A Chinese national accused of carrying out cyberespionage operations for China’s intelligence services has been extradited from Italy to the United States to face criminal charges.

According to a DOJ announcement, Xu Zewei is alleged to be a contract hacker for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) who conducted breaches between February 2020 and June 2021 as part of a coordinated intelligence-gathering campaign.

Xu was previously arrested in Milan, Italy, in 2025 at the request of U.S. authorities for his alleged ties to the Silk Typhoon hacking group.

The indictment links Xu to a series of attacks attributed to the Chinese Silk Typhoon hacking group, also known as Hafnium, which exploited vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems to gain initial access to victim networks. Once inside, the attackers performed reconnaissance, deployed malware, and stole data.

The DOJ says Xu was involved in intrusions targeting COVID-19 research organizations, where the attackers allegedly sought to obtain data on vaccines, treatments, and testing.

U.S. authorities also allege that Xu and his co-conspirators exploited Microsoft Exchange Server zero-day vulnerabilities beginning in late 2020 as part of a widespread campaign to compromise email servers and gain access to victim networks.

After breaching vulnerable Exchange servers, attackers deployed web shells that allowed them to access mailboxes, move laterally within networks, and exfiltrate data. The widespread exploitation led to global incidents impacting thousands of organizations before patches were fully available.

Prosecutors say Xu and his co-defendant operated as contracted hackers under the direction of MSS officials.

“According to court documents, officers of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security’s (MSS) Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) directed Xu to conduct this hacking,” the DOJ said.

“When Xu conducted the computer intrusions, he allegedly worked for a company named Shanghai Powerock Network Co., Ltd. (Powerock),” the announcement adds, describing it as one of many firms used to carry out hacking operations on behalf of the Chinese government.

Xu is expected to appear in federal court, where he faces multiple counts related to computer intrusions and conspiracy.

AI chained four zero-days into one exploit that bypassed both renderer and OS sandboxes. A wave of new exploits is coming.

At the Autonomous Validation Summit (May 12 & 14), see how autonomous, context-rich validation finds what’s exploitable, proves controls hold, and closes the remediation loop.

Claim Your Spot

from the desperately-seeking-satoshi dept

As its name suggests, generative AI is designed to generate material in response to prompts by drawing on its probabilistic database built up through analyzing huge quantities of training input. But it can draw on those patterns to analyze other files, and that’s also a widely used application. Writing in The Argument, Kelsey Piper encountered an interesting variant of that approach:

Recently, Anthropic released a new version of Claude, Opus 4.7. I did what I usually do when a new AI model is released by Google, OpenAI, or Anthropic and ran a bunch of tests on it to see what it can do. One of those tests is to paste in some text from unpublished drafts of mine and ask it to guess the author.

…

From only the above text [not shown here], 125 words, Claude Opus 4.7 informed me that the likeliest author is Kelsey Piper. This is an Opus 4.7-specific power; ChatGPT guessed Yglesias, and Gemini guessed Scott Alexander. I did not have memory enabled, nor did I have information about me associated with my account; I did these tests in Incognito Mode.

As Piper admits:

this is far from an impossible feat of style identification — a lot of my writing is public on the internet, and this is clearly the start of a political column, narrowing the possible authors down dramatically.

She went on to input less obvious material. For example, an “unpublished draft of a school progress report in a completely different register”:

“Kelsey Piper,” said Claude. (ChatGPT guessed Freddie deBoer. Gemini guessed Duncan Sabien.)

An unpublished fantasy novel produced a similar result, although:

in that case it took more like 500 words for Claude to inform me that it’s the work of Kelsey Piper (whereas ChatGPT flattered me by guessing that I’m real fantasy novelist K.J. Parker).

And finally, “a college application essay I wrote 15 years ago, when my prose style was vastly worse and frankly embarrassing to reread”:

“Kelsey Piper,” said Claude, and in this case, also ChatGPT.

Piper comments:

Right now, today’s AI tools probably can be used to deanonymize any writer who has a large public corpus of writing under their real name and also writes anonymously, unless they have been extremely careful, for years, to make sure that nothing written under their secondary account has the stylistic fingerprints of their primary one. Many academics and industry researchers, for instance, have reported being identified from a draft or in the middle of a chat.

And she concludes:

Whatever goods anonymity ever offered us, we will have to do without them. I don’t want the anonymous posters to all go away and for everyone to frantically delete all their old internet presence before it surfaces, but more than anything, I don’t want them to be surprised.

