As the Bristol Hi-Fi Show gears up for 2026, early announcements are beginning to surface, and the first one worth paying attention to comes from Ultrafide Audio. The UK manufacturer will unveil its new ENSO INT-125 integrated amplifier, a deliberately traditional design that leans into core amplification fundamentals rather than chasing the current obsession with built-in streaming platforms. The ENSO is confirmed to include an internal DAC, but this is not a network amplifier, not a lifestyle hub, and not trying to replace your music app of choice. It is, quite unapologetically, an integrated amplifier built for people who still care about signal paths more than software updates.

That positioning makes sense once you understand Ultrafide’s roots. Still relatively unknown in North America, the brand is the hi-fi division of MC² Audio and XTA Electronics, two names with serious credibility in the professional audio world. Products are designed and manufactured in East Devon, England, under the guidance of lead engineer Alex Cooper, whose résumé includes MC² Audio’s Delta Series, XTA’s MX36 console switch, and custom guitar amplifiers built for Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, and Mick Moody.

Ultrafide spent 2025 quietly expanding its footprint with the DIAS high-power amplifier and the more approachable SP500, exporting to over 20 countries. The ENSO INT-125 looks like a natural next step: a stripped-back, musically focused integrated aimed at listeners who want modern digital compatibility without surrendering control to a streaming ecosystem. 

Ultrafide ENSO INT-125 Power, Topology, and Core Functionality

The ENSO is designed to serve as the true center of a system. Its name is drawn from the Japanese enso circle, a symbol of completeness, unity, and balance, themes that carry through both its sonic goals and its restrained, minimalist aesthetic.

Power output is rated at 125 watts per channel into 8 ohms, rising to 2 × 250 watts into 4 ohms, delivered via Ultrafide’s proprietary UltraSigma output topology.

Additional features include full preamplifier controls, tone adjustment options, an OLED display for clear system feedback, and a built-in stereo Class A/B headphone amplifier.

Inputs include two RCA and one balanced XLR analog input, along with one optical and one coaxial digital input. A dedicated moving-magnet phono stage is also included for direct turntable connection.

On the output side, the ENSO offers traditional loudspeaker terminals, a configurable preamp/power-amp loop with bypass capability, and a front-panel headphone output.

At its core is a linear toroidal power supply, with circuit design informed by technologies developed for Ultrafide’s U500DC and SP500 power amplifiers. The emphasis here is on clean power delivery, generous headroom, and maintaining musical integrity under real-world loads.

The preamplifier section features an OLED display with full remote control, derived from Ultrafide’s U4PRE, and includes ±8 dB bass and treble adjustment. These tone controls are designed by pro-audio EQ specialist Alex Cooper, who oversees all Ultrafide product development.

A key differentiator is the ENSO’s send/return pre-out and power-in architecture, which allows the amplifier to scale with a system. It can be used as a conventional integrated amplifier with passive loudspeakers, or reconfigured for multi-amplified or fully active systems with external equalisation, offering unusual flexibility at this level.

The amplifier is housed in Ultrafide’s clean, understated chassis and follows a standard 17-inch (42 cm) width, ensuring straightforward integration into most hi-fi racks and systems.

“The ENSO (INT-125) is a huge moment for the Ultrafide brand,” said Mark Bailey, product specialist at Ultrafide Audio and MC² Audio. “It’s a flexible and powerful integrated amplifier that lets you focus on the music. Having been asked for this by many customers since our inception, we are pleased to offer a competitive price point, driven by our mission to make exceptional audio accessible.”

The Bottom Line 

Priced at £3,500, the Ultrafide ENSO INT-125 is aimed squarely at listeners who want a serious, UK-built integrated amplifier with real power, a proper internal DAC, phono support, and system-scaling flexibility without being locked into a streaming platform that will feel obsolete in five years. It’s for traditional hi-fi users who already own a streamer, CD transport, or DAC and would rather choose those components themselves.

What it deliberately omits is just as telling: there’s no built-in streaming, no app ecosystem, no HDMI eARC for TV integration, and it’s unclear whether a dedicated subwoofer output is provided. In a segment crowded with do-everything amplifiers, the ENSO takes the contrarian route; fewer features, more focus, and a clear bias toward sound quality over convenience.

Pricing & Availability

The Ultrafide ENSO (INT-125) is priced at £3,500 (inc. VAT) and is available through authorized Ultrafide dealers. It is not known yet if this product will become available in the North American market.

