The launch of Crimson Desert wasn’t smooth for everyone, especially Intel Arc GPU users. While the game was a AAA release that showed refreshing levels of polish, it didn’t support Intel Arc graphics at all.

If you looked for more details and stumbled upon the FAQ, Pearl Abyss simply told you to seek a refund.

And as expected, this didn’t go down so well with the gaming community. Now, the studio is changing course and has confirmed that Intel Arc support is officially in the works, marking a major shift in stance.

The backlash clearly worked

The controversy was picked up quickly after launch, with players calling out the lack of support. This was even more surprising since Intel was working with the studio during development, and reportedly even offered drivers and engineering help for Arc GPU support.

But following the immediate backlash, the developers issued an apology.

What went wrong in the first place?

At launch, Crimson Desert simply would not run on Intel Arc GPUs, throwing up an “unsupported hardware” error. It wasn’t a minor bug or performance issue; what was surprising was the complete lack of compatibility. This affected both discrete Arc cards and Intel’s integrated graphics.

The decision raised eyebrows almost immediately, considering how widely Intel iGPUs are used across laptops and PCs. The good news is that Pearl Abyss has now committed to fixing it. While it has confirmed active development for compatibility updates, performance optimization, and a “smooth and stable gameplay experience” on Arc GPUs, there’s still no clear timeline for when this support will actually roll out.

Andrew Jones doesn’t need a reintroduction, but he’s getting one anyway. After shaping some of the most important loudspeakers of the past three decades at KEF, Pioneer, ELAC, and now MoFi Electronics, where he still leads loudspeaker design—one of the industry’s most respected and technically grounded engineers is stepping out with something new. Jones and Cerreta, a Los Angeles based speaker company co-founded with Jamie and Bill Cerreta, marks the first time Andrew Jones has put his name on the door.

Set to debut in just 17 days at AXPONA 2026, the new brand signals more than another product launch. It’s a reset. Known for delivering reference level thinking at real world prices, Jones is now pairing that engineering discipline with a more design forward approach aimed at listeners who want both sonic credibility and visual impact. The debut loudspeaker is being positioned as a clear departure from his previous work, but the core philosophy remains intact: engineering decisions that serve the music first, not the spec sheet.

Who Is Behind Jones and Cerreta?

Jones and Cerreta brings together three partners with very different backgrounds across engineering, music, and technology, all focused on how music is created, reproduced, and experienced.

Andrew Jones – Lead Speaker Designer and Co Founder

Andrew Jones is one of the most experienced loudspeaker designers working today, with a career that spans KEF, Infinity, Pioneer, TAD, ELAC, and now MoFi Electronics, where he continues to lead loudspeaker design. He studied physics with a focus on acoustics and has worked extensively on crossover design and driver integration.

At KEF, he worked with concentric driver technology, and later at Pioneer helped establish TAD’s transition into the home audio market, including the development of a beryllium concentric driver. At ELAC, he played a key role in building out the company’s North American speaker lineup. Jones and Cerreta is the first company where his name is directly attached as a co founder.

Jamie Cerreta – Creative Strategy and Co Founder

Jamie Cerreta brings more than 25 years of experience in the music industry. He currently serves as President of Peermusic in the U.S. and Canada and has worked closely with artists, producers, and songwriters across a wide range of genres.

His experience includes working with artists such as Ray LaMontagne, My Morning Jacket, and Manchester Orchestra, as well as supporting the development of newer artists and writers. He also serves on the Executive Board of the National Music Publishers Association S.O.N.G.S. Foundation. His role focuses on how recorded music translates from the studio to the listener.

Bill Cerreta – CEO and Co Founder

Bill Cerreta is an electrical engineer with more than 30 years of experience in Silicon Valley, currently working at Pure Storage on data infrastructure technologies. He brings experience in product development, team leadership, and business operations.

He is also an active record collector and has spent years sourcing vinyl pressings internationally. In addition, he restores and builds vintage audio equipment, including tube gear and speakers. His role combines technical knowledge with operational oversight as the company launches its first products.

What Is Jones and Cerreta Bringing to AXPONA 2026?

Here’s what we actually know so far—and it’s just enough to raise eyebrows. The debut speaker is a floorstanding design with no model name and no announced pricing, although nobody should expect this to land anywhere near entry level.

The headline detail is the use of a concentric driver, which tracks with Andrew Jones’ long history at KEF and TAD—but this time it is paired with field coil, a technology rarely seen in modern loudspeakers due to cost, complexity, and power requirements. That combination alone suggests this is not a continuation of his ELAC or MoFi playbook.

