Level Infinite and Gameloft have officially launched Gangstar Mirage City across South Asia, Southeast Asia, MENA, Eastern and Central Europe, and Latin America. The free-to-play multiplayer open-world action game is now available on Android and iOS, following more than 30 million pre-registrations worldwide. Set in a futuristic urban playground called Mirage City, the game combines story-driven missions with multiplayer gameplay, heists, business management, and vehicle combat. Players can also customize cars, build their criminal empire, and create cinematic videos using the game’s built-in Director’s Mode.

Gangstar Mirage City brings a new open-world experience

Unlike traditional mission-based action games, Gangstar Mirage City blends a structured narrative with dynamic events that change depending on how you play. The city is filled with real-time quests, spontaneous encounters, and multiple competitive game modes.

Some of the key gameplay features include:

• Open-world story missions with dynamic city events
• Featured multiplayer modes including Taxi Takeover, Treasure Rush, Big Head Mode, and battle royale-style Orarra Fight
• Business Empire system that lets players capture districts and grow their in-game net worth
• Vehicle combat mechanics featuring shoot-and-drive gameplay, Digital Disruptor abilities, Sentry Systems, and Siege Plating upgrades

The game also includes Director’s Mode, allowing players to record custom cinematic sequences and create their own stories inside Mirage City.

Players who pre-registered before August 19 can now claim their launch rewards through the in-game mailbox. The rewards include 300 Diamonds, Vehicle Upgrade Vouchers, and a Vehicle Pack earned through the Global Vault Heist campaign. Indian players belonging to winning factions will receive an additional 300 Diamonds, while players who recruited friends during the pre-registration campaign may also receive extra cosmetic vouchers.

Creator Program

Gameloft has also launched the Gangstar Creator Program, giving content creators access to incentives such as a shared cash prize pool, in-game currency rewards, and promotion through the game’s official channels. To celebrate the launch, the company will host a month-long All Gangstar Show livestream series featuring popular creators competing to become the boss of Mirage City. More details for South Asia will be announced later.

A steeper $350 discount on Apple’s M5 MacBook Pro with a 96W USB-C power adapter is in effect now, bringing the price down to just $1,669.

A steeper discount has landed at B&H on Apple’s M5 14-inch MacBook Pro with a 96W USB-C power adapter.

Now marked down to $1,669, this deal reflects a $350 discount off MSRP for the laptop in Space Black, with free 2-day delivery thrown in when shipped within the contiguous U.S.

Buy M5 MacBook Pro 96W for $1,669

This configuration has the 10-core M5 chip, along with 16GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage. The 96W USB-C power adapter is a $20 upgrade compared to the standard 70W adapter normally included with the system.

To put the deal in perspective, Amazon is selling the same M5/16GB/1TB spec with the cheaper 70W adapter for $1,849, $180 more than B&H.

There are plenty of additional offers in effect across the M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max range, so it’s worth checking out highlights below, with a comprehensive comparison of offers in our MacBook Price Guide.

Today’s best 14-inch MacBook Pro deals

• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 (10C CPU, 10C GPU, 16GB, 1TB, Standard Display, 96W Adapter): $1,669 ($350 off)
• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 (10C CPU, 10C GPU, 24GB, 1TB, Standard Display, 96W Adapter): $2,199 ($320 off)
• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 Pro (15C CPU, 16C GPU, 24GB, 1TB, Standard Display): $2,299 ($200 off)
• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 Pro (15C CPU, 16C GPU, 24GB, 2TB, Standard Display): $2,599.99 ($400 off)
• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 Pro (18C CPU, 20C GPU, 24GB, 1TB, Standard Display): $2,349 ($350 off)
• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 Pro (18C CPU, 20C GPU, 24GB, 2TB, Standard Display): $2,799 ($400 off)
• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 Max (18C CPU, 32C GPU, 36GB, 2TB, Standard Display): $3,599 ($500 off)
• 14″ MacBook Pro M5 Max (18C CPU, 32C GPU, 36GB, 4TB, Standard Display): $4,499.99 ($600 off)

