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Best Apple Watch Band

When you buy your Apple Watch, you get to choose a band at checkout. I find textile and metal (stainless steel or titanium) bands to be more comfortable and fashionable than fluoroelastomer bands, which tend to be rigid and can irritate your skin. I love the Nike Sport Loop so much that it’s been my everyday band for six years, and I ended up buying it in two colors: navy blue and black. Made from recycled polyester, Spandex, and nylon, it’s soft, breathable, and easy to hand-wash. The Velcro pull tab makes it as adjustable as a band can get, and it’s easy to fasten with one hand. Apple doesn’t advertise any water resistance, but I’ve swum with it multiple times; after rinsing it off and letting it air dry, it looked brand new. The yarn is reflective if you’re running at night, though it is subtle.

The band comes in five colors and three case sizes, which makes it compatible with most versions of the Apple Watch. If you’re shopping for a leather band, Konsu NYC makes a gorgeous strap, too. For more recommendations, check out our Best Apple Watch Bands guide.

Best Charging Stand

The Nomad Stand One Max is a splurge, costing even more than reviewer Simon Hill’s top pick (the Belkin 3-in-1 Qi2 Charging Stand), but its minimalist design is arguably worth the extra spend. It’s compact enough that it doesn’t overcrowd a nightstand, and with the cable tucked away, it looks sleek. It’s also one of our favorites for fast Apple Watch charging, along with Qi2 25-watt charging for iPhones and MagSafe devices. The angled charging pad supports your phone in either portrait or landscape orientation, and the Apple Watch puck allows for Nightstand mode. It comes in three colors and includes a durable, braided 6.6-foot USB-C cable. The only downside is that there’s no included power adapter. Nomad’s 40W Slim Power Adapter ($25) is an easy add-on, but it does increase the cost of an already pricey charger.

Best Portable Charger

Anker

MagGo Power Bank for Apple Watch

A fully charged Apple Watch should last all day, but since I don’t always remember to top it up, I always carry a power bank for backup when I’m out. WIRED reviewer Simon Hill—who specializes in smartphone accessories—says the compact Anker MagGo Power Bank is the best portable Apple Watch charger. It can deliver 5 watts and supports Nightstand mode. It has a 10,000-mAh battery capacity, and its built-in USB-C cable and USB-C port offer up to 30 watts to your phone or small device. Plus, it comes in white, black, teal, and pink for whimsy.

Best Apple Watch Case

Unlike a phone, a watch is worn on your wrist, so every millimeter of real estate counts. If all you want is a thin, affordable, and attractive bumper that will protect your watch from bangs and scratches throughout the day, this is my favorite. It’s made from a matte thermoplastic urethane (TPU) that is extremely thin and fits a 41-mm watch well. I have and like the dark green color, but reviewers say the lighter colors show dirt very easily, so I would stick with darker shades.

software

Connecting a single power cord turned into a lucrative all-nighter

ON CALL “I can’t stand it, I know you planned it, I’m gonna set it straight, this Watergate” is the opening of the Beastie Boys classic Sabotage, a fact we mention as it will soon become pertinent to today’s edition of On Call, The Register’s weekly reader-contributed column that shares your tech support stories.

This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Wade” who in the mid-1980s made a crust by programming in Pick – the minicomputer OS entangled with a database that On Call wrote about last year.

Wade told us that he used Pick to write the software that powered a mail order business, before moving on to greener pastures.

Several years later, in early 1990, Wade’s mail order boss called him at home in the evening.

“He had fired the clerk who did all the work in application I wrote,” Wade explained to On Call. “They entered orders, sent purchase orders out and arranged customer dispatches.”

It sounds like the clerk and the mail order company parted ways on bad terms, as this was a “You have an hour to pack up your stuff and leave” affair.

“That was unwise,” Wade wrote. “The clerk used that time to sabotage the system … or so she thought, by unplugging it while it was printing the day’s orders.”

When the mail order magnate realized the machine was down, he panicked and called Wade – who despite being rather surprised by the summons showed up and realized the first thing to do was plug the Pick machine into a power socket.