Beyond that, details are scarce. No published specs, no confirmed materials, no crossover topology, and no official performance targets. Which means one thing: whatever shows up in Room 302 at AXPONA is likely doing something different enough that they’re not ready to fully spell it out yet.

What Is a Field Coil Driver?

Field coil drivers are an old idea that never fully went away—they just became too complicated and expensive for most modern loudspeakers. Instead of using a permanent magnet like almost every speaker today, a field coil driver uses an electromagnet powered by an external power supply to generate the magnetic field that drives the voice coil.

That difference matters. Because the magnetic field is actively generated, it can be stronger, more stable, and in some cases adjustable, which can improve control, dynamics, and overall efficiency. It’s one of the reasons field coil designs have a reputation for sounding exceptionally clean and immediate when done well.

The tradeoffs are real. Field coil systems require an external power supply, add complexity, generate heat, and significantly increase cost. That’s why they’re mostly found in ultra high end or boutique speakers, often from companies like Cessaro, Voxativ, Tune Audio, Line Magnetic, and Feastrex.

What makes this relevant now is that Andrew Jones is reportedly using a field coil concentric driver in a floorstanding speaker. That’s not how this technology is typically deployed. It’s usually seen in horn systems or single driver designs, not something that looks like it could scale into a broader product line.

In other words, the technology itself isn’t new. Where and how it’s being used this time might be.

Where and When to Hear Andrew Jones’ New Speaker at AXPONA 2026

Jones and Cerreta will make its public debut at AXPONA 2026, taking place April 10 to 12 in Chicago, Illinois, with demonstrations scheduled in Room 302 throughout the show. Attendees will be among the first to see and hear Andrew Jones’ latest loudspeaker design, which promises a fresh take that blends legacy ideas with new engineering approaches.

Andrew Jones will also host a Master Class on April 11 from 5:00 to 5:45 PM in Expo Hall, titled Reimagining the Dual Concentric Driver, offering insight into the thinking behind the new design and how it challenges traditional implementations.

We’ll be there for a first listen—and if history is any guide, this won’t be a quiet debut.

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For more information: https://jonesandcerreta.com

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The TeamPCP hacking group is targeting Kubernetes clusters with a malicious script that wipes all machines when it detects systems configured for Iran.

The threat actor is responsible for the recent supply-chain attack on the Trivy vulnerability scanner, and also an NPM-based campaign dubbed ‘CanisterWorm,’ which started on March 20.

Selective destruction payload

Researchers at application security company Aikido say that the campaign targeting Kubernetes clusters uses the same command-and-control (C2), backdoor code, and drop path as seen in the CanisterWorm incidents.

However, the new campaign differs in that it includes a destructive payload targeting Iranian systems and installs the CanisterWorm backdoor on nodes in other locales.

“The script uses the exact same ICP canister (tdtqy-oyaaa-aaaae-af2dq-cai[.]raw[.]icp0[.]io) we documented in the CanisterWorm campaign. Same C2, same backdoor code, same /tmp/pglog drop path,” Aikido says.

“The Kubernetes-native lateral movement via DaemonSets is consistent with TeamPCP’s known playbook, but this variant adds something we haven’t seen from them before: a geopolitically targeted destructive payload aimed specifically at Iranian systems.”

According to Aikido researchers, the malware is built to destroy any machine that matches Iran’s timezone and locale, regardless if Kuberenetes is present or not.

If both conditions are met, the script deploys a DaemonSet named ‘Host-provisioner-iran’ in ‘kube-system’, which uses privileged containers and mounts the host root filesystem into /mnt/host.

Each pod runs an Alpine container named ‘kamikaze’ that deletes all top-level directories on the host filesystem, and then forces a reboot on the host.

If Kubernetes is present but the system is identified as not Iranian, the malware deploys a DaemonSet named ‘host-provisioner-std’ using privileged containers with the host filesystem mounted.

Instead of wiping data, each pod writes a Python backdoor onto the host filesystem and installs it as a systemd service so it persists on every node.

On Iranian systems without Kubernetes, the malware deletes every file on the machine, including system data, accessible to the current user by running the rm -rf/ command with the –no-preserve-root flag. If root privileges are not available, it attempts passwordless sudo.

On systems where none of the conditions are met, no malicious action is taken, and the malware just exits.

Aikido reports that a recent version of the malware, which uses the same ICP canister backdoor, has omitted the Kubernetes-based lateral movement and instead uses SSH propagation, parsing authentication logs for valid credentials, and using stolen private keys.