The ENSO will be shown publicly for the first time at the 2026 Bristol Hi-Fi Show from 20–22 in Room 314 and will be demoed using Kudos Titan 505 loudspeakers.

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from the copyright-reform-is-antitrust dept

Copyright owners increasingly claim more draconian copyright law and policy will fight back against big tech companies. In reality, copyright gives the most powerful companies even more control over creators and competitors. Today’s copyright policy concentrates power among a handful of corporate gatekeepers—at everyone else’s expense. We need a system that supports grassroots innovation and emerging creators by lowering barriers to entry—ultimately offering all of us a wider variety of choices.

Pro-monopoly regulation through copyright won’t provide any meaningful economic support for vulnerable artists and creators. Because of the imbalance in bargaining power between creators and publishing gatekeepers, trying to help creators by giving them new rights under copyright law is like trying to help a bullied kid by giving them more lunch money for the bully to take.

Entertainment companies’ historical practices bear out this concern. For example, in the late-2000’s to mid-2010’s, music publishers and recording companies struck multimillion-dollar direct licensing deals with music streaming companies and video sharing platforms. Google reportedly paid more than $400 million to a single music label, and Spotify gave the major record labels a combined 18 percent ownership interest in its now- $100 billion company. Yet music labels and publishers frequently fail to share these payments with artists, and artists rarely benefit from these equity arrangements. There’s no reason to think that these same companies would treat their artists more fairly now.

AI Training

In the AI era, copyright may seem like a good way to prevent big tech from profiting from AI at individual creators’ expense—it’s not. In fact, the opposite is true. Developing a large language model requires developers to train the model on millions of works. Requiring developers to license enough AI training data to build a large language model would  limit competition to all but the largest corporations—those that either have their own trove of training data or can afford to strike a deal with one that does. This would result in all the usual harms of limited competition, like higher costs, worse service, and heightened security risks. New, beneficial AI tools that allow people to express themselves or access information.

Legacy gatekeepers have already used copyright to stifle access to information and the creation of new tools for understanding it. Consider, for example, Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, the first of many copyright lawsuits over the use of works train AI. ROSS Intelligence was a legal research startup that built an AI-based tool to compete with ubiquitous legal research platforms like Lexis and Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw. ROSS trained its tool using “West headnotes” that Thomson Reuters adds to the legal decisions it publishes, paraphrasing the individual legal conclusions (what lawyers call “holdings”) that the headnotes identified. The tool didn’t output any of the headnotes, but Thomson Reuters sued ROSS anyways. A federal appeals court is still considering the key copyright issues in the case—which EFF weighed in on last year. EFF hopes that the appeals court will reject this overbroad interpretation of copyright law. But in the meantime, the case has already forced the startup out of business, eliminating a would-be competitor that might have helped increase access to the law.

Requiring developers to license AI training materials benefits tech monopolists as well. For giant tech companies that can afford to pay, pricey licensing deals offer a way to lock in their dominant positions in the generative AI market by creating prohibitive barriers to entry. The cost of licensing enough works to train an LLM would be prohibitively expensive for most would-be competitors.

The DMCA’s “Anti-Circumvention” Provision

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “anti-circumvention” provision is another case in point. Congress ostensibly passed the DMCA to discourage would-be infringers from defeating Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other access controls and copy restrictions on creative works.

In practice, it’s done little to deter infringement—after all, large-scale infringement already invites massive legal penalties. Instead, Section 1201 has been used to block competition and innovation in everything from printer cartridges to garage door openers, videogame console accessories, and computer maintenance services. It’s been used to threaten hobbyists who wanted to make their devices and games work better. And the problem only gets worse as software shows up in more and more places, from phones to cars to refrigerators to farm equipment. If that software is locked up behind DRM, interoperating with it so you can offer add-on services may require circumvention. As a result, manufacturers get complete control over their products, long after they are purchased, and can even shut down secondary markets (as Lexmark did for printer ink, and Microsoft tried to do for Xbox memory cards.)

Giving rights holders a veto on new competition and innovation hurts consumers. Instead, we need balanced copyright policy that rewards consumers without impeding competition.

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: ai, anti-circumvention, competition, copyright, dmca, dmca 1201, fair use

For more challenging garden terrains, whether uneven or sloped, the Mammotion Luba Mini AWD 800 is an easy recommendation, thanks to its rugged design and four-wheel drive. Plus, with its brilliant built-in cameras and RTK navigation system, the undeniably high price is easily justified. 