Those links to other cases of unpublished material being recognized by AI show that Piper’s experience was not a one-off, although the results remain in the realm of anecdata. But even if imperfect, the ability of generative AI to carry out this kind of analysis quickly and often accurately represents an important new option for the well-established field of stylometry. Wikipedia explains:

Stylometry may be used to unmask pseudonymous or anonymous authors, or to reveal some information about the author short of a full identification. Authors may use adversarial stylometry to resist this identification by eliminating their own stylistic characteristics without changing the meaningful content of their communications. It can defeat analyses that do not account for its possibility, but the ultimate effectiveness of stylometry in an adversarial environment is uncertain: stylometric identification may not be reliable, but nor can non-identification be guaranteed; adversarial stylometry’s practice itself may be detectable.

The limitations of stylometry were demonstrated in John Carreyrou’s attempt to reveal the true identity of Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, published in The New York Times a few weeks ago. Carreyrou concluded that various real-world coincidences plus linguistic evidence indicated that Bitcoin was created by the 55-year-old British computer scientist Adam Back, something Back denies. Carreyrou’s attempts to use computerized stylometry (not the AI services Piper drew on) were unsatisfactory, and he eventually adopted a more hands-on approach to text analysis, which involved looking at Satoshi’s vocabulary, grammatical hyphenation mistakes and the use of British spellings.

Despite Carreyrou’s lack of success, stylometric analysis by generative AI is likely to become more common in many disciplines for the simple reason it is so quick, easy and cheap to carry out. Even if its results are unreliable, people may find it useful as a stimulus for further investigations. And as we know, the fact that generative AI systems can churn out nonsense hasn’t stopped hundreds of millions of people from using and trusting them anyway.

Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon and on Bluesky.

Filed Under: adam back, anonymity, bitcoin, chatgpt, claude, deanonymization, gemini, generative ai, grammar, john carreyrou, opus, satoshi nakamoto, stylometry, wikipedia

Companies: anthropic, google, new york times, openai

Online trading platform Robinhood’s account creation process was exploited by threat actors to inject phishing messages into legitimate emails, tricking users into believing their accounts had suspicious activity.

Starting last night, Robinhood customers began receiving “Your recent login to Robinhood” emails stating that an “Unrecognized Device Linked to Your Account” was detected, containing unusual IP addresses and partial phone numbers.

“We detected a login attempt from a device that is not recognized,” reads the phishing email. “If this was not you, please review your account activity immediately to secure your account.”

Included in the email was a button titled “Review Activity Now”, which led to a phishing site at robinhood[.]casevaultreview[.]com, which is now down. 

However, screenshots on Reddit indicate that the site was likely used to try to steal Robinhood credentials.

What made the emails convincing is that they came from the legitimate Robinhood email address noreply@robinhood.com and passed SPF and DKIM email security checks.

Exploiting Robinhood account creation onboarding flaw

Attackers abused Robinhood to generate phishing emails by exploiting a flaw in the company’s onboarding process that allowed them to inject arbitrary HTML into its account confirmation emails.

BleepingComputer confirmed that when a new Robinhood account is registered, the company automatically sends a “Your recent login to Robinhood” email to the associated address, containing the registration time, IP address, device information, and approximate location.

To inject the phishing message, threat actors modified their device metadata fields to include embedded HTML, which Robinhood did not properly sanitize.

This HTML was then injected into the Device: field of the account creation email, causing it to render as a fake “Unrecognized Device Linked to Your Account” message.

To target Robinhood customers, attackers likely used lists of known customer email addresses from previous data breaches. In November 2021, Robinhood suffered a data breach impacting 7 million customers, with the data later offered for sale on a hacking forum.

The attackers also used Gmail’s dot aliasing behavior, where adding periods to an address does not change its destination, allowing them to register accounts using variations of real email addresses while still delivering the messages to the intended recipients.

As a result, recipients received what appeared to be a standard login alert, but with an embedded phishing section warning of “unrecognized activity” and urging them to review their account.

Robinhood confirmed the incident in a statement posted to X.

“On Sunday evening, some customers received a falsified email from noreply@robinhood.com with the subject line ‘Your recent login to Robinhood.’,” posted RobinHood.

“This phishing attempt was made possible by an abuse of the account creation flow. It was not a breach of our systems or customer accounts, and personal information and funds were not impacted.”

BleepingComputer has confirmed that Robinhood has fixed this flaw by removing the Device: field that was previously abused from their account creation emails.

Robinhood advises users who received the message to delete it and avoid clicking any links.

AI chained four zero-days into one exploit that bypassed both renderer and OS sandboxes. A wave of new exploits is coming.