“I spent a couple of hours booting it up, checking all the data and restarting the print run.”

Wade told On Call his old boss was more than happy.

“The loss of a night’s sleep was recompensed by the fee I charged,” he wrote.

Has someone you’ve forgotten asked you to rescue their tech? If so, click here to send your story to On Call. We promise not to sabotage it if we give it a run on a future Friday. Or as the Beasties put it: “But you, I’m out and I’m gone. I’ll tell you now, I keep it on and on.” ®

Usually, the name ‘Famicom’ and the associated Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) don’t exactly bring to mind downloadable content and online services. However, at least in Japan, a modem add-on for the Famicom offered those features. Released in 1988, the Family Computer Network System (FCNS) offered all that using its modem to dial into Nintendo’s servers. Recently, [Throaty Mumbo] got his mitts on one of these units to try and see what you can still do with it in 2026.

Although only mildly successful in the Japanese market, Nintendo still sold 130,000 of these modem add-ons, with tens of thousands of users for the stock brokering, banking, and Super Mario Club services offered. The experiences with the FCNS would form the foundation for Nintendo’s Satellaview for the Super Famicom and from there into today’s Nintendo Online offerings.

Of course, the main challenge with reviving the FCNS in 2026 is that the remote servers were turned off decades ago, along with the minor detail that to do anything with it you need to insert a special card. This was missing in the used version that [Throaty Mumbo] bought, but fortunately he got a workable Super Mario Club card. The next struggle? He doesn’t speak Japanese, so it took a while to eke out the details.

With a phone line simulator, it’s at least possible to try to have the FCNS try to dial, but that only throws another error. Ultimately it turned out that the FCNS uses NTT’s proprietary DDX-TP (in Japanese) protocol, which isn’t really documented outside of some Japanese sources. This is where the NES Dev site and its forum thread full of FCNS enthusiasts proved essential, as they had already done all the reverse-engineering.

NES Dev user [Ben Boldt], for example, made a DIY version of the FCNS access (tsuushin) card that lets you configure its details. For development, the PLCC-based CPLD was a bit of an annoyance, so the FCNS got somewhat modified along the way for more direct access.

After five months of work, he was finally able to connect the Famicom via the FCNS and a telephone line simulator for some Super Mario Club action. This connects to the SMC Server simulator on the PC, with the detailed manual that comes with the access card helping a lot.

After all this, the Super Mario Brothers game was graced with a game patch that allows for network-based SMB two-player action. This adds a ‘dial’ and ‘answer’ option so that the two Famicoms can connect and commence the two-player session. Although one can question the latency this would entail without a direct POTS connection as here, it is definitely a nifty demonstration of what ultimately would become the multiplayer gaming on Nintendo consoles today.

You can still do Famicom programming. There were even clones.

I ended up watching The Last House twice, just to confirm I hadn’t hallucinated its truly head-scratching plot. I regret to inform you that it’s just as bad the second time around, making it the biggest Netflix disappointment of the year.

It’s unfair to call The Last House the worst movie of the year, but it’s definitely not what I expected from the best streaming service, especially considering that Netflix had spent a lot of time promoting it, even creating a billboard featuring a live actor inside. The movie is being promoted everywhere, so it’s a shame that it has received largely negative reviews, including mine.

AI and ML

Developers report model thinking blocks being returned empty or truncated

Anthropic’s Claude Code appears to be having trouble displaying summaries of its “thinking,” according to several bug reports, while the underlying reasoning tokens still cost money. According to complaints, the API has been returning empty thinking blocks for Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 5 even when users explicitly request summarized thinking.

Models from several sources can display their “thinking,” a process that gives models additional tokens to reason through complex problems before producing a response. Software with this capability delivers a summary that explains how it tackled a task. Some can also indulge in “extended thinking,” though this capability is now deprecated.

Developers often enable “thinking” in the hope that it produces better results, at the cost of additional tokens and latency.

