki season 2? A leaked image (per Reddit (opens in new tab)) shows filming taking place at an undisclosed location adorned with jet-ski advertising. Here’s hoping Mobius gets to ‘jet’ off into the sunset this time. You know, if season 2 is the show’s final installment.
Loki season 2: how will it impact the MCU?
Loki’s TV show has a lot to answer for in the MCU. (Image credit: Marvel/Disney)
Marvel fans already know how important Loki season 1 has been for The Multiverse Saga. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige doubled down on that in September 2022, saying Loki’s second season connects all three phases together (per Marvel.com (opens in new tab)), so it’s possible a third season could be greenlit for Phase 6.
Regardless of whether that’s in the offing, the impact of Loki and Sylvie’s actions is already being felt. Spider-Man: No Way Home was affected by multiversal events, while Doctor Strange 2 examined the multiverse in greater detail. The first season of What If…? was also loosely connected to Loki’s first season, based on its exploration of alternate versions of MCU characters and the dimensions they inhabit. Lastly, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania finally introduced us to Kang the Conqueror and set up the events of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which is slated to arrive in 2025.
As for upcoming MCU projects, Loki season 2 could tie into the Fantastic Four’s MCU debut. Comic fans will know that Kang is linked to Doctor Doom, the infamous Fantastic Four villain. So it’s plausible that they could battle Doctor Doom and a Kang variant in their first MCU adventure, which launches in November 2024.
Loki featured in an episode of Marvel’s What If…? animated anthology series. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney)
Armor Wars, which will star Don Cheadle as War Machine/James Rhodes, might link to Kang if Marvel decides to bring Iron Lad (another Kang variant) into the equation. In the comics, Iron Lad is the pseudonym of Nathaniel Richards, the descendant of Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, who winds up becoming Kang Prime, aka the first iteration of Kang the Conqueror and his many variants.
Additionally, Armor Wars will follow on from Secret Invasion, another Marvel TV show launching in 2023, so Loki season 2 could also affect the Nick Fury-led series. Multiple Marvel leakers claim Loki season 2 could even impact Deadpool 3, with the multiverse offering a potential route into the MCU for the Merc With a Mouth and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.
X-Men 97, a long overdue sequel to the beloved 1990s-era animated series, could have ties to the MCU’s multiverse as well. If Deadpool 3 isn’t a route into the MCU for everyone’s favorite mutants, maybe this show will usher them in through a multiveral portal like those seen in Loki’s TV show. It seems, then, that Loki season 2 (and its predecessor) have a lot to answer for when it comes to the multiverse’s arrival and its wider impact on the MCU.
US president Joe Biden reckons that companies should be held accountable for web moderation, and it all stems from a Supreme Court case investigating the algorithms used by Google-owned YouTube, which have reportedly been recommending pro-ISIS content to users.
The problem is that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has been around for nearly three decades and many have argued that it’s no longer equipped to deal with the matter.
It has been one of Biden’s targets for reform, and a recent court case has drawn the attention of countless legal entities and Big Tech companies as well.
Biden sides with Republicans
A recent report by CNBC (opens in new tab) has uncovered that the Biden administration shares the same sentiment as many senators from the opposing Republican party: that Internet company immunity under Section 230 should be limited – in other words, online activity should be more accountable.
CNBC also noted that the American Civil Liberties Union, the libertarian Cato Institute, and the US Chamber of Commerce had all taken the opposing side – in favor of Google – in the debate.
While reform is still on the cards, Biden has yet to discuss what changes he may bring to the table in relation to the 27-year-old law.
One lawyer discussed the implications that Google’s loss in court could have beyond Big Tech. They explained that even unassociated content moderators, such as those found on Reddit, could be liable for their actions in court.
Whether the law is simply in need of reform due to age or needs to be made clearer, Section 230 will have to be addressed, and any changes will have significant, far-reaching implications.
According to recent reports, Microsoft Hotmail (now officially known as Microsoft Outlook) has been having some issues with its junk email filtering systems, opening the floodgates to allow heaps of spam into users’ inboxes.
Users have taken to Twitter to voice their frustrations, but it’s unclear right now what is causing the problem. While Microsoft has reached out to some affected individuals on social media with invitations to DM to discuss the issue, there’s yet to be an official response declaring this to be the fault of a specific known bug or glitch.
While we don’t have any exact numbers on those affected, we can confirm that the problem is widespread – members of the TechRadar team (myself included) have been getting bombarded with spam emails all day long.
Hotmail is now trending on Twitter too, which must be making some Microsoft execs particularly annoyed since these tweeters aren’t even using the proper name.
Anyone else’s hotmail throwing junk mail into their inbox even though the filter is set to the highest privacy setting? Very odd. (Yes I know, Hotmail is prehistoric – but when you’re freelance you keep the same number and email always. So 1996-forever it’s mine)February 20, 2023
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Analysis: More trouble for big M
Microsoft has been having quite a year so far. The big-ticket event for the company was the reveal that the AI tool ChatGPT has been integrated into the Bing search engine (as well as the Microsoft Edge browser), but it took less than a week for the chatbot to start sending unhinged messages to users.
