I’ll admit that when I first started watching the recently released Blu-ray Disc of Peter Gabriel’s Taking the Pulse, it all felt very familiar. If you saw his orchestral tour around the time of Scratch My Back, or already own New Blood: Live in London on Blu-ray, a sense of déjà vu might set in. Look a little closer, however, and the differences start to emerge. What initially feels like a continuation of the same orchestral concept reveals a number of subtle but meaningful changes that aren’t immediately obvious.

In fact, the Blu-ray Disc packaging and frankly most of the press materials I had read, don’t offer much reason why fans should rush to add this show to their Peter Gabriel collection. Fortunately, I found more clues on Mr. Gabriel’s website, where his daughter Anna, who directed the film, offers some insight into her approach:

“When I spoke to my dad about shooting one of his shows I jumped at the chance of shooting at the Roman amphitheatre in Verona, Italy. Italians have always been very enthusiastic audience and give a lot back to the performer and to the camera. I made this film with my friend Andrew Gaston who was truly my collaborator throughout the process. It is always fun for me to shoot my father as I know the material and his performances so well I feel that I can capture a side to him that feels more personal. I also wanted to shoot the orchestra in an exciting way and along with Andrew’s editing I think we really captured the energy of the entire performance. I look forward to sharing this film.”

Indeed, Taking the Pulse offers a fresh visual perspective on this remarkable music when compared to New Blood: Live in London. Happily, it also delivers a different sonic experience, with a more immersive 5.1 surround sound presentation that better envelops the listener.

Presented in 24-bit/48 kHz resolution, the DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is generally quite rich. But my appreciation grew once I realized that the surround channels were being used for more than just crowd noise and venue ambience. One of my recurring complaints about many concert videos is that the surround mixes often feel lazy, failing to take full advantage of what the technology can actually deliver.

While most of the action resides in the front channels, the audio for Taking The Pulse nearly wraps around the listener.  I imagine this perspective is bit more like what I’d like to think the orchestra conductor was hearing on stage or — perhaps better still — Peter Gabriel himself!

The sometimes dark, moody lighting looks great (expect lots of blues and reds as well as bursts of light and sparkle). In general, I think I preferred the intercuts and perspective offered in Taking The Pulse over New Blood Live In London (which, mind you, I’ve long enjoyed!). 

All in all, Taking The Pulse is a winner Blu-ray video and for $18.29 on Amazon it seems to be an easy decision to pick this up if you are a fan.

Mark Smotroff is a deep music enthusiast / collector who has also worked in entertainment oriented marketing communications for decades supporting the likes of DTS, Sega and many others. He reviews vinyl for Analog Planet and has written for Audiophile Review, Sound+Vision, Mix, EQ, etc.  You can learn more about him at LinkedIn.

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Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. A bunch of intriguing games arrived this week, including a mobile port of one of the most absorbing things I’ve played in years and two completely different titles with the same name. Let’s get things started with a look at a few projects that were featured in the latest edition of the Future Games Show.

Hyperwired (from SidralGames and publisher SelectaPlay) is a 2D roguelike shooter with an interesting resource-management twist. To recharge your weapons and systems, you have to plug a cable that trails behind your spaceship into a socket. While you’re plugged in, your movement is restricted by the length of the tether, but you gain more firepower.

There are a whole bunch of upgrades and bullet modifiers to play around with here, including a slow-motion system you can activate at almost any time. Hyperwired is slated to hit Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch this summer.

In Clean Up Earth, you and other players can work together to restore polluted environments. You can play solo if you like, but on the larger maps you’ll need to team up with others to handle large bits of junk. One particularly neat aspect of Clean Up Earth is that in-game actions will automatically trigger micro-donations from developer Magic Pockets and its partners to environmental organizations.

Clean Up Earth is coming to Steam, Epic Games Store, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on April 2. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is on the way in the future. There’s a demo available on Steam as well.

Mr. Magpie’s Harmless Card Game is a minesweeper-style riff on the likes of Inscryption and Buckshot Roulette. As with some other roguelike deckbuilders, you’re trapped in a creepy situation and the only way to escape alive is to gamble and earn enough money in time to meet quotas. To do that, you’ll need to twist the odds in your favor by building multipliers and synergies. You can boost your deck with powerful cards you can buy from a shop.