Top 16-inch MacBook Pro markdowns

• 16″ MacBook Pro M5 Pro (18C CPU, 20C GPU, 24GB, 1TB, Standard Display): $2,759.99 ($240 off)
• 16″ MacBook Pro M5 Pro (18C CPU, 20C GPU, 48GB, 1TB, Standard Display): $3,299 ($300 off)
• 16″ MacBook Pro M5 Pro (18C CPU, 20C GPU, 64GB, 1TB, Standard Display): $3,599 ($400 off)
• 16″ MacBook Pro M5 Max (18C CPU, 32C GPU, 36GB, 2TB, Standard Display): $3,999 ($400 off)
• 16″ MacBook Pro M5 Max (18C CPU, 40C GPU, 48GB, 2TB, Standard Display): $4,499 ($500 off)

B&H states many deals have limited supply, so it’s worth shopping early to avoid missing out on the month-end savings.

Genesis, the luxury wing of Hyundai Motor Group, pulled back the curtain on the all-new GV90 and GV90 Neolun at an event on Wednesday evening in San Francisco. The full-size SUV will serve as the brand’s flagship, riding on a bespoke variation of HMG’s EV platform with the company’s largest-capacity battery to date and a dramatic set of coach doors that open wide onto a cabin that transforms into a lounge when parked.

Genesis’ new flagship arrives in two configurations: the GV90 has familiar, front-hinged rear doors, but the star of the show is the GV90 Neolun, with its Neolun Arch Gate coach doors — rear-hinged doors on both sides that swing backward, opening onto a large, pillarless portal into the cabin.

Neolun Arch Gate coach doors

Coach doors aren’t new — they’re a hallmark of Rolls-Royce, and have shown up on quirky utility vehicles of all shapes, sizes and prices — but they’ve always meant structural compromises: either a B-pillar sits in the middle of the opening, or the doors overlap to make up for the missing pillar, meaning you usually can’t open the back doors without popping the fronts first.

Hyundai says the Neolun Arch Gate is the world’s first coach-door setup with independently opening doors and no center pillar, so owners get a large, unfettered opening without having to shuffle doors in the wrong order. Neolun also features motorized swiveling front bucket seats that rotate 180 degrees to face into the cabin, turning the interior into a lounge-like, face-to-face space for socializing or business while parked or charging, activated by a button on the door trim.

The hidden-B-pillar trick is made possible in part by the GV90’s Electric Mobility Prime platform — presumably a bespoke variation of HMG’s Electric Global Modular Platform — structural frame beneath the cabin floor that protects the battery and provides chassis rigidity, reducing the load on the body pillars. The hoop around the door aperture is also reinforced with a hidden roll-cage structure that is 1.5 times thicker than the conventional body structure, retaining crashworthiness and rollover safety.

With a stiff platform on which to work, Genesis also developed a new dual-motion hinge mechanism for the rear doors: it first slides the door slightly outward, then rotates it open, allowing the doors to operate independently of the fronts and giving rear-seat passengers more room to get in and out.

HMG’s biggest battery yet

GV90 models come with a massive 123.5-kWh high-voltage battery, the largest pack of any HMG EV yet. (For comparison, the Kia EV9 packs 99.8 kWh, and the Hyundai Ioniq 9 packs 110.3 kWh.) Genesis’ internal estimates put the range at around 310 miles in the lighter, 7-seat, standard-door configuration. For longer trips, a 350-kW fast charger can take the SUV from 10% to 80% in around 22 minutes. Presumably, the GV90 will continue HMG’s trend of native NACS ports for North American EVs; CNET has reached out to the automaker for comment.

The dual-motor AWD system is rated at a combined 657 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, making it also the most powerful EV in HMG’s catalog (edging out the 641 hp Ioniq 5 N hot hatchback). Dual E-LSDs give each axle its own electronic limited-slip differential, granting independent control over left-to-right power delivery in corners, on uneven roads or in wheel-slip situations like snow or rain. 

