Editor’s note, October 4, 8 am ET: We’re bringing you some of our best-loved Your Mileage May Vary columns while Sigal Samuel is on parental leave. The one below was originally published last year.
Tech & AI
Sony WH-1000XM5 remain some of our favourite headphones, especially at this low price
For only £192.12, you can now get Sony’s WH-1000XM5 with active noise cancellation and a matching hard case.
Add Hi-Res Audio support and a 30-hour battery to that list, and the Sony WH-1000XM5 at £192.12 starts to look like a complete travel companion, ready for early commutes, long flights and late-night listening at home.
Sony WH-1000XM5 falls to £192.12, with a 30-hour battery and Hi-Res Audio included
Get Sony’s acclaimed WH-1000XM5 noise cancelling headphones for just £192.12, a price that brings genuinely flagship level audio.
A matching hard case is also part of that £192.12, so the Sony WH-1000XM5 arrives with protection for the bag, the daily commute or the flight already included from the very first journey.
On that first journey, four microphones on each earcup capture unwanted ambient sound, while the Auto NC Optimizer tunes the noise cancelling to your wearing conditions and environment, so the hum of a train carriage or open-plan office fades back automatically.
Once the world has quietened, Hi-Res Audio support comes into its own, with LDAC carrying High-Resolution Audio Wireless from your device to the headphones. A precision-engineered driver unit improves high-frequency sensitivity for every genre you play.
SQUIRREL_PLAYLIST_10148964
Long listening sessions need comfort as well, and plush ear cushions cradle each ear while the adjustable headband ensures a tailored fit, all within a lightweight 250g build that suits long flights and full working days.
Stamina matters just as much, and a battery lasting up to 30 hours gives the Sony WH-1000XM5 enough power for long trips, so playback keeps going well beyond a single flight or even a full day of travel.
Calls stay clear too, thanks to Precise Voice Pickup Technology and AI-based noise reduction that isolate your voice and minimise wind noise. You can even connect two Bluetooth devices at once, so a laptop and a phone can share the same headphones.
Smart touches keep everything simple, with Adaptive Sound Control, Speak-to-Chat and Quick Attention Mode on hand, a customisable EQ to shape the sound to your taste, and Swift Pair for easy connections to Windows 10 and 11 devices.
If you’ve been hunting through Best Headphones 2026 for a pair that’s perfect for everyday use, £192.12 now buys the Sony WH-1000XM5 with active noise cancellation, Hi-Res Audio, a 30-hour battery and a matching hard case.
Sony’s WH-1000XM5 improve over their predecessors where it counts. The rich but detailed sound impresses, the noise-cancelling is strong, the call quality is superb; and the range of features and customisation they offer is unmatched. They’re not the best for ANC any more but they’re less expensive than most of their main rivals.
-
Musical, rich audio performance
-
Impressively natural-sounding noise cancellation
-
Great Ambient Mode
-
Good call quality
-
Non-foldable design
-
Choppy wireless connection in busy areas
-
Beaten for noise-cancellation
Continue Reading
This unconventional advice column offers you a unique framework for thinking through moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism: the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. Submit your own question here.
My partner and I did IVF recently and luckily we ended up with several embryos. One of those will be implanted in me so I hopefully get pregnant. But which one?
My fertility clinic is encouraging me to do PGT-A testing, which would screen for things like Down syndrome and would also let me see the sex of each embryo so I could potentially choose whichever I want. (And to be honest, I really want a girl!) I’m also hearing about these new companies that can test embryos for all kinds of things — like how smart the kid might be, how tall they’ll get, and whether they’ll have a lower chance of getting breast cancer, diabetes, mental illness, stuff like that.
I don’t know how to feel about any of this. On the one hand, it feels weirdly eugenics-y to do so much tinkering with embryos, and I can’t help feeling a little pressured into overmedicalizing everything with these expensive tests. But then again, if I could do something to make my baby healthier and happier, don’t I kind of have to do everything in my power? What does a parent owe their child?