However, there are dangerous JERRY cards on the board that could spell doom if you flip them over. You can use hints and strategies to try to figure out where those cards are and avoid them.

There’s no release date as yet for Mr. Magpie’s Harmless Card Game, which is from Giant Light Studios. However, you can request access to a playtest on Steam.

A press release described Herdles as “Spyro meets Breath of the Wild, with a dog.” I’m immediately sold.

Playing as a magical version of creative director Christian Hübel’s own dog, Snoopy, you’ll “restore balance to a fracturing world” in this open-world platformer. On your journey, you’ll rescue Herdles, or corrupted creatures. Doing so will unlock new powers, such as being able to glide, bust through walls and swim up waterfalls.

There’s no combat or death in this game, which seems to be largely about solving puzzles, experimenting with physics-based abilities and exploring. It’s said to have “deep accessibility and customization options” too. Fire Sword Studios and One More Journey are behind Herdles, which does not have a release window, though the Steam page is live.

New releases

I took an earlier-than-usual lunch break on Thursday to check out the mobile version of Ball x Pit (from Kenny Sun and friends and publisher Devolver Digital) as soon as it was released. I adore this game. I’m happy it runs smoothly on my iPhone 16, because that should give me more reason to avoid doomscrolling.

It’s the same Ball x Pit. It’s still fantastic. The touchscreen dual-stick controls work well enough, especially when the auto-fire option is enabled. Still, a mobile controller like OhSnap’s MCON or the Backbone Pro works better for me.

A bunch more people will be able to enjoy Ball x Pit now that it’s on iOS and Android. You can play the first level for free and it costs $10 to unlock the full game.

It’s a pretty good week for folks who are into brick-breaking roguelites, because here’s another one. ITER-8 (from fluckyMachine and publisher Fireshine Games) blends mining and tower defense. It’s a bit like Dome Keeper.

You’re tasked with acquiring resources from an enormous monolith that’s above your base. You’ll need to drag these items back to your base so you can upgrade your character, ship, shield and weapon. There are relics to find and you can swap these for installations like lasers, barriers and cannons. There are also puzzle-based sections that sees your character leave their ship for some in-person mining and upgrade collecting, temporarily switching from 2D to 3D action.

After a while, the monolith starts to thrum with an ominous sound. That means it’s time to race back to base (with the help of a fast-travel system) to fend off waves of alien enemies.

The two sides of ITER-8 work fairly well together and I’ve enjoyed my time with it so far. I actually find it pretty relaxing overall, though the tower-defense aspect could have been designed a bit more elegantly. Switching aim from one side of the base to the other doesn’t feel snappy enough. ITER-8 is available on Steam for $13. There’s a 25 percent launch discount available until March 23.

Piece by Piece is billed as a cozy repair shop game from Gamkat and publisher No More Robots. It looks cute!

You can decorate your shop and make it homely by cleaning, keeping the log fire burning and making sure the cookie jar is full. Of course, you’ll be fixing up heirlooms and antiques for customers too. It’s out now on Steam for $12, with a 20 percent discount until March 25.

Piece by Piece is a puzzle platformer in the most literal sense. You manipulate levels by moving puzzle pieces around. It’s a great idea from Neon Polygons and I’m keen to check this one out on Steam. It typically costs $13, but there’s a 15 percent discount until March 27.

Wait a second here… Two games called Piece by Piece that were released in the same week? That’s a heck of a coincidence. Thankfully, the teams behind both games saw the funny side. They’ve even created a bundle of both games so you can buy them both for an extra 10 percent off.

Here’s another puzzle-forward game, albeit one that’s more of an adventure. In Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times, you’ll discover and combine spells in creative ways to solve riddles in similar fashion to games like Baba Is You. There are said to be more than a million ways to combine the magical keywords. Since every spell works on any object in the game, there are more than 102 million possible configurations. Neat!

Solo developer Alice Jarratt from SlugGlove spent three years making Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times and drew more than 10,000 frames of animation for it. The game is available on Steam for $15, with a 20 percent launch discount until March 26. A demo is available too.

Upcoming

I’ve had Hoa on my wishlist for forever, so it’s probably time for me to check out that puzzle platformer before the sequel arrives later this year. Hoa 2 (from Skrollcat Studio and publisher PM Studios) sticks with the hand-painted art of the original game but it’s a 3D game this time.