Although it’s rugged, it’s worth noting that the Luba Mini AWD 800 is designed for gardens up to 800m2. 

The main reason to opt for the Luba Mini AWD 800 is the four wheel drive, which we found enabled the robot to handle uneven terrain with absolute ease. 

Setting up the robot itself wasn’t too much of a challenge, as it comes with paper instructions and an easy-to-follow guide on the smartphone app. You can operate the robot either via Wi-Fi (which is the easiest way) or via on-board 4G which is available via a subscription service. 

However, the hardest job is setting up the RTK station as it needs clear skies to get a good signal, and getting this right can be difficult if you have overhanging trees or aerial obstructions. 

Otherwise, once you are set up, you can let the Luba find its own way around the garden with automatic mapping or, like the Yuka Mini 800, you can manually drive it around like a remote control car, creating a map and setting no-go zones as you go, which is not only accurate but even somewhat enjoyable. 

When you’ve successfully mapped the garden, the Luba Mini AWD 800 can be left to work its magic. You can adjust its cutting length (between 20mm and 65mm) via the app, with the level of customisation available some of the best we’ve seen from a robot lawn mower. 

Thanks to its off-road capabilities and brilliant cutting, the mower was able to navigate well through the garden, without bumping into obstacles, and leave the grass evenly cut.

Sony put on its superhero cape and will bring one of its best franchises to PlayStation Plus in February. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will swing onto the subscription service on Feb. 17, along with nine other games. The heroic sequel, originally released in 2023, picks up after Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and lets you play as both Spider-Men. 

PlayStation Plus, which is Sony’s version of Xbox Game Pass, offers a large, constantly expanding library of games. Subscribers can choose from the Essential, Extra and Premium tiers, each with unique perks and benefits. Starting at $10 a month for the Essential tier, the plans give subscribers access to monthly games and rewards, but it’s the Extra ($15 per month) and Premium ($18 per month) tiers that allow access to the PlayStation Plus game catalog.

Here are the games PS Plus subscribers can play starting on Feb. 17. You can also check out the games Sony added to the PS Plus Game Catalog in January, which includes Resident Evil Village. 

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (PS5)

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 doubles up on heroes as both Peter Parker and Miles Morales are playable in the game. The two heroes are once again saving New York City from destruction. This time around, the danger is multiplied as the Spider-Men deal with Kraven the Hunter and Venom. 

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (PS5)

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown brings the series back more than a decade after its last entry, expanding on its open-world racing roots with a shared online experience. The game features a broad lineup of vehicles, from classic road cars to modern hypercars and off-road machines, drawn from more than 30 manufacturers, including Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini. Players can align with one of two rival clans, the bold Streets or the refined Sharps, and compete in competitive events to rise through the ranks and unlock exclusive rewards.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Neva (PS5, PS4)

Neva is a story-driven action-adventure that follows Alba and a young wolf who have been brought together by a violent encounter with a spreading darkness. Set in a world that is steadily breaking down, the game centers on the bond between the two as they face growing dangers and learn to rely on each other. As the wolf matures and begins to assert his independence, their relationship is tested, pushing both characters to adapt, survive and find a place to belong in a world on the brink.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Venba (PS5)

Venba is a narrative-focused cooking game about an Indian mother building a new life in Canada during the 1980s. As her family settles into a different culture, her damaged recipe book becomes a way to reconnect with memories of home by rediscovering and preparing traditional dishes. Through everyday moments, player choices and branching conversations, the game explores family relationships, identity and the quiet challenges of starting over.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Season: A Letter to the Future (PS5, PS4)

Season is an atmospheric third-person adventure built around a bicycle journey through a world on the edge of change. Leaving home for the first time, players travel through unfamiliar places, meeting people and preserving moments before an impending cataclysm erases them. Using a range of recording tools, the experience focuses on capturing sounds, stories and environments, gradually revealing the culture, history and deeper meaning of the world along the way.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Monster Hunter Stories (PS4)

Monster Hunter Stories reimagines the Monster Hunter universe as a turn-based role-playing adventure centered on companionship rather than the hunt. Players step into the role of a Monster Rider, forming lasting bonds with creatures and living alongside them as part of a story-driven journey. This updated return of the original game includes full voice acting in Japanese and English, along with added features like a museum mode that highlights music and concept art from the series.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin (PS4)