This is such an exciting — and also confusing — time. You’re about to have your first kid, and that comes with all sorts of fears and insecurities and hopes and dreams. You want to do the right thing — no, the best thing! — for your child. It’s a beautiful impulse. Unfortunately, it makes it easy for companies to prey on you.
So let me walk you through what these companies can and can’t really provide. After we talk about the science, we can talk about the ethics.
The simpler test you mentioned, PGT-A, has been around since the 1990s. It can indeed screen for conditions like Down syndrome and let you see the sex of each embryo. Mind you, that doesn’t predict what gender your child will ultimately end up identifying with — more on that soon.
The newer testing you mentioned is called polygenic testing. The conditions it screens for are complex ones, influenced by thousands of genes. We’re talking about everything from breast cancer to depression. Some companies even offer screenings not for disease prevention, but for genetic enhancement — so you can select for a taller kid or a kid with higher IQ.
Polygenic testing companies claim to predict each embryo’s risk for each condition, and the potential reduction of risk you’ll get if you choose one embryo over another. As the statistical geneticist Sasha Gusev explains, it’s very, very easy to be misled by this claim. If the company claims to lower absolute risk of Type 2 diabetes by 12 percent, you might think this means, “The chance of my kid ever developing diabetes just went down by 12 percent — great!” But really what it means is that, all else equal, a kid who would’ve developed diabetes is likely now at the high end of pre-diabetes instead, or just develops diabetes a few years later. The same holds true for other conditions, like breast cancer. Sure, if your kid is going to develop diabetes or breast cancer, you’d rather they develop it later — but it’s not the bill of perfect health customers might imagine.
“Typical risk reduction estimates tend to exploit statistical assumptions to overstate their benefits and lead to confusion,” Gusev writes.
Have a question you want answered in the next Your Mileage May Vary column?
Fill out this anonymous form! Newsletter subscribers will get my column before anyone else does and their questions will be prioritized for future editions. Sign up here!
It’s also important to note that there’s a difference between a physical disease like cancer, which is straightforwardly and universally negative, and a complex mental health condition like depression. For one thing, polygenic scores don’t perform as well in psychiatry, as the psychologist Eric Turkheimer notes. Plus, most mental health conditions come in mild to moderate to severe forms, and it’s not clear that we should want to get rid of mild or moderate manifestations.
“Sure, it would be nice if no one ever got depressed, but what would that actually mean?” Turkheimer writes. “People are going to be sad, and the most modern models of psychiatric disorders view most of them as extremes on continuous dimensions of normal behavior. I don’t think we want some kind of genetic version of Soma.”
To give a personal example: I have generalized anxiety with some obsessive tendencies. Is that a major pain in the butt sometimes? You bet. But if I could wave a magic wand and get rid of it, would I? No. In my experience, this trait is linked to another trait I deeply value: my creativity. The same thing that propels me down rabbit holes of worry also propels me down rabbit holes of getting super curious about some topic, researching it into the wee hours of the morning, and then writing a novel or children’s book about it.
That brings me to one other scientific issue: pleiotropy. It’s a fancy term for a simple truth, which is that genes can have an effect on more than one trait. When it comes to behavioral polygenic testing, we actually know very little about which genes cause what — a gene that’s correlated with depression or anxiety may also be correlated with a bunch of other things. So, if everyone were to start selecting embryos to try to protect their kids from depression or anxiety, what would happen? We don’t know!
Pleiotropy is a scientific issue, but it’s also a moral issue, because in trying to protect your kid from a negative outcome, you could also be accidentally barring them from a positive one.
And that’s just the tip of the moral iceberg.
Another issue is the potential psychological harm that can result from commodifying our kids — treating them like consumer objects with selectable parts. Let’s say you use polygenic testing to try to select for high IQ. Even if the company’s predictor is right 80 percent of the time, that means it’s wrong 20 percent of the time. What happens if it’s wrong about your kid, and they end up with a low IQ instead of a high one? How will your kid feel? Unless you hide the truth from them, they’ll know that they are not what you wanted, that they failed to live up to the vision you went out of your way to chase.