It begins a long, long time after the end of Hoa, with the eponymous fairy returning to a world that’s been transformed by time. But many of her old friends have passed away, so Hoa seeks a new purpose.

Along with platforming and spatial puzzles, Hoa 2 features secrets and mini-games. It’s coming to Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2.

I dig what I’ve seen of MotorSlice, which seems to have Mirror’s Edge-style parkour action but in a much grittier-looking world. The developers also took inspiration from the Prince of Persia series and Shadow of the Colossus here — perhaps not too surprising in the latter case given that you’ll be scaling huge bosses. This action adventure sees you on a mission to destroy every piece of machinery inside a ruined megastructure.

MotorSlice is coming to Steam this spring. A demo for this game from Regular Studio and publisher Top Hat Studios is available now.

Being a lifelong soccer fan is a curse that’s punctuated with infrequent moments of the most intense joy you’ll ever feel. Plus, every few years, I lose about a month of my life to the most recent version of Football Manager (I gave up on the last one after winning every possible trophy with Borussia Mönchengladbach for three seasons in a row). So, it’s safe to say that a game focused on perhaps the least glamourous job in soccer is up my alley.

Kitman — a job you might know of as “equipment manager” — is a sports management game with co-op for up to four people in which you take care of things behind the scenes of a soccer team. You’ll clean locker rooms, polish boots, make sure players have the right uniforms and so on, while taking care of details on the fly on match days.

There’s a fun twist here in that you can secretly take on some of the manager’s duties, such as scouting players and adjusting formations. Maybe that explains what’s been happening with Tottenham Hotspur lately.

Kitman, from Outlier, is coming to Steam later this year. In the meantime, you can sign up to take part in a playtest.

If, like me, you adore Astro Bot, here’s something to keep an eye on. Astrolander is a 2.5D platformer with lovely-looking 3D environments. As a robot named Feedback, you set out on a journey with a rocket-powered sidekick named Haptic (heh) to save bots known as the Most Valuable Programs, or MVPs. A second player can join in and help take control of Feedback.

Astrolander is from 16-year-old Max Trest of Lost Cartridge Creations. The PlayStation team (including its then-head of indie games Shuhei Yoshida) tried Astrolander at an event a few years back and offered Trest the chance to bring his game to PS5. Astrolander is also coming to Steam. It’s set to arrive later this year.

Jamie’s Brick Jams decided to take an old Nikola Tesla idea and turn it into something completely new, utilizing LEGO parts to construct a working generator. Jamie decided to utilize stacked discs rather than the standard spinning blades. Air enters at an angle through small holes and spirals in towards the closely spaced surfaces, and the friction from the moving air is what causes the discs to spin, without the need for any direct pushing force.

His first attempts employed basic LEGO Technic wheels and beams to construct a basic rotor stack, but compressed air at sixty pounds per square inch was insufficient, as the assembly was only spinning at eighteen thousand revs per minute and lacked thrust. It was speedy, yet it struggled to move a little walking robot, let alone huge objects. Then Jamie had the bright idea to use printed discs. The thin little circles that came out of the 3D printer at one millimeter thick were a huge game changer. Eleven of them stacked on a central shaft increased the surface area and provided the entire contraption a massive speed boost, by more than 70%. The airflow improved dramatically, and the rotor became quite steady.

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Next came the enclosure, which Jamie designed to control the entering air so that it flowed perfectly over each disc. Printed housings had eight small holes spaced equally around the outside edge, and LEGO bricks sealed the edges to maintain air flowing smoothly in and prevent leaks. The outcome was a 50% increase in speed and a significant reduction in vibrations.

Jamie also conducted tests to determine which materials were the best, including normal PLA, a more durable variety, PETG, polycarbonate, and even flexible TPU. It turns out that a tougher version of PLA is the way to go, as it reached 27,000 revolutions per minute at the same air pressure. If you print the discs at a narrower three tenths of a millimeter, you can put more of them into the stack without it being too heavy.

The finished design consisted of thirty discs stacked inside a reinforced LEGO Technic frame with metal axles and bearings for maximum durability. The centrifugal force of spinning keeps the flexible discs flat, and there are exhaust holes near the center shaft to evacuate the clean air once it’s finished. Getting the high speeds to generate useful electricity was the actual challenge. Jamie initially tried a cone pulley system with a rubber belt, but it did not last very long. So they moved to metal gears with a set reduction ratio, which made all the difference since it allowed them to achieve smooth power transmission without constantly fiddling with modifications.