Following the return of the original Monster Hunter Stories, its sequel builds on that foundation with a larger, more ambitious adventure. Players once again take on the role of a Rider, this time as the grandchild of the legendary Red, forming bonds with Monsties while navigating a story driven by fate and legacy. The journey centers on a mysterious egg tied to a powerful Rathalos, pushing players to confront old legends and test the strength of their friendships in a world facing upheaval.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Echoes of the End: Enhanced Edition (PS5)

Echoes of the End is an action-driven adventure that follows Ryn, a young woman born with a rare connection to ancient magic, as war and political control threaten her homeland. After her brother is taken by an oppressive empire, she sets out alongside Abram, a scholar carrying his own past, on a journey shaped by trust, loss and difficult choices. Set across stark landscapes inspired by Iceland, the game blends magic and technology while players explore ruins, face dangerous creatures and uncover the remnants of a fallen civilization.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Rugby 25 (PS5, PS4)

Rugby 25 aims to deliver an authentic take on the sport, covering everything from local club matches to major international competitions. The focus is on realistic gameplay, tactical decision-making and the physical intensity of each play, from tackles to scoring opportunities. Players can take control of club or national teams across a wide range of venues, with an expansive roster designed to reflect the full scope of the rugby world.

Only PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

Disney Pixar Wall-E (PS5, PS4)

First released on the PlayStation 2, Wall-E adapts Pixar’s animated film into an adventure focused on exploration and light puzzle solving. Players control the solitary robot as he cleans a deserted Earth, collects curious items and sets off on an unexpected journey after meeting Eve. Alongside the single-player story, the game also includes competitive mini games for up to four players, offering a mix of races and challenges set beyond the planet.

Only PS Plus Premium subscribers can play this game in February.

For more on PlayStation Plus, here’s what to know about the service and a rundown of PS Plus Extra and Premium games added in January. You can also check out the latest and upcoming games on Xbox Game Pass.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA

Enjoy today’s videos!

No system is immune to failure. The compromise between reducing failures and improving adaptability is a recurring problem in robotics. Modular robots exemplify this tradeoff, because the number of modules dictates both the possible functions and the odds of failure. We reverse this trend, improving reliability with an increased number of modules by exploiting redundant resources and sharing them locally.

[ Science ] via [ RRL ]

Now that the Atlas enterprise platform is getting to work, the research version gets one last run in the sun. Our engineers made one final push to test the limits of full-body control and mobility, with help from the RAI Institute.

[ RAI ] via [ Boston Dynamics ]

Announcing Isaac 0: the laundry folding robot we’re shipping to homes, starting in February 2026 in the Bay Area.

[ Weave Robotics ]

In a paper published in Science, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the University of Stuttgart have discovered that the secret to the elephant’s amazing sense of touch is in its unusual whiskers. The interdisciplinary team analyzed elephant trunk whiskers using advanced microscopy methods that revealed a form of material intelligence more sophisticated than the well-studied whiskers of rats and mice. This research has the potential to inspire new physically intelligent robotic sensing approaches that resemble the unusual whiskers that cover the elephant trunk.

[ MPI ]

Got an interest in autonomous mobile robots, ROS2, and a mere $150 lying around? Try this.

[ Maker’s Pet ]

Thanks, Ilia!

We’re giving humanoid robots swords now.

[ Robotera ]

A system developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo lets people collaborate with groups of robots to create works of art inspired by music.

[ Waterloo ]

FastUMI Pro is a multimodal, model-agnostic data acquisition system designed to power a truly end-to-end closed loop for embodied intelligence — transforming real-world data into genuine robotic capability.

[ Lumos Robotics ]

We usually take fingernails for granted, but they’re vital for fine-motor control and feeling textures. Our students have been doing some great work looking into the mechanics behind this.

[ Paper ]

This is a 550-lb all-electric coaxial unmanned rotorcraft developed by Texas A&M University’s Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory and Harmony Aeronautics as a technology demonstrator for our quiet-rotor technology. The payload capacity is 200 lb (gross weight = 750 lb). The noise level measured was around 74 dBA in hover at 50-ft making this probably the quietest rotorcraft at this scale.

[ Harmony Aeronautics ]

Harvard scientists have created an advanced 3D printing method for developing soft robotics. This technique, called rotational multimaterial 3D printing, enables the fabrication of complex shapes and tubular structures with dissolvable internal channels. This innovation could someday accelerate the production of components for surgical robotics and assistive devices, advancing medical technology.

[ Harvard ]

Lynx M20 wheeled-legged robot steps onto the ice and snow, taking on challenges inspired by four winter sports scenarios. Who says robots can’t enjoy winter sports?