The same goes for sex selection via good old PGT-A. I know you really want a girl. But what would happen if you select for a girl, and then your child grows up and turns out to be trans? They may feel an extra sense that they’re letting you down by not conforming to the gender expectations you had for them.
Then there are the ethical questions around unequal access. Polygenic testing isn’t cheap. (One company, Orchid, charges $2,500 per screened embryo. Test 10 embryos and that’ll cost you $25,000.) So, at least in the short term, that raises the specter of entrenching a caste system, where the gap between rich and poor expands dramatically as the rich get smarter and stronger.
Technologies tend to get cheaper over time, so maybe everyone will ultimately be able to afford polygenic testing. But that raises another problem: implicit coercion. If more and more of us make ourselves smarter and stronger, we may create a society in which everyone feels pressure to alter their child’s biology — even if they don’t want to. To refuse embryo selection would mean to put a child at a huge professional disadvantage, or to face moral condemnation for making “suboptimal” kids when optimization is possible. Society may no longer offer health insurance benefits or accommodations for kids with disabilities (or even non-enhanced IQ), reasoning that “it was the parents’ choice.”
Some philosophers, like Julian Savalescu, already argue that parents have a “moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life.” Polygenic testing companies love that argument; Orchid founder Noor Siddiqui tells parents that “the responsible decision” is to “protect their children” from disease, using language like, “What if you could have stopped it…but chose not to?” And we generally live in a culture that’s obsessed with optimization.
So it’s no wonder that you find yourself asking, “If I could do something to make my baby healthier and happier, don’t I kind of have to do everything in my power?”
It’s a view that will be very appealing to utilitarians, who believe the right action is the action that maximizes well-being or happiness. But maximizing principles can be dangerous. If we’re laser-focused on maximizing one value, however noble it may be, that can lead us to overlook a host of other important values. Think about diversity, for example; polygenic testing could lead to a less diverse world.
And it’s not even clear how to maximize well-being given that each embryo will have some downsides: How would you choose between one embryo with a slightly elevated risk for schizophrenia, another with a moderately elevated risk for cancer, and a third with a high risk for Alzheimer’s? You’d have to decide how to rank the importance of each condition, which would require a dizzying bit of moral math: How much weight do you put on the longevity associated with each condition, how much on patient-reported quality of life for each condition, and how much on your own ability to cope with each — and society’s ability (which will change over the years)? Plus, even if the screening does end up optimizing life for your individual child, it could have negative effects on the population level, for the reasons we covered above.
As the Nobel laureate Herbert Simon pointed out, many problems contain way more variables and way too much uncertainty for maximizing along a single axis to be feasible or even desirable. So it often makes sense to just go with an option that’s “good enough.” He coined the term “satisficing” — a portmanteau of “satisfying” and “sufficing” — to describe opting for this good enough choice.
What would satisficing look like in the context of embryos? If there’s a very serious condition that runs in your family — like Tay-Sachs or the BRCA mutation that markedly increases cancer risk — then I do think there’s a strong case for screening for that. These conditions are debilitating and can lead to early death. Nobody wants them. Genetic testing that lets us prevent them is an awesome gift.
Then there are conditions that can include suffering, like autism, but can also be very compatible with a happy life. Mental health conditions in particular are heavily socially constructed — a lot of the associated suffering comes about because society constructs a certain biological reality as a problem and doesn’t support the people who have it. In these cases, if you want to give your child a “good enough” or even “optimized” life, remember that you don’t have to achieve that by biological means; working to change the social environment can be just as important, and it doesn’t carry the societal risks associated with polygenic testing.
Ultimately, when considering what counts as a “good enough” life, each parent will draw the line in a slightly different place. And there’s a part of that that can’t be boiled down to objective facts about disease, because this is also about how well-resourced the parent feels — emotionally, socially, and financially — to deal with a certain condition. What feels manageable to one parent may feel crushingly hard to another.
