• The web version of Google Calendar has been given an official dark mode
• The feature is rolling out globally this week to all Calendar users
• Google has also given Calendar a “refreshed user interface”

If you’ve been patiently waiting years for Google Calendar to deliver an official dark mode, today is your day – the web version of the app has finally been given a darker optional color scheme, along with a mild redesign.

The news came in a Google Workspace blog post where Google said that it’s introducing the ability to switch between light mode, dark mode, and default themes. As previous reports have noted, dark modes can give you a small battery life saving, particularly if you’re using a device with an OLED screen.

The update is rolling out now, though it’s also become available to a few members of the TechRadar team so far. To see if you have it, head to the settings cog at the top right of the page, then in the new drop-down menu click ‘Appearance’ (see above).

Four astronauts have been launched into space, before carrying out the first privately-funded spacewalk, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday. It marks the start of the SpaceX’s five-day Polaris Dawn mission.

Due to “unfavourable weather” the blast-off was delayed for almost two hours.  

ALSO READ | Human health in space: Charting the unknown on Polaris Dawn mission

The four crew onboard include billionaire Jared Isaacman, retired Air Force Thunderbirds pilot Lt Colonel Scott Poteet, and two SpaceX engineers–Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. 

This is the first privately funded spacewalk. Earlier, only government-funded astronauts have carried out spacewalks.

The spacewalk is scheduled for late Wednesday or Thursday, midway through the five-day flight. Follow the mission here: https://www.spacex.com/follow-dragon

The plan is to spend 10 hours at that height filled with extreme radiation and riddled with debris before reducing the oval-shaped orbit by half. 

Isaacman and Gillis will take turns briefly popping out of the hatch and also test their white-black-trimmed custom suits and see how they’ll hold up in the harsh vacuum. 

Both will always have a hand or foot touching the capsule or attached support structure that resembles the top of a pool ladder. There will be no jetpack showboating and no dangling at the end of their 12-foot (3.6-metre) tethers. Only NASA’s suits at the space station come equipped with jetpacks, for emergency use only.

Pilot Scott Kidd Poteet and SpaceX’s Anna Menon will monitor the spacewalk from inside. Like SpaceX’s previous astronaut flights, this one will end with a splashdown off the Florida coast.

SpaceX teamed up with Isaacman to pay for spacesuit development and associated costs.

William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice president said that we are starting to push the frontiers with the private sector. 

As SpaceX astronaut trainers, Gillis and Menon helped Isaacman and his previous team and NASA’s professional crews prepare for their rides.

Fans of the Predator franchise are getting not one but two new movies in 2025.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell revealed future plans for the Predator franchise, including a new movie from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. Instead of making Prey 2, Trachtenberg helmed Predator: Badlands, a new entry in the franchise starring Elle Fanning.

“After Prey became a success, Dan [Trachtenberg] came back and said he didn’t want to do Prey 2,” Asbell said. “And we’re like, “What do you want to do?” And he rattled off a bunch of ideas that were really crazy but really cool. We’ve actually done two of them. Two are coming out next year. One I can’t talk about yet, but the other one is the live-action Predator film with Elle Fanning that just wrapped in New Zealand. That’ll be out theatrically sometime next year.”

A secret, second Predator movie

Earlier this week, Disney removed Blade from its release date of November 7, 2025, and replaced it with Predator: Badlands. Trachtenberg directs the film from a script he co-wrote with Patrick Aison. After praising Badlands, Asbell dropped the bombshell that Trachtenberg filmed a secret Predator movie that will come out before Badlands. However, Asbell did not reveal any details besides the fact that it will be released in some form next year.

What comes after Alien: Romulus?

Switching gears, Asbell discussed the Alien franchise and the success of Alien: Romulus, which grossed over $350 million worldwide this past summer. With box office success like that, sequel talks will always percolate. Asbell confirmed 20th Century is working on a sequel and believes it will happen once they close a deal with Romulus director Fede Alvarez.

“He [Alvarez] has an idea that we’re working on,” Asbell explained. “The two survivors, Rain and Andy, played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson, were real highlights of the film. And so I always think of it like, “Wow, where do people want to see them go next?” We know there’s going to be aliens. We know there’s going to be great horror set pieces. But I fell in love with both of them and I want to see what their story is.”

Alien: Romulus is now available for purchase on digital platforms.

Some Samsung smartphones, powered by the company’s Exynos chipsets, have a high-severity security flaw. The vulnerability can allow threat actors to gain elevated access privileges and embed malware.

Samsung smartphones with certain Exynos SoCs have a security flaw

Samsung designs and builds its own Exynos SoC (System on a Chip). These chipsets usually power entry-level and mid-range Android smartphones. Some Exynos chipsets are also embedded in wearable devices.

Cybersecurity researchers from Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) have reportedly discovered a security flaw inside some of the Exynos chips. The advisory about the vulnerability mentions it is being tracked as CVE-2024-44068. It has a severity rating of 8.1, which translates to “high severity”.

Specifically, Samsung Exynos mobile processors versions 9820, 9825, 980, 990, 850, and W920 are impacted. Attempting to explain the security flaw TAG stated, “This 0-day exploit is part of an EoP chain. The actor can execute arbitrary code in a privileged camera-server process. The exploit also renamed the process ‘[email protected],’ probably for anti-forensic purposes.”

How to stay safe from this security vulnerability

As stated by Google’s research team, the Samsung Exynos chipsets suffer from a “0-day” exploit. Moreover, the researchers have cautioned the vulnerability is being exploited in the wild. If that’s not concerning enough, attackers may club this flaw with other attacks.