[ Deep Robotics ]

NGL right now I find this more satisfying to watch than a humanoid doing just about anything.

[ Fanuc ]

At Mentee Robotics, we design and build humanoid robots from the ground up with one goal: reliable, scalable deployment in real-world industrial environments. Our robots are powered by deep vertical integration across hardware, embedded software, and AI, all developed in-house to close the Sim2Real gap and enable continuous, around-the-clock operation.

[ Mentee Robotics ]

You don’t need to watch this whole video, but the idea of little submarines that hitch rides on bigger boats and recharge themselves is kind of cool.

[ Lockheed Martin ]

Learn about the work of Dr. Roland Siegwart, Dr. Anibal Ollero, Dr. Dario Floreano, and Dr. Margarita Chli on flying robots and some of the challenges they are still trying to tackle in this video created based on their presentations at ICRA@40 the 40th anniversary celebration of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[ ICRA@40 ]

When Sony launched its original stem-free, donut-shaped LinkBuds in 2022, I lauded them for being an innovative take on open earbuds after Apple had dominated the open earbuds genre with its AirPods for several years. The second-gen LinkBuds Open were released in 2024, and now Sony’s added the donut-shaped LinkBuds, its take on the increasingly popular clip-on genre of open buds. While there isn’t anything terribly innovative about the them, especially given their high list price of $230, they’re nicely designed, fit my ears well, sound quite good (for clip-on buds anyway), have strong battery life and feature excellent voice-calling performance. Read full review.

Reasons to buy

The LinkBuds Clip may not sound great compared with noise-isolating earbuds in the same price range, but they measure up quite well to other top clip-on buds, none of which feature fantastic sound and aren’t really designed for critical listening. Where they do seem to have a real competitive advantage is with their voice-calling performance, which is great if you like to chat when you go for a run or do other activities.

Reasons to skip/keep looking

The LinkBuds Clip seem a little overpriced at $230, which is why I have them rated just below four stars. Should they end up on sale on Amazon for $50 less, you can add a quarter star to my rating.

Salim Benbouziyane spent months obsessively designing a computer that folds up like a typical laptop but includes all sorts of custom features that you won’t find in any ordinary off-the-shelf machine. He refers to it as the CM Deck, and every aspect of its design stems directly from his decision to use the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 as the foundation of the project.

A standard Raspberry Pi includes everything you’d expect, such as ports and cooling, but the Compute Module 5 reduces those down to the bare bones, giving Salim a lot more creative freedom. He had to create his own unique carrier board to go with it, giving him complete control over where every component ended up on the board. This allowed him to fit everything inside a sleek clamshell form without adding unnecessary mass.

The modified PCB houses the operation’s brains, which are responsible for carefully handling high-speed signals, adhering to the official Raspberry Pi layout when necessary, and adding a few bits on the side to provide extra functionality. So there’s a built-in USB hub for connecting internal devices, some GPIO pins for further versatility, an audio circuit to power speakers and headphone jacks, and power management handled by a dependable UPS module. Two 5000 mAh batteries, slid in side by side, power the entire build and will keep it going for approximately 4 hours under normal use. Oh, there’s also some clever circuitry that monitors battery levels and ensures the machine shuts down securely when it’s time to pack up.

Salim paired the module with a stunning 12 inch IPS display from Waveshare. The screen employs a MIPI connection to keep the power consumption low, and the touch function still functions properly. He also took an effort to run cables neatly so that the lid could open completely without being pulled tight. The keyboard input is provided by a bespoke mechanical keyboard he built using an RP2040 microprocessor and QMK firmware. This keyboard’s layout has been designed in a neat and compact ortho style, with low profile switches, a trackpad in the center, and even a small OLED display to provide system status. There are a few extra keys on there for rapid commands, and he constructed the entire thing from the ground up, manually soldering the matrix and LEDs and testing each element before putting it together.

Meanwhile, the case tells its own story: Salim began by creating some 3D printed prototypes to ensure that everything fit together properly and felt right. In the end, he chose to use some solid industrial hinges to keep the lid open without sagging under the weight of the screen. The case’s bottom shell is made of translucent purple plastic that was milled with a CNC machine, which allows the small LEDs within to shine through and provide a pleasant soft glow when the deck is sitting on a desk with the lid open. Down at the bottom, there are some wonderful brass weights that keep the whole thing nice and sturdy, preventing it from rocking back and forth all the time.
[Source]