Now the tech giant is in trouble again, with users fuming at the torrent of dodgy emails landing in their inboxes. People are already posting memes about the supposed failure of the junk filter, with some speculating that somebody at Microsoft accidentally hit a switch they shouldn’t have – we feel the need to say that’s almost certainly not how it works, but it’s still an amusing thought.
In any case, there’s no proper fix available yet, but we’ll be sure to let you know when Microsoft sorts things out. Normally, Outlook/Hotmail allows you to set a specific level of junk filter protection; set it high and the automated system will aggressively target potential spam emails, although this does run the risk of sending actual legit emails to your junk folder.
Outlook (like most email platforms) also has the option to mark specific domains as spam sources, though this is rarely a helpful tool since email spammers typically use domain generators to bypass such filters. The spam filter issues are disrupting Outlook’s ‘focused inbox’ setting too, which is supposed to only show high-importance emails.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this story when we receive a response.
IBM’s answer to the cost-effective supercomputer has already been up and running for several months now, but only recently has it disclosed any tangible information about its so-called Vela project.
Turning to its blog (opens in new tab) to discuss details, IBM revealed that the research, authored by five employees at the company, tackles the problems with previous supercomputers, and their lack of readiness for AI tasks.
In order to tweak the supercomputer model for this future type of workload, the company sheds some light on the decisions it made in terms of the use of affordable but powerful hardware.
IBM’s Vela AI supercomputer
The work highlights that “building a [traditional] supercomputer has meant bare metal nodes, high-performance networking hardware… parallel file systems, and other items usually associated with high-performance computing (HPC).”
While it’s clear that these supercomputers can handle heavy AI workloads, including the one designed for OpenAI, the startup behind the popular ChatGPT live chat software, a lack of optimization has meant that traditional supercomputers could lack valuable power, and have an excess in other areas leading to an unnecessary spend.
While it has long been accepted that bare metal nodes are the most ideal for AI, IBM wanted to explore offering these up inside of a virtual machine (VM). The result, according to Big Blue, is huge performance gains.
“Following a significant amount of research and discovery, we devised a way to expose all of the capabilities on the node (GPUs, CPUs, networking, and storage) into the VM so that the virtualization overhead is less than 5%, which is the lowest overhead in the industry that we’re aware of.”
In terms of node design, Vela is packed with 80GB or GPU memory, 1.5TB of DRAM, and four 3.2TB NVMe storage drives.
The Next Platform (opens in new tab) estimates that, if IBM wanted to feature its supercomputer in the Top500 rankings, it would deliver around 27.9 petaflops of performance, placing it in 15th place according to November 2022’s rankings.
While today’s supercomputers are currently able to handle AI workloads, huge developments in artificial intelligence combined with the pressing need for cost efficiency highlight the need for such a machine.
OnePlus officially lifted the lid on its OnePlus 11 flagship earlier this month, but the company also used the phone’s global launch event to tease the arrival of what is expected to be an alternative version of the same device.
Now, OnePlus has given us a better look at the cryptically-named One Plus 11 Concept ahead of its own global unveiling at MWC Barcelona on February 27 – and suffice to say, it looks more like a water-cooled gaming PC than a phone.
Although appearing to resemble the standard OnePlus 11 in terms of basic dimensions (you can read our thoughts on the phone’s retro design in our full OnePlus 11 review), the One Plus 11 Concept adds both an illuminated squiggly line that zigzags across the device’s rear and a slightly larger camera cutout.
OnePlus is calling the Concept’s rear design the “Flowing Back” (Image credit: OnePlus)
OnePlus is calling this LED-based, Nothing Phone 1-esque rear design the “Flowing Back”, which we expect is intended to accentuate the standard OnePlus 11’s impressive gaming credentials. Once we’ve spent more time with the newly released flagship, it’ll almost certainly earn a spot on our list of the best gaming phones, owing to its 120Hz display, extremely fast 100W charging and Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
It’s hard to make out the Concept’s camera setup from the two images (and cryptic teaser clip) OnePlus has shared so far, but the phone does look to be sticking with its sibling’s three main sensors – telephoto, primary and wide-angle – albeit housing them in a larger cutout not dissimilar to that of the Vivo X90 Pro.
As exciting as the OnePlus 11 Concept looks, the jury is still out on whether we’ll actually be able to get our hands on the phone in reality. OnePlus has released special edition handsets before – the company has collaborated with Cyberpunk, Star Wars and Pac-Man on actual, purchasable devices – but the ‘Concept’ in this phone’s name suggests it may well remain just that.
In any case, OnePlus has confirmed that it’ll be unveiling the OnePlus 11 Concept during its MWC Barcelona event on February 27. We’ll be on the ground at the show itself, so stay tuned to TechRadar for the latest updates.