The impacted Samsung Exynos chipsets are powering the Galaxy S10 series, the Galaxy Note 10 and 10+, the Galaxy S20 series, as well as the Samsung Galaxy A51 5G and Samsung Galaxy A71 5G smartphones. In the wearable space, the Exynos W920 is embedded inside a few Samsung Galaxy Watches.

Google’s TAG security team alerted Samsung about the vulnerability earlier this year. Samsung addressed the vulnerability on October 7 with a patch. The tech giant even issued a security advisory. To stay protected from this security flaw, Samsung Galaxy smartphone, and Galaxy Watch users must install the latest security updates.

Bluesky has revealed how it plans to start making money without necessarily having to rely on ads. The platform will remain free to use for everyone, though it’s working on a premium subscription that will provide access to profile customization tools (remember when Myspace offered that for free?) and higher quality .

One thing that you won’t get as a paid user, though, is any preferential treatment. Unlike certain other social platforms, Bluesky won’t boost the visibility of premium members’ posts. Nor will they get any kind of blue check, chief operating officer Rose Wang.

In addition, Bluesky is planning a tip jar of sorts for creators. “We’re proud of our vibrant community of creators, including artists, writers, developers and more, and we want to establish a voluntary monetization path for them as well,” it said in a blog post. “Part of our plan includes building payment services for people to support their favorite creators and projects.” Bluesky will reveal more details down the line, though it’s not clear whether the platform plans to take a cut of any such payments.

Bluesky revealed its initial monetization plans in an announcement of its Series A funding round. It has raised $15 million from investors. Even though the lead investor in this round is Web3 VC company Blockchain Capital, Bluesky “will not hyperfinancialize the social experience (through tokens, crypto trading, NFTs, etc).”

“Bluesky is powered by a 20-person core team, moderators, and support agents,” Wang . “Our biggest costs are team and infrastructure. Subscription revenue helps us improve the app, grow the developer ecosystem and gives us time to explore business models beyond traditional ads.”

The platform now has more than 13 million users, with from X following that service’s temporary ban in Brazil. (Analysts at Appfigures estimate that 3.6 million Bluesky app downloads came from Brazil, around 36 percent of the total figure.) Others made the switch after X made certain changes to its platform, including a revamp of .

Meta Platforms has created smaller versions of its Llama artificial intelligence models that can run on smartphones and tablets, opening new possibilities for AI beyond data centers.

The company announced compressed versions of its Llama 3.2 1B and 3B models today that run up to four times faster while using less than half the memory of earlier versions. These smaller models perform nearly as well as their larger counterparts, according to Meta’s testing.

The advancement uses a compression technique called quantization, which simplifies the mathematical calculations that power AI models. Meta combined two methods: Quantization-Aware Training with LoRA adaptors (QLoRA) to maintain accuracy, and SpinQuant to improve portability.

This technical achievement solves a key problem: running advanced AI without massive computing power. Until now, sophisticated AI models required data centers and specialized hardware.

Tests on OnePlus 12 Android phones showed the compressed models were 56% smaller and used 41% less memory while processing text more than twice as fast. The models can handle texts up to 8,000 characters, enough for most mobile apps.

Tech giants race to define AI’s mobile future

Meta’s release intensifies a strategic battle among tech giants to control how AI runs on mobile devices. While Google and Apple take careful, controlled approaches to mobile AI — keeping it tightly integrated with their operating systems — Meta’s strategy is markedly different.

By open-sourcing these compressed models and partnering with chip makers Qualcomm and MediaTek, Meta bypasses traditional platform gatekeepers. Developers can build AI applications without waiting for Google’s Android updates or Apple’s iOS features. This move echoes the early days of mobile apps, when open platforms dramatically accelerated innovation.

The partnerships with Qualcomm and MediaTek are particularly significant. These companies power most of the world’s Android phones, including devices in emerging markets where Meta sees growth potential. By optimizing its models for these widely-used processors, Meta ensures its AI can run efficiently on phones across different price points — not just premium devices.

The decision to distribute through both Meta’s Llama website and Hugging Face, the increasingly influential AI model hub, shows Meta’s commitment to reaching developers where they already work. This dual distribution strategy could help Meta’s compressed models become the de facto standard for mobile AI development, much as TensorFlow and PyTorch became standards for machine learning.

The future of AI in your pocket

Meta’s announcement today points to a larger shift in artificial intelligence: the move from centralized to personal computing. While cloud-based AI will continue to handle complex tasks, these new models suggest a future where phones can process sensitive information privately and quickly.

The timing is significant. Tech companies face mounting pressure over data collection and AI transparency. Meta’s approach — making these tools open and running them directly on phones — addresses both concerns. Your phone, not a distant server, could soon handle tasks like document summarization, text analysis, and creative writing.

This mirrors other pivotal shifts in computing. Just as processing power moved from mainframes to personal computers, and computing moved from desktops to smartphones, AI appears ready for its own transition to personal devices. Meta’s bet is that developers will embrace this change, creating applications that blend the convenience of mobile apps with the intelligence of AI.

Success isn’t guaranteed. These models still need powerful phones to run well. Developers must weigh the benefits of privacy against the raw power of cloud computing. And Meta’s competitors, particularly Apple and Google, have their own visions for AI’s future on phones.

But one thing is clear: AI is breaking free from the data center, one phone at a time.