So, I can’t tell you exactly which screenings to do and which to forgo. What I do want to tell you is to resist being bullied or shamed by others, especially those with a profit incentive to push you in a certain direction.
As the epidemiologist Abby Lippman has noted, genetic testing is supposed to offer parents more choice, but it too often has the opposite effect. When someone like Orchid’s Siddiqui says about a disease, “What if you could have stopped it…but chose not to?” — well, that language preys on parents’ worst fears and insecurities. It holds parents hostage while pretending to be giving them more autonomy.
You are nobody’s hostage. You are a moral agent free to look at the many different relevant factors, weigh them all in the balance, and then make the choice that works well enough for your family.
Bonus: What I’m reading
- Silicon Valley is obsessed with IQ, so it’s no surprise that tech execs there are using polygenic testing in hopes of creating supersmart babies. This article shows the kind of mental pretzels customers get into when trying to figure out whether to select the embryo with the highest predicted IQ or that with the lowest risk of disorders. One couple asks: “How much additional risk of ADHD cancels out against 10 extra IQ points?”
- Rereading “The Last Children of Down Syndrome,” Sarah Zhang’s 2020 Atlantic feature on prenatal testing, it struck me that when people think “prenatal testing,” Down syndrome is often the first condition that comes to mind, even though it’s not the most severe or straightforwardly negative (it’s compatible with a happy life). It’s just that Down syndrome was easy to test for, so we started testing for it early. I wonder if that built up the condition as a bogeyman in the expectant parent’s imagination — if the fact that we could screen for it shaped the public’s perception of Down syndrome as something that should be screened for and potentially screened out.
- One trait that many people assume we should select for is a great memory. But I highly recommend the short story “Funes the Memorious” by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s a reminder that having too good a memory is not always a benefit.
Vox Members got to read this story first. Support independent journalism and get exclusive access to stories like this by becoming a Vox Member today.
$25 doesn’t go as far as it used to. As recently as a decade ago, $25 could fill up your gas tank and buy a pretty good gift, with plenty of options for just about every interest and occasion. Nowadays, it’s a struggle to even find a $25 takeout meal for one person and average national gas prices are inching toward $5 a gallon. And we all know wages have not kept up.
Good news: There are still plenty of thoughtful, interesting items out there to be had for $25, which are sure to appeal to everyone from coworkers to neighbors, relatives you don’t know well, and the friend who seems to have everything. All things on this list have been tested and vetted by at least one person on the WIRED Reviews team—often more than one—to ensure it is indeed a good gift you’d be proud to give. Check out more of our gift guides to find something for everyone on your list this year.
Love WIRED? Add us as a preferred source on Google to see more of us.
Featured Gifts
For the Notetaker
-
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
-
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
MoMA Design Store
Colorplay Pen & Pencil Cup Holder
WIRED senior Gear editor Julian Chokkattu recommends this colorful acrylic desk accessory that keeps pencils, scissors, and other large items on top and smaller items like paper clips (or, in Julian’s case as a phone reviewer, SIM ejection pins) on the bottom. Shown is the pink-and-amber color combination, but there’s also a blue-and-green option.
For the Party Person
-Reviewer-Photo-SOURCE-Nena-Farrell.png "The Best Gifts Under $25 for Everyone on Your List (2026) 57")
These drink cozies are a favored white elephant gift from WIRED reviewer Nena Farrell (“It’s like playing Barbie with your drinks,” she says), but I like them because they remind me of Will Ferrell and his friend Harper Steele in the movie Will & Harper, where they go on a road trip, dress up their drinks in these exact cozies, and come up with ridiculous names for them like Cornelius Danderhoff. It reminds me of road trips I took with friends in college, which reminds me that I’m old, which … makes me want a drink.
For the Anti-Party Person
-
Photograph: Louryn Strampe
-
Photograph: Louryn Strampe
-
Quince
Mulberry Silk Beauty Sleep Mask
A sleep mask is a must for proper sleep hygiene, and WIRED reviewer and sleep mask aficionado Louryn Strampe loves the roomy fit of this 22-momme silk model from Quince. It’s half the price of similar 100-percent silk sleep masks, and there’s free shipping to keep things affordable. Choose from among 12 color options, including Eucalyptus, Espresso, Pink, Terra Cotta, and Light Blue.