At the Autonomous Validation Summit (May 12 & 14), see how autonomous, context-rich validation finds what’s exploitable, proves controls hold, and closes the remediation loop.

Claim Your Spot

OpenAI is developing a smartphone built around AI agents rather than apps, with Qualcomm and MediaTek jointly designing the custom processor and Luxshare Precision Industry co-designing and exclusively manufacturing the device, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, the TF International Securities analyst whose Apple supply-chain intelligence has made him the most closely followed hardware analyst in the industry. Kuo projects 300 to 400 million annual shipments if the device succeeds, a figure that would exceed Apple’s iPhone volumes and place the phone in direct competition with the two companies that control roughly 40% of the global smartphone market. Specifications and the supplier list are expected to be finalised by late 2026 or the first quarter of 2027, with mass production targeted for 2028. Qualcomm’s shares surged as much as 13% in premarket trading on the report. None of the three companies, Qualcomm, OpenAI, or MediaTek, confirmed the partnership. This is an analyst report, not an announcement, but the supply chain Kuo describes is not speculative. It is the supply chain that already builds the devices you own.

The concept

The phone Kuo describes is not a smartphone with an AI assistant. It is a device where the AI agent is the interface and the app is obsolete. Instead of downloading applications and navigating screens, users would interact with agents that handle tasks directly: ordering transport, booking restaurants, managing email, conducting research, writing messages. The architecture would process lighter tasks on-device, including context awareness, memory management, and smaller AI models, while offloading complex inference to the cloud. The device would maintain what Kuo calls “full real-time state,” continuously capturing a user’s location, activity, communication, and environmental context to feed the agents. This is the vision Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has been articulating throughout 2026: that AI agents will replace the mobile operating system and apps as the primary interaction layer, and that the hardware must be designed from scratch to support continuous, power-efficient AI inference rather than retrofitting existing chipsets with neural processing units bolted on.

The concept is separate from OpenAI’s other hardware project with Jony Ive, the former Apple design chief whose company io is developing a non-phone device, reportedly a smart speaker with a camera first, then glasses, a lamp, and earbuds, with the first product expected in early 2027. OpenAI is pursuing two parallel hardware strategies: a device that reimagines what a personal computer looks like without a screen, and a device that keeps the phone form factor but replaces everything that runs on it. Apple is testing AI smart glasses with a custom chip, cameras, and Siri powered by a Gemini model, targeting 2027. The question of whether AI lives in your phone, on your face, or in a speaker on your counter is being answered simultaneously by every major technology company, each with a different bet. OpenAI is betting on all of them at once.

The supply chain

The credibility of the report rests on the supply chain, not the concept. Luxshare Precision Industry is a major Apple supplier that assembles AirPods, Apple Watch components, and an increasing share of iPhones. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 powers 75% of Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series and has, for the first time, overtaken Apple in raw multi-core and GPU performance. MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500 matches Qualcomm and Apple in CPU performance at lower cost with better efficiency. These are not the suppliers of a concept phone. They are the suppliers of phones that ship in the hundreds of millions. Qualcomm’s acquisition of Edge Impulse, an edge AI developer platform, in 2025 signalled the company’s strategic commitment to on-device AI inference across device categories. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s Hexagon NPU delivers 37% faster AI processing than its predecessor, supports agentic AI that learns from user behaviour, and includes a personal knowledge graph and continuous context awareness through an upgraded sensing hub. Qualcomm is also reportedly building custom 3D DRAM specifically optimised for AI workloads on mobile devices. The silicon for the phone Kuo describes does not need to be invented. The components exist. The question is whether the software paradigm works.

The financial context matters. Qualcomm’s stock was trading at $149.84 before the report, down from a 52-week high of $205.95, with earnings growth declining 46.9% and gross margins down to 55.1%. The company reports earnings on April 29, two days after the Kuo report. In February, Bloomberg reported that Qualcomm gave a “tepid forecast in sign of shaky phone market.” An OpenAI partnership would represent a new revenue stream in a market where Qualcomm’s traditional business, supplying modems and processors to phone manufacturers, is under pressure from Apple’s efforts to develop its own modem chips and MediaTek’s encroachment on the premium Android segment. Qualcomm would be helping build a device designed to challenge the iPhone while continuing to supply Apple with modem chips through at least 2027, a business relationship that embodies the contradictions of the semiconductor supply chain.