An available multi-chamber air suspension adapts firmness and ride height to conditions. At the same time, Active Rear Wheel Steering — one of my favorite tech-tree upgrades for long-wheelbase vehicles — helps low-speed maneuverability and high-speed stability. While EVs typically lean on regen over friction brakes, Genesis fitted the GV90 with large-diameter discs and 4-piston monobloc calipers, I reckon at least partly because they look cool.

A big screen that gets even bigger

The GV90 is the first HMG vehicle to ditch the start button — a convenience trend I’m still not fully on board with. Grab the door handle and the car wakes up automatically; the brake pedal turns it on, and the driver selects gears via a motorized steering-column shifter.

At the center of the dash sits the GV90’s OLED Cinematic Display, a 23.6-inch screen serving as the instrument cluster, navigation and media display, running the Android Automotive OS overlaid with Genesis’ Pleo Connect software, theme and app store. You can control it via touch, the physical Crystal Sphere Controller on the center console or Genesis’ generative AI agent, Gleo AI. When parked, the screen can slide up and out of the dash an additional 3.5 inches (90mm), growing to 24.6 inches with a better aspect ratio and 1.7 times more real estate for multimedia, like watching a movie while charging. (Well, 22 minutes of one, anyway.) 

In place of a discrete instrument cluster, a 25-inch (virtual) head-up display projects speed, nav and driver-assistance info onto the windshield. Audio comes via a Bang & Olufsen Premier 3D system with 25 speakers, including motorized Acoustic Lens Technology tweeters at both ends of the dash, and 7.1.4-channel Dolby Atmos with a Virtual Venue mode that recreates the acoustics of venues like Boston Symphony Hall and Wembley Stadium — a possible answer to Volvo and Bowers & Wilkins’ Abbey Road Studio mode in the EX90.

Highlighting the EV’s drive assistance suite, Remote Smart Parking Assist 3 handles automatic parking and exiting with a single touch, while Memory Reversing Assist remembers the vehicle’s forward path to automatically steer when backing out of narrow alleys or parking spaces.

Minimalist exterior, maximalist price

The SUV measures 208.1 inches bumper-to-bumper on a 127.8-inch wheelbase — about 9 inches longer (+4.6in WB) than the Ioniq 9, but 16.2 inches shorter (-8.4in WB) than the gargantuan Cadillac Escalade IQ, perhaps its largest luxury electric competitor. The exterior is admirable for its commitment to a concept-car-level of minimalism: a clamshell hood keeps panel lines to a minimum, and “Wing Face” headlamps stretch around the nose, broken only by the wheel arches, hiding a Micro Lens Array of LEDs in a slim signature. (Normally, vehicles with such slim, light signatures hide the real headlights in pods lower on the bumper — not so here.)

It’s good that the cabin can double as a living room, because this thing will cost as much as a house. Genesis hasn’t detailed pricing, but given the hardware — especially that battery — and the targeted competition, expect a start north of $100,000, climbing to $150,000 for the GV90 Neolun.

That’s aspirational pricing for Genesis, but the ultra-exclusive GV90 Neolun First Edition, also unveiled on Wednesday night, will likely command Mercedes-Maybach money. This Executive Suite four-seat version of the Neolun gets two-tone paint, body-color 24-inch forged wheels, wool-cashmere interior garnishes and “First Edition-exclusive” logo engraving on the Crystal Sphere Controller, headrests and doorsteps. Neat, but too rich for my blood.

Antuan Goodwin

Senior Writer, Electrified Cars

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Antuan has nearly 20 years of expertise and experience testing hundreds of cars, including electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen, and traditional combustion vehicles.

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The new Volvo EX60 is arguably the most important car Volvo could launch right now. It’s an all-electric SUV replacing the most popular car Volvo has ever sold. That’s no mean feat already. And having driven around 700 miles in the EX60 so far, I’m already impressed with what I’ve seen. 