For the Home Chef
Jacobsen Salt Co.
Salt and Salt Cellar
My entire family is obsessed with this finishing salt, which is harvested in Netarts Bay, Oregon, just a couple of hours from our house. The large, irregular crystals look (and taste) fantastic on meat, roast vegetables, and desserts, and offer the perfect amount of crunch. Either the salt itself or the stylish arched salt cellar—handmade by Pigeon Toe Ceramics in Portland, Oregon—would make a terrific gift on its own.
For the Gardener
For the Well-Organized
-in%2520hand-SOURCE-Kat%2520Merck.jpg "The Best Gifts Under $25 for Everyone on Your List (2026) 63"){kind=tracking}
%2520offwhite%2520background%2520SOURCE%2520Amazon.jpg "The Best Gifts Under $25 for Everyone on Your List (2026) 64"){kind=tracking}
Ugreen
FineTrack Air Tracker Tags (iOS)
Being able to keep track of keys, luggage, and other gear is critical, and these Bluetooth trackers work just as well as AirTags for a quarter of the price. A pack of four with little lanyards and fun stickers retails for $24 but often on sale for even less. They work with Apple’s Find My and take just seconds to sync to your phone. I have four of these in use in my household, and they are truly indistinguishable from AirTags in both tracking and quality. There’s also a rechargeable set that works with both iOS and Android, but we haven’t tried that one.
For the Coffee Lover
Barista Basics
Triple Spout Shot Glass
WIRED contributing reviewer and former barista Pete Cottell loves this espresso accessory for its durability and design—and can be found in seemingly every coffee shop where I live in the Pacific Northwest. However, even if you don’t have an espresso machine, the uses for a little spouted measuring cup are endless. I have a plastic one and use it for everything from measuring small quantities of liquid ingredients to fertilizing plants.
For Teens
Photograph: Louryn Strampe
WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe has this mini gaming controller, which is compatible with Nintendo Switch, PC, macOS, iOS, and Android devices. It’s tiny, cute, and actually works—she uses it to play Stardew Valley and Bastion on her iPhone. If your teen loves gaming, it would make a great stocking stuffer too. (It gets about 10 hours of battery life per USB-C charge.)
For a Laugh
The Op Games
Telestrations
WIRED reviewer Simon Hill’s family loves this hilarious drawing game that’s based on Telephone. Sketch a visual representation of a word or phrase and then pass it around the table for people to guess what it is. It’s great for parties and can accommodate four to eight people. The recommended minimum age is 12, but Simon’s 9-year-old daughter loves it.
For the Outdoorsy
-
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
-
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
Epiphany Outdoor Gear
Collapsible Pocket Bellows
WIRED reviewer and esteemed outdoorsman Scott Gilbertson swears by this tiny telescoping bellows that will help any fire get going again, whether that’s a campfire or your wood stove at home. It stretches out to be surprisingly long and is a must-have for wet firewood, bug-out bags, or even backyard cookouts.
For Everyone
.jpg "The Best Gifts Under $25 for Everyone on Your List (2026) 70")
WIRED
1-Year Digital WIRED Subscription
WIRED is the gift that keeps on giving—stay in the know all year long with a digital subscription for only $24 for new subscribers. (It’s $48 a year after that.) It’ll get you access to WIRED’s brand-new app, as well as exclusive subscriber-only newsletters, livestream AMAs, and a limited-edition tote bag.
Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that’s too important to ignore. Subscribe Today.
Many users use ChatGPT and Claude to examine papers, including essays, reports, contracts, and resumes. They can provide really helpful insights, but when it comes to iterating together, they’re not so powerful. Feedback comes back as a large chat response, and you are then left to apply changes yourself or accept a completely rewritten version from the chatbot.