The graveyard

The AI device category has produced more failures than products. The Humane AI Pin, a $699 wearable with a laser projector that beamed information onto the user’s palm, was permanently bricked on February 28, 2025, when HP acquired Humane’s remnants for $116 million and shut down the servers. The Rabbit R1, a $199 “large action model” device, attracted 100,000 pre-orders but retained only 5,000 active users after five months, a 95% abandonment rate. Its founder admitted the device launched too early. Both failed for the same reason: they created new form factors that solved no problem the smartphone did not already solve, at price points that demanded the user carry a second device. The OpenAI phone takes a fundamentally different approach. It is not an additional device. It is a replacement for the device 4.7 billion people already carry, in the same form factor, with the same basic capabilities, but with a radically different interaction model. Whether that is enough to avoid the graveyard depends on whether agents can do what apps do, better, faster, and without the friction of learning a new paradigm.

AI is already reshaping the mobile app ecosystem, with “vibe-coded” applications flooding the App Store in such volume that Apple has had to crack down on submissions. The EU is preparing to force Google to open Android to rival AI assistants including ChatGPT and Claude under the Digital Markets Act, requiring equal system-level access for voice activation and deep integration. The smartphone’s software layer is already in flux. Samsung’s Galaxy S26 runs a triple AI engine with Gemini, Perplexity, and Bixby. Google’s Pixel 10 hands off multi-step tasks to background AI agents. Apple Intelligence processes queries on-device with an emphasis on privacy. Every major phone manufacturer is moving toward AI-first experiences, but all of them are constrained by backward compatibility with billions of existing apps and the operating systems that run them. OpenAI’s advantage, if the phone materialises, is that it has no legacy. It can design a clean-slate interaction model without worrying about whether Instagram’s notification system works or whether the banking app renders correctly. The disadvantage is that users may not want a clean slate. They may want their apps and an AI assistant that works around them, which is what Samsung, Google, and Apple already offer.

The question

Kuo’s projection of 300 to 400 million annual shipments would make the OpenAI phone one of the most successful consumer electronics products in history. For context, Apple ships roughly 230 million iPhones per year. Samsung ships approximately 220 million Galaxy phones. A new entrant reaching those volumes has no precedent in the smartphone era. The projection reflects the scale of OpenAI’s ambition, not a reasonable base case for a first-generation device from a company that has never manufactured hardware, sold through carriers, managed warranty claims, or operated a supply chain at consumer scale. The Jony Ive device carries the same risk: a company whose expertise is in large language models attempting to become a consumer electronics manufacturer, a transition that requires competencies in industrial design, supply chain management, retail distribution, and after-sales service that OpenAI does not have and cannot acquire by hiring one designer, however talented.

The 2028 timeline gives OpenAI two years to finalise specifications, secure component supply, build manufacturing capacity, develop the agent-first software platform, negotiate carrier partnerships, establish retail distribution, and convince hundreds of millions of consumers to abandon their iPhones and Galaxy phones for a device built by a company that has never shipped hardware. The Humane AI Pin took longer than that and shipped a device that lasted nine months before being permanently disabled. The ambition is extraordinary. The supply chain is credible. The concept addresses a genuine architectural limitation of current smartphones, which were designed around apps in 2007 and have not fundamentally changed since. But the distance between a credible supply chain report and a shipping product that displaces the iPhone is the distance between a thesis and a business, and every company in the AI device graveyard had a thesis too.

The pet food aisle has never been more crowded, which is exactly why Hillary Coles says she was skeptical when Atomic Labs came calling.

“I had the same reaction you did,” Coles told me on a call Monday afternoon, a day before her new company, Golden Child, opened for business. “Surely that can’t be what people need.”

Coles co-founded Hims & Hers with Andrew Dudum, Jack Abraham, and Joe Spector back in 2016 and spent seven years there overseeing brand, physical products, and consumer strategy before taking a year and a half off to have her children. She describes herself as “a consumer person first” who happened to land in healthcare. Dog food wasn’t “on the bingo card,” as she put it.

The pitch that won her over was rooted less in dog food specifically than in a methodology. Atomic, the startup studio founded by Abraham, runs what it calls “painted door tests” — lightweight experiments designed to reveal what consumers will actually do, not just what they say they want. When Atomic ran those tests in the pet food space, interest was clear. The team then studied 11,000 reviews of existing fresh dog food products and found recurring complaints: inconvenience, dogs getting sick, food that felt like a chore to prepare and serve. “We started to peel the onion,” Coles said.

What they found, she and her co-founder Quentin Lacornerie argue, is an industry that hasn’t innovated in about 12 years — a claim that strains credulity, given how crowded the premium and human-grade segment has become — but one they say ties to 11,000 customer reviews showing persistent complaints about existing fresh food options, even as the humans feeding their dogs have dramatically changed their expectations.