Developer Michael Hood has noticed that some of Anthropic’s models  are currently not always good at sharing their thinking.

“As of 2026-07-16 ~15:00Z, the API returns empty thinking blocks (thinking: ”, signature only) for Claude Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 5, even when display: ‘summarized’ is explicitly requested — including when injected directly into the raw request body,” Hood recently observed.

We’re told this issue is under investigation but doesn’t appear to be a broad, ongoing concern. It may simply be an artefact of tests that change how Anthripic displays summaries.

Similar behavior involving missing thinking blocks has been reported in Claude Code for VS Code.

Another bug report claims thinking block summaries are being truncated while token bills are not adjusted accordingly. “The thinking is generated (and billed) in full; a portion of the summary stream is silently dropped,” the anonymous author claims.

This particular claim, that customers are being billed for text not delivered, may follow from a misunderstanding of Anthropic’s terms: “You are charged for all thinking tokens generated, even when collapsed or redacted,” the company’s documentation explains. 

Under that legalese, a thinking summary costs the same as the full output. And it’s unclear whether bug-based truncation would change the billing picture.

“Thinking has a cost: the tokens Claude spends reasoning are billed as output tokens, even when the thinking text isn’t returned to you, and they count toward max_tokens alongside the response text,” the company explains. 

To reduce spending on thinking, customers are advised to lower their budget setting or disable thinking.

Separately, the Anthropic API has been seen terminating data streams during long-running thinking sessions. There have been at least seven other related API bug reports, but the streaming issue identified by developer Hector Bernstorff describes client-side defects.

The Register understands this particular issue has to do with tuning network behavior, specifically to terminate or retry long running requests. Work is ongoing to balance perceived latency against the risk of requests getting stuck.

“Claude Code ships updates nearly every day, and reports from the community like these GitHub issues are a big part of how we catch problems quickly,” an Anthropic spokesperson told The Register. “We’re grateful to the developers who take the time to file them, and we’ll keep fixing things as they come up.” ®

Compare Our Top Fountains

More Fountains We Tested

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Bissell HydrateWell Automatic Water Fountain for $26: I tested this fountain and a brand-new automatic litter box (review forthcoming) from cleaning titan Bissell, whose handheld and cordless vacuums have been long-time favorites of the Reviews team. This fountain had Bissell’s signature sleek aesthetic, but there were several design features that reminded me that Bissell is still used to designing cleaning tools. The biggest problem is that it was designed like a vacuum, with the cord wrapped underneath the fountain, making it difficult to unspool, clean, or move without the water spilling from the top or the cord getting wet. The top basin parts were also a bit modular; I felt like it should’ve twisted into itself to connect, but it sort of haphazardly sat on top. There was also a taller spout addition (not pictured), but I took it off because water kept spraying outside the bowl. I also didn’t love the all-plastic design and the fact it needed to be plugged in at all times. It worked well throughout testing, but there are some design flaws (namely the bottom cord spool) that made moving and refilling a little needlessly difficult.

Photograph: Julia Forbes

Petlibro Capsule Dog Fountain for $45: Petlibro’s Capsule Dog Fountain is right at snout level for my small dogs, which I prefer for when they eat and drink to prevent choking. It holds 2.1 gallons of water in the large tank, and the water quietly flows via a whirlpool to the top tray. Plus, there’s a splash guard that keeps droplets from flying all over the place. It’s recommended that you replace the five-layer filter every two weeks, which can rack up the price. Be sure to stay on top of cleaning, as its BPA-free plastic body isn’t as impervious to bacteria as glass or stainless steel is, even with a filter in use. Despite not being as high-tech (there’s no app connectivity like some of our other tested options), it’s become a reliable tool for us. I can see this working well for parents of rambunctious dogs who don’t need high-tech functionality, just something consistent. —Julia Forbes

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Petlibro Stainless Steel Fountain for $40: There’s no connected app, and the pump isn’t wireless for this solid, all-stainless steel fountain that’s pretty pared down and basic. But the steel keeps water cold and clean, and the spout is easily adjustable to allow control of the flow based on your pet’s preferences. It uses three-layer filtration and has a generously sized reservoir. I wish there were a little window to easily see water levels from the outside, and wireless pumps are a lot more convenient. But this is a solid, whisper-quiet stainless steel fountain that has worked reliably. I love the adjustable spout, and my pets seem to prefer it over some other models I’ve tried.