So why is this car so critical for Volvo? It’s essentially replacing the gas-powered XC60, and that car has been Volvo’s best-selling model ever in the nearly two decades since its launch in 2008. The landscape has changed significantly since then, and the market is more competitive than ever, with a host of Chinese brands (like BYD, Chery, Jaecoo and others) offering vehicles at more competitive prices than most established European brands can match. 

Volvo needs the EX60 to appeal in the same way the XC60 did. As CNET Senior Writer Antuan Goodwin puts it, “This feels like a make-or-break moment for the brand’s EV ambitions.” 

Starting at $59,795 (£56,860) for the base P6 model or $62,145 (£59,860) for the longer-range P10, the electric SUV is competitively priced against luxury rivals from BMW, Mercedes and Audi. But with purse strings tightening the world over, the vehicle needs to work hard to tempt people away from cheaper Chinese options. 

Thankfully, I think the Volvo has a hell of a lot to offer. I’ve been testing the all-wheel drive P10 model in its Ultra spec ($68,745 or £65,360, on the road), and it’s already rocketed up my list of top cars I’ve tested. It’s big, commanding its place on the road, with a welcomingly roomy interior. It also packs a battery big enough that I can start forgetting about range anxiety. 

Volvo quotes up to 410 miles for the P10, though that’s based on the more generous WLTP fuel consumption and emissions testing; EPA figures in the US put it at 310 miles, which I think is closer to the mark. I drove from the town of Chesterfield in central England to my home of Edinburgh, Scotland — a roughly 265-mile run — on a single charge, starting with 95% and ending with 9%. I’ve not personally had an EV able to hit that sort of range before, especially considering almost every one of those miles was at fast highway speeds, where EVs are always significantly less efficient. 

But even if I did need to stop, it wouldn’t have been for long since the EX60 supports 400kW charging, which Volvo reckons will restore about 211 miles of range in just 10 minutes. That’s assuming you can find a 400kW charging station. In the US, the EX60 will have a native North American Charging Standard port, meaning it can charge at any of the 29,000 Tesla Superchargers without an adapter.

Volvo EX60: A comfortable cruise

Crucially, the car was a pleasure to be in for every mile of the trip. The cabin is light and airy, the seats are comfortable and the suspension offers a smooth ride, even on some of Britain’s less-maintained stretches of highway. I even like the surprisingly small squared-circle steering wheel. 

The EX60 will comfortably seat five, and the rear seats fold fully flat, giving enough space for a 6-foot-2-inch tall man like myself to get in and lay down. And trust me, I did test this as I fully intend to use it for car camping. Those of you with kids or massive dogs, or who want to haul around a small punk band’s entire stage setup, will be well catered for with the amount of internal space.

The SUV’s got a heap of tech on board, at least in the Ultra spec I was driving. There’s an electrochromatic roof that dims at the push of a button, a 28-speaker Bowers & Wilkins audio setup (supporting Dolby Atmos) and a new seatbelt system that automatically adapts to the body shape, size and weight of whoever is using it to allow for a safer level of resistance in an emergency situation. Volvo says this is a first of its kind. 

And yes, it has standard driving assistance tools like adaptive cruise control and lane assist, which made my long-distance first drive a breeze. Google’s Gemini AI is baked in for voice control of various features, though I haven’t found a need to try that out just yet. Frustratingly, Apple CarPlay isn’t available, though I’m told it’s coming soon in an over-the-air update.

The result is a car that feels luxuriously comfortable and capable on the road. It’s fast off the line, too, and despite the weight of the batteries inside, it handles corners well. I haven’t driven an XC60, so I can’t say how this car directly compares. But I have driven a variety of EVs, from the much more expensive Lotus Eletre to the new Ford Capri, and I can say that the EX60 is the one that’s impressed me most so far. 

But this is Day 1 for me. I’ve got three months to put it through its paces in Scotland, across the UK and into wider Europe. As a tech journalist, I have high expectations for the ride and its features. I’m not one to be forgiving of early teething troubles that should have been ironed out already, so I won’t be pulling my punches if something rears its head. 