Lacornerie, who was part of the founding team at Hims & Hers and spent years spearheading its personalized growth strategy, says there are lots of parallels to the early days of that company. “Wellness has eclipsed Big Pharma by 4x in market cap,” he noted. Pet parents who take collagen for joint health, who read ingredient labels, and who track their own nutritionincreasingly want the same rigor applied to what goes in their dog’s bowl.

Golden Child is launching with two “five-star” products sold direct-to-consumer for now: a fresh frozen meal system and, more intriguingly, a “drizzle” — a shelf-stable liquid topper that can be added to whatever a dog is already eating, whether that’s Golden Child’s own food, kibble, or something else. The drizzle retails for $19.95 a bottle. The meal system starts at $3 a day and is sold primarily on subscription, though a starter box is available for people who want to ease into the relationship.

The drizzle is the more novel idea and, presumably, the higher-margin one. I asked Coles whether the company had considered just focusing on that product. “Like all entrepreneurs, we have a lot of opportunities to build out worlds,” she answered. “This is just the first inning.”

The food itself is made in the U.S. across multiple manufacturing facilities, using human-grade supply chains — a harder thing to establish than it sounds, said Lacornerie. The recipes were developed by a PhD in animal nutrition; Megan Sparkle, who is one of only roughly 80 board-certified veterinary nutritionists in the country; and (naturally) a classically trained chef, one who has work ties to Ina Garten and Guy Fieri, says Lacornerie.

The company also developed what it’s calling a “protein block,” a way of delivering chicken and beef with an enhanced amino acid profile that standard meat cuts alone don’t provide, says Coles.

Golden Child is announcing $37 million in total funding today as it comes out of stealth — a seed round and a Series A led by Redpoint Ventures, with Atomic and A-Star also participating. That’s a meaningful amount for a company selling dog food, but Lacornerie says that doing it right requires actual experts who don’t just dial it in. Indeed, among the company’s 12 employees, and the nutritionists and chef are all on staff, not advisors.

The brand name is broad by design. When I asked whether Golden Child might eventually expand into shampoos, travel gear, even some form of veterinary access — getting medication for a dog is its own particular bureaucratic headache — Coles didn’t deny it. “There’s a lot of interest and excitement from pet parents to involve their dogs in all aspects of their life,” she said. The goal, eventually, is to earn a place as a household brand, not just a food company.

Atomic has had notable successes along with some stumbles. Hims & Hers, now 10 years old, is a publicly traded company with a nearly $7 billion market cap. OpenStore, the e-commerce roll-up co-founded in 2021 by Abraham and venture investor Keith Rabois, tells a different story: after years of splashy coverage and more than $150 million in venture funding, it recently shuttered.

The build-up to Deborah’s (Jean Smart) solo Madison Square Gardens show is in full swing… and this week, we’re getting a double helping of Hacks.

After foiling her own original plan to complete the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) awards clean-sweep in the premiere of Hacks season 5, Deborah has decided to make her big comeback by selling out a show at Madison Square Garden.

Oriveti, based in Hong Kong, is expanding its lineup with the Dynabird, a $99 in-ear monitor and one of the first models under its new “bleqk” sub brand, which stands for “Basic Line Exquisite Quality Kept.” The Oriveti Dynabird follows the recently reviewed Purecaster and takes a more stripped down approach, pairing an all-metal shell with a minimalist design and a clear focus on value. Oriveti has built a steady presence in the midrange segment with IEMs that emphasize balanced tuning and solid construction, competing with Moondrop, FiiO, and DUNU for listeners who want strong performance without stepping into flagship pricing.

About My Preferences: This review is a subjective assessment and is therefore tinged by my personal preferences. While I try to mitigate this as much as possible during my review process, I’d be lying if I said my biases are completely erased. So for you, my readers, keep this in mind: I prefer solid sub bass, textured mid bass, a slightly warm midrange, and extended treble, with mild sensitivity to higher frequencies.

Testing equipment and standards can be found here.

Oriveti Dynabird Key Specs:

• Driver: 1 x 9.2mm dynamic driver with beryllium coating
• Impedance: 16 ohms
• Sensitivity: 108 ±3 dB/mW at 1000 Hz
• Frequency Response: 20 Hz to 20 kHz
• Distortion: 0.08%
• Cable: 0.78 mm 2 pin detachable cable
• Termination: Gold plated 3.5 mm stereo plug
• Shell: CNC machined aluminum

Build

The Dynabird features metal shells with detachable 2-pin cables. The top of the Dynabird’s shells host its 2-pin sockets, and they’re secured firmly in place. 