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Petkit Eversweet 3 Pro for $70: Like many other styles we tested, this circular automatic fountain connects to power via USB and has an app to monitor water levels and remind you when it’s time to fill or change the filter. The top part also has a small reservoir that keeps 2 ounces of water in the tray at all times, ensuring your kitty always has access to water. Although the top is made of plastic, there’s a filter with three layers (replacements are $20), a pump with a foam filter, and a UV light to further sterilize water by killing potentially harmful bacteria. Like many of Petkit’s products, the app is lacking. When I went out of town, the app had trouble adjusting to the time change and didn’t send me a notification that water levels were low. When I got back home, the machine had stopped the water flow without alerting me via the app.

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Petlibro Capsule Fountain for $34: A solid, inexpensive choice, this fountain is made from BPA-free plastic and has a five-layer filtration system and stainless steel top reservoir. There’s a transparent water tank for easier monitoring, and it comes in a bunch of cute colors. The spout is tall and has a continuous flow, making it ideal for cats who love to drink from faucets. However, it’s not connected to an app, so you’ll have to monitor water levels and set manual reminders for filter replacement and cleaning. The plastic is also harder to clean, and it has a wired pump, which makes cleaning trickier (water and electricity are never an ideal combo). It works effectively but there are better options out there at this price point.

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Petkit Eversweet Max for $76: This techy automatic fountain is battery-powered (lasting up to 83 days on a charge), and the drinking bowl is made of stainless steel, but the reservoir is plastic. Because of the shape of the basin with the chunky battery and reservoir bowl, it’s a little awkward to clean. The app logs every time a pet drinks and compares it over time to determine whether your cat’s drinking habits have changed. The app also keeps track of when the filter needs replacing and when you last added water. However, it doesn’t monitor or show how much water is left in the basin; you have to check manually. The design also made it a bit difficult to clean and refill easily.

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Enabot Rola Smart Pet Water Fountain for $25: Cordless and running on a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 60 days (although it can stay plugged in, too), this fountain has a wireless pump that uses magnetic induction—one of the easiest and most hassle-free pumps to clean of all I tested. The fountain has a stainless steel top that holds a decent amount of water even when not running. However, the tank is plastic—I’m wary of plastic because of its propensity to harbor bacteria (plus it doesn’t keep water as cold). The app gives reminders of when the water’s low, the fountain needs cleaning, or the filter needs replacing, plus it automatically stops dispensing water and sends you a reminder to refill via its app. It also logs the number of times your pet drank and for how long, monitoring hydration patterns over time. A complaint I had is that this fountain wouldn’t stay on continuous stream mode, even when plugged in, instead automatically switching to the motion-sensing stream.

Homerunpet Wireless Pet Fountain for $60: This cordless fountain can be used as a traditional fountain plugged in on its base, or can be detached and moved around the house with 30 days of battery life. I don’t love that this fountain is all plastic, but it’s easy to see water levels from the outside, the top and filter layers are super easy to remove, clean, and replace, and the wireless (basically silent) pump makes it a whole lot easier to clean. Plastic doesn’t keep the water as cold or clean as stainless steel, so you’ll have to clean it a lot more often. The fountain only begins bubbling when a cat (or human) approaches to save battery power, and there’s no option to control the flow (and no connected app). I like the wireless pump, but I’m really over plastic at this point.