But based on the 10 or so hours I’ve spent inside it so far, I’m optimistic that Volvo has built something good. Whether it’s the standout vehicle that will break the XC60’s sales records remains to be seen. 

Andrew Lanxon

Editor at Large; Lead Photographer, Europe

When he’s not testing the latest phones or phone cameras, Andrew can normally be found with his own camera in hand or behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food — sometimes all at once.

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The anime streaming service has started appearing on the Appning app store.

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Young Hungry Free lasted 14 years in S’pore’s fashion scene, and along the way, even caught Jisoo’s eye

When Winnie Ong started Young Hungry Free in 2012, she was 19, fresh out of her A Levels and taking what was supposed to be a one-year gap year.

She had no grand plans to build a full-fledged business. Instead, spent that year doing what she already loved—reworking clothes, experimenting with designs and figuring out how to turn her ideas into something people might actually want to wear.

Fourteen years on, that side project has grown into one of Singapore’s well-known homegrown fashion brands.

Here’s the story behind Young Hungry Free.

“It was simply all I had”

Winnie’s interest in fashion started long before she launched Young Hungry Free.

While she was still in school, she spent much of her free time thrifting for vintage clothes and turning them into pieces that felt more personal. Denim was a particular favourite.

She would cut, bleach and distress pieces, adding details until each one became unique.

She eventually started selling these reworked pieces as a small side hustle. At the time, however, she wasn’t thinking about building a business.

“I just genuinely enjoyed creating things that felt different,” she shares.

During her gap year, Winnie worked a retail job while continuing to experiment with clothes in her free time. It was during this period that she decided to turn her passion project into Young Hungry Free.

“It didn’t feel like I was making a particularly bold decision,” Winnie says, looking back. “It was simply all I had, and I wanted to give this idea a chance.”

At the time, she was earning around S$1,400 a month before CPF and took home about S$1,100. She asked for her salary in advance and used it to get Young Hungry Free off the ground.

Building around individuality

Winnie launched Young Hungry Free from her bedroom with a second-hand DSLR, learning almost everything through trial and error.

Looking back, she thinks starting young worked in her favour.

I didn’t overthink it. I wasn’t worried about whether I was qualified or experienced enough. I was simply curious enough to give it a try.

Winnie Ong, founder of Young Hungry Free

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But she wasn’t creating clothes simply for the sake of having another fashion label in the market. She had struggled to find pieces that reflected her own style and began to wonder if other people felt the same way.

Her answer was to build a brand around individuality.

Winnie doesn’t believe people fit neatly into a single aesthetic. The way someone dresses can change with their mood, the occasion or simply the version of themselves they want to express that day. Some days, that might mean dressing boldly; on others, something softer or more understated.

Getting people to understand that vision took time. Young Hungry Free’s style wasn’t common in Singapore at the time, so the response was slow in the beginning. But Winnie says that turned out to be a blessing.

The slower pace gave the brand room to experiment, make mistakes and gradually figure out what it should become.

“Trust isn’t built in a few launches, it compounds over time,” she says.

For Winnie, those early years also taught her that building a brand isn’t just about getting people to buy something. It’s about giving them enough reason to come back.

Learning to let go

As Young Hungry Free grew, Winnie also had to learn that creating a brand and running a business were two very different things.

In the early days, she handled almost everything herself, from designing and photographing collections to modelling, packing orders and replying to customer messages.

But as orders increased, so did the number of things she had to figure out.

She had to learn how to manage inventory, read a profit and loss statement, hire people and eventually build a team.

Going from working alone in her bedroom to having people trust Young Hungry Free with their careers changed how she viewed the business. It was no longer just a creative project that belonged to her—she was now responsible for building a company that other people could grow with.

That also meant learning when to step back.

For years, Winnie believed that being involved in every decision was how she protected the brand. But as Young Hungry Free grew, she realised that trying to oversee everything could become a bottleneck.

Today, she focuses primarily on creative direction, product development and thinking about where the brand should go next, while her team handles much of the day-to-day operations.