The Dynabird’s cable is fairly thick, soft, and doesn’t retain memory. Strain relief is used generously, which inspires confidence in long term durability. It only comes with a 3.5 mm termination, so if you need USB-C or 4.4 mm you’ll have to go aftermarket.

Comfort

Comfort is a metric that relies heavily on factors influenced by your individual ear anatomy. Mileage will vary.

I found the Dynabird to be of average comfort. It didn’t particularly offend my ears, but if I wasn’t careful with how I positioned it, its angular metal shells could easily create irritation over time. I was able to get a decent passive seal, but would have really liked to use foam eartips to better secure it in place. 

Accessories

Inside the box you’ll find:

• 1x Semi-hard carrying case
• 1x 2-pin 3.5mm cable
• 7x Pairs silicone eartips

For $99, this is an acceptable, if not somewhat underwhelming, accessory package. The included carrying case is sufficiently-spacious to store the IEMs, spare eartips, and even a compact discrete Dongle DAC. It is also pretty well-padded, meaning it will protect from both drops and someone bumping into you on the train well. The included eartips get the job done, but don’t seal perfectly in my ears. I quite liked the wide-bore silicone eartips and found that they helped open up the bottom-end of the Dynabird’s frequency-response. I’d have really liked to see Oriveti include a pair or two of foam eartips, as that would have greatly improved the ergonomics for me.

Listening

The Dynabird has a mild V-shaped sound signature. Sub-bass and mid-bass are both lifted, with slightly more emphasis on the mid-bass. There is some sub-bass roll-off that begins around 50 Hz, so it has punch, but not the deepest foundation.

The midrange has a touch of warmth, which gives vocals a reasonable amount of body. The upper-mids are pushed forward and peak around 2 to 3 kHz without going completely off the rails. From there, the Dynabird moves into a bright and active treble, with additional peaks above 8 kHz and 12 kHz. That gives it air and perceived detail, but also some upper-midrange and upper-treble grain.

Compared with the Purecaster, the Dynabird is bassier, but it is not especially warm or rich. There is still some sterility to its presentation, made more obvious by the forward midrange. Vocals and instruments can sound a little artificial or thin depending on the recording, and I did find myself skipping tracks when the Dynabird clashed with a song’s mastering or tonal balance.

The Dynabird is not offensive, but it does need refinement. As a single dynamic-driver IEM, it feels like Oriveti could have pulled more weight from the low-end to better balance the brightness and energy in the upper-mids and lower-treble. The technical ability is clearly there. The tuning just needs more seasoning and less lab coat.

Comparisons

Comparisons are selected solely based on what I think is interesting. If you would like me to add more comparisons, feel free to make a request in the comments below.

KBear SR-8

The SR-8 a four-driver hybrid IEM with resin shells and metal nozzles. The Dynabird costs the same as the SR-8 and comes with nicer-feeling metal shells. The SR-8 features removable 2-pin cables and comes with a fixed 3.5mm termination. The Dynabird has a thicker, but simpler-looking cable that also features 3.5mm termination. Both IEMs come with decent accessories, though I like the case and eartips that come with the Purecaster a little more.

Sonically, the SR-8 is more U-shaped than the Dynabird. The Dynabird delivers less sub-bass and slightly less mid-bass impact, giving it a leaner lower-register across-the-board. The Dynabird has a tighter, more precise mid-bass, occasionally allowing it to generate a greater sensation of tactility than the SR-8. The SR-8 leans warm, but the Dynabird’s mids are warmer-still. The SR-8 doesn’t have as much upper-midrange emphasis and lacks the occasional graininess sometimes found on high-pitched vocals on the Dynabird. The SR-8 has less lower-treble and a small decrease in upper-treble presence, compared to the Dynabird. The Dynabird is brighter and grainier-sounding than the SR-8, and the SR-8 demonstrates a more-natural airiness.

Between the two IEMs, I’m going with the SR-8. Its smoother timbre and less-dramatic upper-register make for much easier listening. Its bass is comparatively-lifted, giving it a deeper and more-substantial presence in bass-heavy genres. This greater flexibility and tonal completeness make it the more-appealing choice, even considering the Dynabird’s superior construction and material choices. 

Kefine Klean SV

The Kefine Klean SV is a single dynamic-driver IEM with metal shells and swappable tuning nozzles. It costs $55 and includes a detachable cable with your choice of a 3.5mm, 4.4mm, or USB-C termination. The Dynabird costs roughly twice what the Klean SV costs, coming in at $99. The Klean SV comes with similar-quality accessories, though its cable is a bit thinner and its case is a bit smaller.