Photograph: Kat Merck

Wonder Creature Cat Fountain for $18: My two cats have cycled through several water fountains over the past few years, but this no-nonsense version has been a stalwart. The inside is lit by a blue LED (bright enough to glow in the dark), and a clear viewing window on the side makes it easy to monitor the water level from afar. I also like the dishwasher-safe metal bowl and the fact you can remove parts of the white-and-yellow flower to create a fountain configuration your cat likes (waterfall, low bubble-up, tall bubble-up). The only major downsides are the fact it requires very frequent cleaning and filter changes due to the plastic body, and that there is no reservoir to hold water in case of power outage or pump malfunction. When I went on vacation, I had to swap it out for an old-school gravity dispenser. —Kat Merck

Happy & Polly Gothic Cat Drinking Fountain for $66: If you prefer gothic decor to neutral blandness, this ghostly ceramic cat fountain from Happy & Polly may tempt you to bite. The water bubbles up out of the top of the ghost and pools on the ceramic top. It’s fairly quiet at around 35 decibels, but it gets loud when the water is running low, and I worry about the motor burning out, as the 1.5-liter capacity can run dry fast. While the ceramic finish is easy to clean, it is fiddly to take apart. You will want to clean it once a week to prevent it from becoming slimy, and you must change the filter once a month. —Simon Hill

Petkit Eversweet Solo 2 for $45: I love three key features of this fountain: The bowl sits on top of a wireless charging base, so you don’t have to fiddle with cables, it is super easy to clean, and it’s very quiet at around 25 decibels. A flashing light warns you when the water is running low, and you can check when the filter needs to be changed in the app. There’s an optional smart mode that pumps intermittently and a night mode to turn the light off. Pleasingly, all three of our cats drink from this fountain, though that does mean I have to refill it often, as it only holds 2 liters. —Simon Hill

Photograph: Simon Hill

Oneisall Stainless Steel Pet Fountain for $43: This drinking fountain is about as simple as they come. As it’s designed for cats or small dogs, it has a large bowl, but some cats will prefer that. I love the mostly stainless steel construction, as it’s easy to keep clean and less prone to dirt and bacteria buildup. You can even stick parts into the dishwasher. This fountain can hold up to 7 liters of water, so you don’t have to refill as often. It’s fairly quiet at around 35 decibels, but it gets louder when the water is running low (a red light warns you when it needs a refill). You should clean once a week and rinse the filter. The filter packs are relatively affordable, and you need to swap them once a month. —Simon Hill

Fountains We Don’t Recommend

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Petcube Ceramic Pet Water Fountain for $65: I really wanted to love this fountain; although its basin is plastic, it has a ceramic top, which is more hygienic than plastic (plus, I had never tested a ceramic model before), and the brand makes some of my favorite pet cameras. However, setup was a bit confusing; it took a long time to get the base charged to power the fountain’s water flow, and the sensor to start the water flow can only be triggered from one side, making placement awkward. After a few days, it would only run while plugged in. Soon, its stream was barely strong enough to reach the top, and after just over a week, it stopped working altogether. Also, it’s overly expensive for what it is.

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Cat Mate 3-Level Pet Fountain for $28: This tall automatic Cat Mate fountain sets itself apart with three tiers for cats who like to drink at every level. Cleaning the motor requires disassembly using tools and extended soaking. Because of the long distance the water has to travel, it evaporates quickly and needs to be refilled about every other day. Plastic also harbors bacteria, and previous plastic models I’ve owned have had mold issues. The basin is quite large and sits flat. Because of this, some debris lingers in the front rather than flowing to the filter system behind. The plastic material and lack of ergonomic gravity design caused this fountain to be dirtier than others.

Whisker City Free Fall Cat Fountain for $30: This huge fountain is better suited for dogs, with its 150-fluid-ounce bowl and waterfall design. Although the basin has a small splash pad to help offset the waterfall noise, this was one of the loudest fountains I tested. The evaporation from the waterfall-like system also caused me to refill it every other day. Because of the structure of the fountain, my cats had to bend their head at an awkward angle. They tended to avoid drinking from the basin because of that, and their heads got slightly wet from the splatter of the waterfall. The basin is also not angled, so crumbs and debris sit at the bottom of the bowl.