Keeping up with weekly launches

Young Hungry Free launches new designs or collections almost every week, but moving quickly doesn’t necessarily mean producing more.

Instead, the brand is intentional with its production, releasing smaller batches that can be quickly reordered if a design resonates with customers.

That approach, Winnie says, has allowed Young Hungry Free to stay agile while maintaining quality.

Customer feedback also plays a significant role in shaping what comes next.

Whether it’s through surveys, social media, TikTok LIVE or conversations with customers, the Young Hungry Free community has influenced many of the brand’s future collections.

Behind the scenes, every design starts in-house, before the team travels to China almost every month to source fabrics and materials. From there, each piece goes through multiple rounds of sampling to refine its fit, drape and feel before going into production.

Young Hungry Free works with long-term manufacturing partners in China, some of whom the brand has partnered with for more than a decade.

For Winnie, these relationships are one of the company’s biggest advantages.

“They understand our quality standards and the level of consistency we’re looking for,” she says. “I don’t think partnerships like that happen overnight.”

Making it to Blackpink’s stage

Young Hungry Free’s growth has also brought unexpected moments of recognition.

Ahead of Blackpink’s Singapore concert in 2025, Jisoo’s stylist contacted Young Hungry Free to request one of the brand’s designs. Jisoo later wore the piece during the performance.

There was no formal collaboration or campaign behind it. The stylist had simply come across the brand and selected the design.

For Young Hungry Free, the moment offered a glimpse of how far a homegrown label could reach beyond Singapore.

Good design can travel much further than you sometimes expect.

Winnie Ong, founder of Young Hungry Free

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Fourteen years on, Young Hungry Free is still evolving

For Winnie, perhaps the biggest milestone isn’t any single collection, collaboration or business achievement. It’s simply that Young Hungry Free is still around.

“Fashion is an incredibly competitive industry, and many brands don’t get the chance to grow over a long period of time,” she says. “The fact that we’ve been able to keep evolving, while remaining independent and staying true to who we are, is what I’m most grateful for.”

That ability to evolve has become increasingly important as the fashion industry changes. Consumer behaviour, technology and the way people shop have all shifted over the past 14 years, and Winnie expects that pace to continue.

Young Hungry Free has also evolved in how it connects with customers.

The brand previously operated a physical store, but has since returned its focus to digital. Still, Winnie says the experience reinforced something that can easily get lost online: the importance of knowing the people behind the purchases.

Meeting customers face-to-face, helping them style pieces and hearing their feedback in real time gave the team a different perspective. That’s why Young Hungry Free will continue exploring physical experiences and events.

Looking ahead, Winnie sees three areas of growth for Young Hungry Free: deepening its relationship with its community, expanding into new product categories and styles, and growing across Southeast Asia.

But she isn’t looking to expand simply for the sake of becoming bigger. For Winnie, it’s about continuing to build something people genuinely want to be part of.

“Young Hungry Free was never about creating clothes,” she says. “It was about understanding people.”

• Find out more about Young Hungry Free here.
• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Young Hungry Free/ Her World

Sennheiser just announced the Momentum True Wireless 5, and it’s basically borrowing the best bits of its full-size Momentum 5 Wireless headphones and squeezing them into a smaller, comfier earbud. The earbuds start shipping September 3rd for $299.95.

What’s new on the sound side?

The earbuds use Sennheiser’s 7mm TrueResponse dynamic transducer, manufactured and tested at the company’s facility in Tullamore, Ireland. They run on Bluetooth 6.0 with aptX Adaptive support, delivering hi-res audio up to 24-bit and 96kHz, including aptX Lossless for bit-perfect playback.

Noise cancellation gets updated too. A redesigned ear tip works with a four-microphone array for the adaptive hybrid ANC system, along with an automatic anti-wind mode and a transparency mode Sennheiser says is its most natural yet. 

The earbuds also support Dolby Atmos with head tracking for spatial audio. On calls, six microphones and two bone-conduction voice accelerometers work with an AI speech-extraction algorithm to help isolate your voice in noisy settings.