The researchers highlighted some key indicators of this activity, including outbound SSH connections with ‘StrictHostKeyChecking+no’ from compromised hosts, outbound connections to the Docker API on port 2375 across the local subnet, and privileged Alpine containers via an unauthenticated Docker API with / mounted as a hostPath.

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.

Download The Report

Your car might just become the new smart home hub for your house. Samsung has expanded SmartThings integration, enabling drivers to control their smart home devices directly from their car’s infotainment system. It’s called Car-to-Home. 

Building on the earlier Home-to-Car capability that allowed users to monitor their cars from inside the house, the Car-to-Home feature flips the functionality so you can control your smart home appliances, such as air conditioners, lighting systems, and other smart switches, from your car’s dashboard. 

What can the Car-to-Home feature do?

The practical scope of the feature is broader than it might sound, as it is compatible with devices such as air conditioners, air purifiers, robot vacuums, lights, and cameras. Connecting is straightforward — drivers scan a QR code displayed on their car’s infotainment screen and link their vehicle to their SmartThings account. 

Apart from manual control (flipping the switches), the Car-to-Home feature unlocks location-aware automation that genuinely changes how your home responds to your day. You can set routines so that the SmartThings network turns on the required appliances as you park your car in the garage.

I can see people using the feature to pre-cool their rooms or run air purifiers before they arrive home after a tiring day at the office. On the contrary, the feature should also shut everything down (automatically), as you get in the car and leave the driveway. There’s a dedicated Away Mode for handling lights when you’re away. 

Who gets access, and when?

For now, the feature is available on select Hyundai and Kia cars, specifically those that feature the connected car Navigation Cockpit (ccNC) introduced after November 2022 in Korea. However, both Samsung and Hyundai aim to expand the feature to their customers throughout the world in due course. 

Eligible models include the Grandeur, Santa Fe, Ioniq 5, K5, Sorento, and EV9. Samsung also plans to extend the feature to Genesis vehicles equipped with the ccIC27 infotainment system. 

As and when the feature becomes available to a wider audience, it could drive a behavioral shift in which cars become central nodes in someone’s smart home ecosystem, linking mobility and domestic technology in ways that were, until recently, purely speculative.

Mel Olken

Former executive director of the IEEE Power & Energy Society

Fellow, 92; died 9 January

Olken became the first executive director of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) in 1995. In 2002 he left the position to serve as founding editor in chief of the society’s Power & Energy Magazine. Olken led the publication until 2016, when he retired.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the City College of New York, Olken was hired as an electrical engineer by American Electric Power, a utility based in Columbus, Ohio. He helped design coal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power plants. While at AEP, he was promoted to manager of the electrical generation department.

He joined IEEE in 1958 and became a PES member in 1973. An active volunteer, he chaired the society’s energy development and power generation committee and its technical council.

Olken was elected an IEEE Fellow in 1988 for “contributions to innovative design of reliable generating stations.”

He became an IEEE staff member in 1984 as society services director for IEEE Technical Activities. From 1990 to 1995 he served as managing director of Regional Activities group (now IEEE Member and Geographic Activities), before becoming PES executive director.

He received a PES Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 for his “broad and sustained technical contributions to the development of power engineering and the power engineering profession.”

Stephanie A. Huguenin

Research scientist

IEEE member, 48; died 1 October

Huguenin was an administrative assistant in the physics and biophysics department at Augusta University, in Georgia. According to her Augusta obituary, she died of an illness acquired during her volunteer work in India.

She received a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1999 from the College of Charleston, in South Carolina. During her senior year, she worked as a mathematics and science tutor at the Jenkins Orphanage (now the Jenkins Institute for Children), in North Charleston. After graduating, Huguenin traveled to India to volunteer at an orphanage run by the Mother Teresa Foundation.

Upon returning to the United States in 2001, Huguenin worked as a freelance research consultant. Three years later she was hired as a systems administrator and archivist by photographer Ebet Roberts in New York City. In 2010 she left to work as an operations strategist and technical consultant.

She earned a master’s degree in communication and research science in 2016 from New York University. While at NYU, she conducted experimental and theoretical research in Internet Protocol design and implementation as well as network security and management.

From 2020 to 2024 she was a research scientist at businesses owned by her family. She joined Augusta University in 2023.

She was a member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and the IEEE Systems Council.

Huguenin volunteered for the Internet Engineering Task Force, a standards development organization, and the American Registry for Internet Numbers. ARIN manages and distributes internet number resources such as IP addresses and autonomous system numbers.

The nonprofits she supported included the Coastal Conservation League, the Longleaf Alliance, the Lowcountry Land Trust, the Nature Conservancy, and Women in Defense.