Compared to the Klean SV with its black nozzles, the Dynabird has a warmer midrange, and slightly forward lower-treble. The Dynabird has a broadly more-emphasized upper-treble, though the Klean SV does lean a little harder in to the 10KHz-12KHz range. The Klean SV has a less-forward mid-bass and sub-bass, though it does demonstrate similar levels of bass extension. The Dynabird matches the Klean SV’s technical capabilities in the lower-register, delivering sufficient levels of tactility and control to render bass-bound textures. 

The Dynabird, while warmer and bassier than the Klean SV, lacks a bit of its finesse. The Klean SV, as forward as its upper-register is, still feels a bit more cohesive and put-together than the Dynabird. The Klean SV’s smoother delivery of treble and vocal detail makes it less-tiring companion for longer listening sessions too. For those reasons, I’m going with the Klean SV. 

Juzear Defiant

The Juzear Defiant is a $99 hybrid IEM featuring resin shells and metal nozzles. It has a modular detachable 2-pin cable that is similar in thickness to the Dynabird’s cable. The Defiant comes with a similar-useful case as the Dynabird, but has a wider and higher-quality selection of eartips. The Defiant is lighter and more ergonomic than the Dynabird, delivering greater comfort and isolation during longer listening sessions. 

Sonically, the Dynabird has a thicker midrange, but a softer, less-precise mid-bass than the Defiant. The Defiant has a similar level of extension to the Dynabird, while the Dynabird picks up a little additional weight below 50Hz. The Defiant has a less pushed-up upper-midrange, giving a more natural and cohesive vocal and instrumental presence, relative to the Dynabird. The Dynabird has a greater amount of upper-treble presence, giving a brighter, bloomier disposition. The Defiant has a less-aggressive upper-treble and lacks some of the grain found on the Dynabird.

The Dynabird, while built better than the Defiant, is my second-choice. The Defiant represents a more-natural tuning that is far more flexible across mastering styles and disparate genres. That, combined with the Defiant’s more-robust accessory package make it the more-appealing IEM out of the box. 

The Bottom Line

The Dynabird gets the fundamentals right but stumbles where it matters most. Build quality is strong, the metal shells feel durable, and the driver has the technical ability to deliver a solid performance. At $99, it’s clearly positioned as a value play, and the intent is obvious.

The issue is tuning. The elevated upper-mids and energetic lower-treble can push vocals and instruments too far forward, sometimes sounding thin or unnatural depending on the recording. There is enough mid-bass punch to keep things engaging, but not enough low-end weight to balance out the brightness.

This is best suited for listeners who prefer a mid-forward, brighter presentation and prioritize clarity over warmth. If you are sensitive to treble or looking for a more natural, fuller sound, there are better options in this price range. The Dynabird shows promise, but it needs more refinement to stand out in a very competitive field.

Pros:

• Well-built metal shells that feel durable and look the part
• Practical carrying case that actually earns its keep
• Mid-bass has punch and decent texture
• Vocals cut through clearly and remain intelligible
• Works across a wide range of genres without falling apart
• $99 pricing keeps it within reach

Cons:

• Sub-bass rolls off earlier than it should
• No foam tips included, which feels like a miss at this price
• Ergonomics are average at best
• Upper mids can come across grainy
• Vocals and instruments are pushed forward in a way that can sound unnatural
• Treble can bloom at times and draw too much attention

Where to buy:

Related Reading:

The latest brain-computer interface could help people recover from severe depression. Motif Neurotech announced Monday that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a human study to trial the company’s blueberry-sized brain implant that sits in the skull and delivers electrical stimulation to treat depression.

The Houston-based startup, founded in 2022, is part of a budding industry pursuing technology to read and interpret brain signals. While other companies exploring similar technology, like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Paradromics, and Synchron, are developing devices to enable paralyzed people to communicate and use computers, Motif is aiming to ease depression in people who have not benefited from medication.

The company’s device is implanted in the skull just above the dura, the brain’s protective membrane. It targets the central executive network, a part of the brain that is responsible for high-level cognitive functions and is underactive in major depressive disorder. The implant emits specific patterns of stimulation to turn “on” this network.

Motif’s device would allow patients to receive therapeutic brain stimulation at home. “Through frequent electrical stimulation, we think we can drive that neuroplasticity that creates stronger connectivity within the central executive network for patients with depression, so that they can get out of bed in the morning, call their friends, go to the gym,” says Jacob Robinson, Motif’s cofounder and CEO.