The earbud housing has also been redesigned with a new shape, which Sennheiser says 73% of testers rated as more comfortable than the previous generation. They feature an IP54 rating for dust, sweat, and splash resistance. The charging case is narrower too, designed to fit pockets more easily.

Battery life comes in at 12 hours of continuous playback per charge, with the case holding two additional charges for up to 40 hours total. An 8-minute quick charge adds about an hour of playback.

What about the replaceable battery?

The bigger change is the battery system. Both the earbuds and the wireless charging case use user-replaceable batteries, so instead of replacing the earbuds when the battery degrades, you can swap the cells yourself using a small screwdriver.

I love my AirPods Pro, and the only reason I had to ditch them and buy a new pair was because the battery life degraded over the past three years, making them almost unusable. If I could change the battery, I would have preferred to do that instead of plonking the cash for a new pair. 

That’s why the new Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 earbuds are a game changer for the industry. To be fair, they are not the first pair of earbuds to achieve this feat, but they are one of the first mainstream brands to do it, which should make other companies take notice. 

The Momentum True Wireless 5 will come in five colors: Graphite, Cream, Copper, Denim, and Lavender. They’ll be available starting September 3rd from sennheiser-hearing.com and select retailers.

Adobe announced Thursday that it’s adding to its vast collection of artificial intelligence tools, this time with a focus on audio. The new Firefly AI tools use AI to generate speech, music and sound effects, forming “a very stable foundation” of audio options for creators, said Jay LeBoeuf, Adobe’s head of AI audio.

Unlike Suno or other AI music generators that can create entire songs in seconds, Adobe is offering more targeted, professional-grade tools for filmmakers, musicians and creators. Think about AI converting creators’ scripts into audio to be overlaid on a TikTok video or creating custom soundtracks without worrying about copyright infringement, thanks to Adobe’s universal license.

“We’re not trying to be somebody’s wedding music here,” LeBoeuf said in an interview. The goal is to build AI “tools that are useful” and address pain points in the audio creation and editing process.

To use the new tools, you’ll need access to Firefly, Adobe’s AI hub, which may be included in your current Creative Cloud subscription, depending on your specific plan or your company’s AI permissions. AI audio generations will count as generative credits, so keep an eye on how quickly you use those up. You can nab a Firefly-only subscription starting at $10 per month.

AI audio that isn’t robotic

To create speech, upload a script you’ve written, and it will transform it into an audio file. You’ll be able to choose from several artificial voices in a variety of genders and ages, and you can translate the audio into over 20 languages.

If you have names or products that are hard for the AI to read, you can add pronunciation guidance. My last name, Chedraoui, for example, could be phonetically spelled out as “Shed-rao-wee,” instead of whatever hideous sound the AI produces when pronouncing four vowels in a row.

One of the biggest challenges with AI audio is making voices sound less robotic. Monotonous audio is boring to listen to, and it’s a clear sign of AI. Adobe built its AI audio model to recognize and apply various emotions to its outputs. When you use Adobe’s generate speech tool you can use “emotion tags” to direct the AI to apply different expressions.

To help the models understand emotions, Adobe collected more emotive training material, LeBoeuf said. “Our design team knew that we were going to control them with these adjectives and these verbs. So because it’s been part of the training since the get-go, we have this nice vertically integrated stack that allows for the highest quality expressiveness.”

Adobe’s AI policy says that it only uses licensed and publicly available content and data to train its AI models. The company says it never trains on customers’ work to improve its services.

Copyright-friendly AI music and futuristic sound effects

When generating music or soundtracks, the tools are primarily meant to create background audio — the Firefly tunes are instrumental only — not full AI songs (which you likely won’t want to listen to anyway).

You can create this background music using a Mad Libs-style fill-in-the-blank format. Choose the vibe, genre and situation you want your AI music to reflect, like a “dreamline song, with electronic, ambient style, for a video game.”

If you’re not sure where to start, you can let Firefly do the scoring for you. Upload a video, and the AI can write a prompt and create four sample audio tracks — up to 30 seconds long — that might fit your video’s vibe.