Coils and magnets served as the generator’s electrical core. It was a really clever setup, with a twelve-pole stator made from real LEGO bricks that contained coils of 20 gauge wire wrapped in three phases. Ten powerful neodymium magnets were used to generate the magnetic field on the spinning rotor. As the rotor spun, it generated a fluctuating magnetic field that the stator picked up. Next thing you know, rectification kicks in and converts that AC to steady DC, ready for the real world.

On the final runs, pushing the turbine hard with air at a whopping 85 pounds per square inch yielded impressively consistent results. Even under a strong load it held a steady 13,500 revolutions per minute, and as the pressure climbed the output followed, peaking at thirty volts with occasional bursts of up to one amp of current. The end result was fourteen watts of usable power, which is enough to charge a smartphone or keep a 100 watt LED panel running at full brightness for hours
[Source]

Poland’s National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) says hackers targeted its IT infrastructure, but the attack was detected and blocked before causing any impact.

In a statement this week, the organization announced that its security systems and internal procedures, designed to detect threats early, prevented the compromise and allowed its IT staff to quickly secure targeted systems.

“Thanks to the rapid and effective actions of security systems and procedures in the event of such an incident, as well as the quick response of our teams, the attack was thwarted, and the integrity of the systems was not compromised,” the NCBJ says.

NCBJ is Poland’s main government nuclear research institute specializing in nuclear physics, reactor technology, particle physics, and radiation applications. It provides technical and scientific support for the country’s nuclear power program.

The institute also operates the MARIA, Poland’s only nuclear reactor used for scientific experiments, neutron research, and medical isotope production. MARIA is not used for generating electricity.

NCBJ’s Director, Professor Jakub Kupecki, stated that the cybersecurity incident did not impact the operation of the MARIA reactor, which continues to function safely at full power.

The institute has informed the relevant authorities in the country and started an investigation. Additionally, internal security teams have been placed on high alert to respond to any new threats.

Although the agency did not attribute the attack to any specific threat groups or nations, Reuters reported that Polish authorities found indicators that Iran may be behind the cyberattack. However, investigators are also cautious, as these signs may be false flags.

Earlier this month, the country’s Defense Minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, stated that Poland is not participating in the conflict in the Middle East.

Earlier this year, in January, it was revealed that Poland’s power grid, specifically, multiple distributed energy resource (DER) sites, heat and power (CHP) facilities, wind, and solar dispatch systems, had been attacked by the Russian threat group APT44 (“Sandworm”).

In late February, an ICCT report placed Poland high in the target list of Russian cyber-actors, with 31 confirmed incidents attributed to them between mid-2025 and early-2026.

Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.

Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.

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From Apple to Coros, Polar and Samsung, there is no shortage of companies putting out amazing wearables for quick access to key apps, tracking your workouts and more. Garmin has been on the scene for a lot longer than most of the competition, and in that time it’s built up an impressive array of products and a sizeable fanbase to go with it. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, or maybe you’re tempted to upgrade from your old wearable, here are the best Garmin watches you can buy right now.

There are plenty of reasons as to why Garmin has established itself as one of the go-to brands in the smartwatch sector, but chief among them are fitness tracking and battery life. Garmin’s software is easily some of the best in the business when it comes to keeping tabs on your workout performance and body recovery, which is why they regularly feature amongst the best running watches to buy.

Most Garmin watches tend to last for at least a week on a single charge, but there are some (like those in the Enduro range) that can last for months. Compared to the day-long battery life of some smartwatches, this is a game-changer, particularly for anyone engaging in intensive workouts like ultramarathons where running into a dead battery can be a nightmare.

The one area where Garmin watches don’t quite match with the competition is in app access. Sure, you can tap into a few key apps like Spotify and Google Maps, but the ecosystem isn’t anywhere near as expansive as what you’ll find on watchOS or Wear OS, so if that’s the type of experience you’re after then our list of the best smartwatches is meant for you.

For sports and fitness tracking however, Garmin is almost unbeaten, but with so many options available within the company’s wares, our in-depth testing is exactly how we’re able to pinpoint which ones are actually worth buying. This involves monitoring GPS and heart rate performance, battery drain and general ease of use – all of which is then filtered into this very list so you can know which Garmin watches excel at what tasks.

Which is the best Garmin Watch?