Courtesy of Motif

Electrical stimulation has been used for decades to treat depression, and Motif’s approach is just the latest iteration. Electroconvulsive or “shock” therapy began in the 1930s and is still used today in cases where patients don’t benefit from antidepressants. Deep brain stimulation, which involves surgically implanting electrodes into the brain, is occasionally used experimentally but is not FDA approved. A much milder form of stimulation known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, was approved in 2008. While it can be highly effective, it typically requires a lengthy treatment regimen of five treatments a week for six weeks.

A study from 2021 found that during a 12-month period in the United States, nearly 9 million adults were undergoing treatment for major depressive disorder, and of those, almost 3 million were considered to have treatment-resistant depression, when symptoms do not improve after at least two, and often more, antidepressant medications.

Motif’s device can be implanted in a 20-minute outpatient procedure without the need for brain surgery. It’s powered by wireless magnetoelectric technology that Robinson developed while at Rice University and is charged with a baseball cap that patients will wear when receiving the stimulation.

from the 1st-step dept

Progress may be slow, but it’s still progress. While I’ve been talking about the importance of video game preservation as a function of our own overall cultural preservation, very few people out there are actually trying to do something about it all. One of those doers has been Ross Scott and others involved in the Stop Killing Games movement. Scott, a YouTuber, started this whole thing in 2024 and really got it rolling on a second attempt in 2025. In that short period of time, the movement managed to secure some allies in the EU and British governments, ran a successful signature campaign to get the EU to open the discussion on legislative and enforcement remedies, and got that hearing on the schedule.

And that hearing has now been conducted in what many are assessing as a good first step in the process.

The Stop Killing Games initiative now faces increased legislative examination because of its current status as a proposed law. The Stop Killing Games movement brought its digital obsolescence battle to European Parliament this month because its members succeeded in establishing their first political presence. The hearing organized by Ross Scott and Moritz Katzner aimed to expose the harmful industry custom which enables companies to disable online games completely. The movement believes that publishers who stop supporting products which they sold as retail items engage in false advertising which violates consumer rights.

Advocates for the proposed legislation introduced an organized approach to guide lawmaking bodies during the proceeding. The main requirement of their proposal demands software firms to create offline functionality for their products or make their server code accessible as open source when games reach their end of life stage. Scott and Katzner maintained that these products serve as vital cultural heritage items which consumers own through their property rights. The commission members received evidence which showed that abrupt game terminations take away users’ financial resources and time investments while failing to provide proper solutions.

As a more direct reminder, below are the articulated goals of the movement.

• Games sold must be left in a functional state
• Games sold must require no further connection to the publisher or affiliated parties to function
• The above also applies to games that have sold microtransactions to customers
• The above cannot be superseded by end user license agreements

The hearing itself included witness testimony from consumer rights groups in the EU, which is really important. While cultural preservation clearly remains a primary goal of the movement, that goal was cleverly wrapped within claims that there are already laws on the books designed to protect customer rights and property when purchased that many game publishers appear to be pretty clearly violating. Within the hearing itself it was also revealed that the movement has gained even further support from other politicians and advocacy groups within the EU.

It was, by all accounts, a really positive hearing for those of us who care about game preservation. But we do need to temper our expectations as to the timeline for what comes next, because the EU is a big ol’ bureaucracy and this is all going to take a great deal of time.

The gaming community should not expect instant changes to policy according to advocates who received positive feedback from committee leaders. Moritz Katzner explained that the hearing served as an effective platform to present their case yet it stands as the first step in a lengthy administrative procedure. The campaign succeeded in establishing its primary objective by bringing the subject into official political debates but now needs to navigate ledge machinery to convert these consumer rights violations into legal protections which will be enforced across Europe.

And that may, or likely will, take years. But it’s a fight worth sticking out, if you care at all about art preservation and the rights of the public to retain ownership of the things they’ve paid for. And, frankly, if you care about the public domain, which you damned well should.

I’m going to keep coming back to this point, because I think it’s pretty much unassailable. In any copyright system in which the purpose of the limited monopoly granted to a publisher of art is to benefit the public through both the creation of more art as well as those creations ending up in the public domain for everyone’s benefit, then video games being designed such that publishers can disappear them on a whim breaks the copyright bargain. It seems to me that it goes unrecognized too often that if a work of art, including video games, isn’t guaranteed to end up in the public domain eventually, then it shouldn’t be granted a copyright in the first place.

But, for now, it’s nice to see the Stop Killing Games movement having taken the first legislative step. All that’s left now is a whole lot of waiting, advocacy, and combat to be done with adverse lobbying dollars.

Filed Under: consumer rights, eu, eu parliament, ross scott, stop killing games, video game preservation, video games