Sound effects make up the final part of the AI audio triad and require a prompt or an uploaded recording. For example, you can upload a video where you try to create the sound effect you want. The AI will take your human voice and transform it into whatever you want, like deepening your roar to sound like a dinosaur or monster, syncing it to the video.

Most importantly, all audio created by Adobe’s AI is commercially safe, and the music is automatically granted a universal license. That’s critical for musicians and video creators, the majority of whom have run into licensing issues before, according to a recent survey from Berklee College of Music. Social media platforms can penalize users for sharing videos that contain copyrighted music without permission. The universal license means you don’t have to worry about being personally sued for copyright infringement.

‘Control and agency’

Adobe’s new AI audio tools were first teased at last year’s Adobe Max conference, where they were released in beta. Now generally available, they add to the path that Adobe has been hurtling down to integrate generative AI into every one of its flagship programs.

And AI is already part of the daily work, said Mark Ethier, executive director of the Berklee Emerging Artistic Technology Lab. One in five surveyed musicians and creators use generative AI at some point in their process, and one-third use AI-generated audio in their final cuts.

But AI audio, specifically music, is not immune to the controversies and issues that surround AI images and video. We struggle to hear with our naked ears, if you will, the difference between AI and human-created music. After strenuous push from listeners, streaming platforms like Spotify and Deezer are adding labels to AI-generated music. Suno is also adding labels, following backlash after users learned the service trained its models on YouTube videos.

“The most important thing we heard is the desire for creators to have expressive control and agency,” Ethier said. “And really being able to have tools that support their creative process and don’t take it away.”

Katelyn Chedraoui

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Katelyn is a reporter with CNET covering artificial intelligence, including chatbots, image and video generators. Her work explores how new AI technology is infiltrating our lives, shaping the content we consume on social media and affecting the people behind the screens. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in media and journalism. You can reach her at kchedraoui@cnet.com.

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European sales of smartphones have reached a new three-year low, but Apple’s iPhone has increased its share to now tie with Samsung.

Globally, the most recent figures show that Apple has earned 49% of all smartphone revenue in the second quarter, despite the iPhone only accounting for 23% of shipments. New figures for solely the European region show an overall decline, but in that shrinking market, Apple is increasing its share.

According to Counterpoint Research, Q2 2026 saw shipments fall 10% year over year. At 35 million smartphones, this is Europe’s weakest second quarter in three years.

Most vendors have also seen a decline in their market share, except for Apple. In Q2 2026 compared to the same time in 2025:

• Apple grew from 25% to 34%
• Samsung grew from 31% to 34%
• Xiaomi dropped from 19% to 15%
• Oppo dropped from 6% to 4%
• Honor dropped from 4% to 3%
• All others dropped from 14% to 11%

Reportedly, consumers are hesitant to make discretionary purchases because of the economic situation. Then manufacturers have seemingly cut promotions in order to protect their margins.

“In Q2 2026, things were relatively better in Western Europe,” said Counterpoint associate director Jan Stryjak where a very impressive quarter by Apple and marginal growth by Samsung softened the drop.”

Europe Smartphone Shipments Share by OEM, Q2 2025 vs Q2 2026 – image credit: Counterpoint Research.

There’s no further detail in the new report, so it isn’t possible to determine which iPhones models are selling the best. However, across Western Europe, premium smartphone sales are reportedly trending upwards, which benefits Apple.

But then across Eastern Europe, the reverse is true and there is a greater trend toward lower-end Chinese models.

Over the whole of Europe, the report claims that inventory is running out. While the report doesn’t specify this, that’s because of the global chip shortage and the rising price of components.

Despite predicting declines for most brands, especially lower-end ones, the report still expects Apple to significantly outperform its smartphone rivals for the foreseeable future.

If the trend to premium models continues in Western Europe, Apple may benefit from launching the iPhone Ultra in September 2026. That’s expected to start at $2,000, and at least one analyst expects sales of around 14 million across fiscal year 2027.