Photograph: Molly Higgins

Petkit EverSweet Solo SE for $25: This very simple, straightforward fountain has a square-shaped body, is translucent to easily see water levels from the outside, and has a nearly silent 25-decibel cordless pump to circulate water from the basin to the top level, where 2 ounces of water are always available for drinking, even in case of power failure. The basin sits on a base and all parts easily detach, making it easier to clean. This fountain doesn’t have multiple modes or an associated app—you’ll have to check water levels manually. I noticed this fountain didn’t keep water as cold as some of the others, and because of the design of the top, debris often pooled in the dipped areas, which required more frequent cleaning.

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The total solar eclipse on August 12 produced some of the most spectacular images of this phenomenon in recent years. But the mini golden age of eclipses in Europe is just beginning. The so-called “Iberian eclipse trio” still has two events to go—and both promise to be even more incredible than the one that just occurred.

The next eclipse will occur in 2027 and has been dubbed “the eclipse of the century” due to its extraordinarily long duration, while the last one—set for 2028—will offer a chance to glimpse the “ring of fire” associated with an annular eclipse. Whether you’re in Spain or planning to be there (or elsewhere in the path of totality), it’s not too early to create your viewing plan.

On August 2, 2027, one of the longest total solar eclipses of this century will occur. At its peak, the moon will completely cover the sun for 6 minutes and 23 seconds. To put that in perspective, the totality phase of the August 12 eclipse lasted approximately 2 minutes and 18 seconds. The 2027 eclipse will keep the sun hidden for nearly three times as long, making it the longest eclipse in 100 years.

A narrow band across the planet will be able to view the total eclipse. The path will begin in southern Spain and northern Africa, cross Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, and then continue through Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Somalia. Spain will be the only European country from which the total phase can be observed. (Well, technically, UK residents and visitors in the overseas territory of Gibraltar will also get a view.)

Egypt will see both the peak of the eclipse and the longest duration. The moon’s shadow will fall over ancient Thebes, home to the temples of Karnak and Luxor, and, on the other side of the Nile, the Valley of the Kings. The pyramids of Giza, further north, will lie just outside the path of totality and will experience a partial eclipse.

The third eclipse in the series will occur on January 26, 2028. This time, the moon will not completely cover the sun. Instead, it will leave a bright ring of fire visible around it. The path of annularity will cross South America, from Ecuador and Peru to Brazil, before crossing the Atlantic and ending in Portugal and Spain.

Brazil will offer the longest-lasting spectacle. There, the ring will remain visible for 10 minutes and 27 seconds—a duration that makes this event one of the longest annular eclipses of the century. Spain will experience a shorter but potentially very photogenic version. In cities such as Seville, Córdoba, Albacete, and Valencia, the ring of fire will last about seven minutes and will appear very close to the horizon, shortly before sunset.

This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

OFFBEAT

Turns out this space thing really is hard

Virgin Galactic has delayed its return to commercial spaceflight until February 2027, and plans to raise ticket prices later this year.

The delay was disclosed alongside the company’s financial results, which showed a net loss of $56 million for the second quarter of 2026, down from $67 million a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter was $0.1 million, compared to $0.4 million in 2025.

According to CEO Michael Colglazier, demand exceeded the number of seats offered in the first $750,000 batch, prompting the company to prepare another at a higher price. Those customers will, however, have to wait a little longer. Colglazier said: “Our first ship is now expected to enter commercial service in February 2027 rather than the fourth quarter of 2026.”

He blamed the delay on the extra time needed to “complete avionics and systems installations.”

During an earnings call, Colglazier said: “No single issue is driving the schedule push. Rather, we have experienced modest time duration extensions across hundreds of relatively small but important installation tasks involved in the first build of our new spaceship.”

In response to an analyst question, Colglazier elaborated: “The number of those kind of ‘Oh, we did not expect this to not fit just perfectly,’ coming in is higher than we had allotted for. That just has started to accumulate on us. It really picked up at the tail end of July. For a bit, we thought we could manage that end, but the team just needed more time to do it the correct way.”