In the meantime, check out our review of the newly released OnePlus Buds Pro 2, as well as our breakdown of the best OnePlus phones to consider in 2023.
According to a recent leak, Nvidia is readying three different versions of its hotly-anticipated RTX 4070 graphics card, which vary by the GPU video memory. It looks like we’ll be getting 10GB, 12GB, and 16GB models of the card, but I’m not happy about that at all. Why not? Well, I haven’t forgotten the RTX 4080.
To make a long story short, Nvidia screwed the pooch big time with the RTX 4080 reveal. Originally, the card was announced alongside the mighty flagship RTX 4090, and there would’ve been two flavors: a full-fat 16GB model, and a cheaper 12GB model.
Now, this was a tad sneaky on Nvidia’s part, because it wasn’t just the memory that was different; the 12GB model actually had a completely different GPU at its core, and gamers quickly noticed this. The ensuing uproar resulted in Nvidia pulling the RTX 4080 12GB completely, eventually re-launching it as the more suitably-named RTX 4070 Ti.
As a result of that debacle, I’m concerned – as I’m sure many others are – about the prospect of not two but three different RTX 4070s landing together. The leak sprung from GPU manufacturer Gigabyte’s website, where a game bundle information page prematurely listed the three models, but it only specifies the VRAM differences: no news here as to whether these cards will contain any other sneaky hidden differences.
Analysis: We really don’t need multiple versions of every GPU
Earlier this year, I made the point that AMD (and plenty of other computing tech manufacturers, to be fair) has been overcrowding the market with a needless and confusing number of variant products – in this case, GPUs with minor differences that fight for the same price range.
Nvidia is making the same mistake here. Even if it’s only the memory that differs between the three RTX 4070 variants, that’s still an unnecessary level of differentiation that alienates consumers and doesn’t really benefit anyone. That’s the best-case scenario; at worst, it’ll be the RTX 4080 Saga Part 2, and everyone will get very angry at Nvidia all over again.
What makes this leak – if true, though I’m fairly confident this one is legit – all the more galling is that the RTX 4070 is actually one of my most anticipated GPUs of the new generation. The RTX 3070 has long been one of the best graphics cards on the market, providing a great balance between price and performance, so its successor obviously has a high bar to clear. In fact, we awarded it five stars in our review back when it first launched.
It’s also very weird that we might be getting a 16GB version of the RTX 4070, considering that there’s currently only one RTX 4070 Ti on the market and that has 12GB of VRAM. A less powerful GPU with more VRAM could serve some niche purposes, but it feels like a strange move from Nvidia.
In short, I really hope this leak was just a mistake on Gigabyte’s part, and we’ll get one single RTX 4070 when it does actually land. A 10GB model seems most likely if this is the case, but I wouldn’t be upset to see it packing 12GB. Only time will tell – but as they say, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it…
An unknown threat actor has been sitting in GoDaddy’s systems for years, installing malware, stealing source code, and attacking the company’s customers, the web hosting giant confirmed in an SEC filing late last week.
Per the filing (opens in new tab) (via BleepingComputer (opens in new tab)), the attackers breached GoDaddy’s cPanel shared hosting environment and used that as a launch pad for further attacks. The company described the hackers as a “sophisticated threat actor group”.
The group was eventually spotted when customers started reporting, late in 2022, that the traffic coming to their websites was being redirected elsewhere.
Links to previous incidents
Now, GoDaddy believes that the data breaches that were reported in March 2020 and November 2021 were all linked.
“Based on our investigation,” it wrote in the filing, “we believe these incidents are part of a multi-year campaign by a sophisticated threat actor group that, among other things, installed malware on our systems and obtained pieces of code related to some services within GoDaddy,”
During the November 2021 incident, the user data of some 1.2 million of its customers were accessed by the attackers. This included both active and inactive users, with email addresses and customer numbers being exposed.
The company also said that the original WordPress admin password, created once a new install of WordPress has completed, was also exposed, giving attackers access to those installations.
GoDaddy also revealed that active customers had their sFTP credentials and the usernames and passwords for their WordPress databases, that are used to store all of their content, exposed in the breach.
However, in some cases, customer’s SSL private keys were exposed and if abused, this key could allow an attacker to impersonate a customer’s website or other services.
While GoDaddy has reset customer WordPress passwords and private keys, it is currently in the process of issuing them new SSL certificates.
In a statement (opens in new tab) published in February 2023, the web hosting giant claims to have employed an external cybersecurity forensics team, and brought in law enforcement agencies from all over the world to investigate the matter further.
It’s also clear, now, that attacks on GoDaddy were part of a wider campaign on web hosting companies around the world.
“We have evidence, and law enforcement has confirmed, that this incident was carried out by a sophisticated and organized group targeting hosting services like GoDaddy,”
“According to information we have received, their apparent goal is to infect websites and servers with malware for phishing campaigns, malware distribution and other malicious activities.”