Integrated vehicle ground testing is expected to begin later in August, followed by flight testing in October. A second spaceship is due to join the fleet in March 2027, and the company expects to stop burning cash and “deliver positive quarterly cash flow within 2027.”

When Virgin Galactic reopened suborbital ticket sales in April, it charged $750,000 for a seat, up from the $600,000 price it cited in 2023. That was a substantial jump from the $100,000 envisaged more than two decades ago, when Sir Richard Branson announced plans for a scaled-up version of Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne. At the time, the company said commercial flights would resume by the end of 2026.

Virgin Galactic’s last commercial flight took place in 2024, after which the company paused operations to focus on its next generation of spacecraft. Virgin Galactic is not alone in pausing its space-tourism service. Earlier this year, rival Blue Origin announced that New Shepard flights would pause for “no less than two years” while it worked on its crewed lunar program. ®

Updated 8/18 at 10:19 GMT: A previous version of this story said that the program was “grounded,” but the more appropriate term is “paused.”

The first Ferrari Luce off the production line has sold for big money, with the Jony Ive-connected vehicle fetching a staggering $40 million at auction.

The car company’s first production electric vehicle, the Ferrari Luce, is an attempt to take on a challenging and growing market. While it has had a troubled existence since launch, the very first one off the production line has been sold for a considerable sum.

The Ferrari Luce “Tailor Made” went under the hammer at RM Auction in Monterey, California, late on Sunday. The car, bearing the chassis number 0, was a highlight sale for the event, reports The Autopian

Normally sold starting from $600,000, the opening bid for the special lot was $1 million, before it immediately shot up to $5 million and beyond. It eventually capped out at $40 million.

The price is one of the highest ever spent on a Ferrari, let alone a brand-new model. In 2025, a 1964 Ferrari 250 LM sold for $40.3 million, and that car had a history to help push up the price.

This particular edition is not just about the chassis number, as it has an exclusive Madreperla Semi-Gloss finish specifically made for the car. It also uses Le Mans metallic leather in Perla, and interior elements are finished in Grigio Corvara instead of black.

Part of the reason for the high price is that it’s a charity lot. 100% of the money raised from the sale is going to Save the Children.

It’s likely that the buyer will benefit from tax write-offs with the purchase.

Good news for a put-down car

The Ferrari Luce has been an unusual vehicle for the automaker to design and produce. Not least because of its Apple connection.

Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and his LoveFrom design studio helped design the outside and the inside of the Luce. That included the steering wheel and physical controls at the hands of the driver.

However, the car hasn’t had the best reception since its introduction. Rather than the classic Ferrari styling, the car instead looks a lot more like a typical road-going vehicle.

It’s not even Ferrari Red, with the company instead going for a more pastel color approach.

It does have Ferrari speed, though, with a combined 1,035 horsepower from four motors and a 0-60mph of 2.5 seconds.

Claude is experiencing a major outage, with users reporting login problems and degraded performance across several Anthropic services.

The incident began on August 16, 2026, at around 21:58 UTC, and is affecting Claude.ai, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork.

According to Anthropic’s status page, the company first said it was investigating an issue preventing some users from authenticating to Claude.ai, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork.

A few minutes later, Anthropic reported a broader service disruption involving degraded performance on Claude.ai and platform.claude.com.

For users, the outage can result in problems signing in, Claude failing to load, requests not completing, or other errors when using the affected services.

Anthropic’s status page currently classifies Claude.ai, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork as experiencing a major outage.

Claude Console and the Claude API are currently listed as operational.

Anthropic has not disclosed what is causing the outage, and both incidents remain under investigation at the time of writing.

Update 1: Anthropic said at 21:58 UTC on August 16 that it was investigating authentication issues affecting Claude.ai, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork.

Update 2: At 22:07 UTC, Anthropic reported degraded performance affecting Claude.ai and platform.claude.com. The company says it is continuing to investigate the disruption.

Update 3: By 22:40 UTC, Anthropic confirmed all services were restored.

Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply.

The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments.

Get the report