There’s a new tool called Revise that aims to improve this workflow by integrating AI chat directly into a full word processor that’s compatible with Word .docx files, not just the basic text box a lot of AI writing apps give you. In Revise, the huge language model may read, modify, and comment on any section of your work using the same interface as you. Revise allows you to import big documents (up to a hundred pages), and the model may sift through them and read only the portions it wants rather than importing the entire thing at once. You can request changes and discuss portions of the document in comment threads.
You Stay in Control
Revise lets you keep full control over your document. Its track changes support means everything the AI agent does is visualized for you as a suggested change and can be individually accepted or rejected.
The amount of editing the agent does on your work is totally up to you and your prompts, and if you prefer, you can simply have the agent mark up your document with comments so that you may amend it yourself. Regardless of the strategy you select, having the AI agent interact with you on the same page in the same interface allows for far faster iteration and more friendly editing than going back and forth with a chatbot.
Works With Your Files, and It’s Free to Try
Getting your documents in and out is easy too. Revise supports importing Word files with full headers, tables, pictures, and footnotes, as well as PDFs. It imports PDFs with the use of multimodal LLMs that look at the pages and extract the text. That means, instead of a picture of text that you can’t modify, scanned documents and image-based PDFs display as real, editable text. When you’re ready, Revise may export to Word or PDF so it fits right into your current procedure.
Revise is more accessible and flexible than Google Docs and Microsoft Word, neither of which lets you change which AI model you’re talking to, and both of which require a monthly subscription to even try their AI chat feature. Revise, on the other hand, has a permanent free tier with a daily limit, plus free usage via MCP through its plugins in the ChatGPT and Claude directories.
If you already use AI to review your documents, Revise is worth a try. You can import a document, ask for feedback, and decide change by change what actually makes it into your work.
Apple put active noise cancellation on the $149 AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case last month, and the price gap with the year-old AirPods Pro 3, priced at $179 (was $249) for early Prime Day, suddenly looked harder to defend. Shoppers who only wanted a little quiet on a train now have a cheaper open-ear option. People who sit with both pairs still reach for the Pro 3 when the room gets loud.
Foam-tipped silicone ear tips in five sizes, including an extra small size, seal the canal before you even begin listening, and nothing surpasses that physical seal, which the new open-ear AirPods 5 simply cannot match, no matter how many microphones are crammed onto the stem. Apple claims that the Pro 3 offers up to three times the quiet time of the regular model and twice that of last year’s Pro 2. That means sounds like the cabin hum, the air conditioning in the office, and that obnoxious voice from two seats over fade into the background. The Transparency setting still allows speech to be heard cleanly and crisply, without the hollow echo that earlier tips had.
Sale
Apple AirPods Pro 3 Wireless Earbuds with Active Noise Cancellation
- WORLD’S BEST IN-EAR ACTIVE NOISE CANCELLATION — Removes up to 2x more unwanted noise than AirPods Pro 2* so you can stay fully immersed in the…
- BREAKTHROUGH AUDIO PERFORMANCE — Experience breathtaking, three-dimensional audio with AirPods Pro 3. A new acoustic architecture delivers…
- HEART RATE SENSING — Built-in heart rate sensing lets you track your heart rate and calories burned for up to 50 different workout types.* With…
With noise cancellation enabled on, a single charge will last up to eight hours, compared to four for the basic AirPods 5 and five for the wireless case AirPods. A full day of mixed listening typically gives you with some charge left over, and the case itself will extend the total to around 24 hours. Five minutes on the charger can recharge you for about an hour.
The hearing aid functions were missing from the previous AirPods, but they’re back in the Pro 3, and they’re incredibly important. Each Pro 3 bud contains a custom sensor that uses invisible light to pulse 256 times per second to read your heart rate during more than 50 different workout types in the Fitness app, all without the need for an Apple Watch on your wrist, and Hearing Protection kicks in to reduce sudden loud noise. Plus, when needed, Live Translation can be accessed by squeezing both stems, in supported languages. None of this is available with the less expensive bud.
Both lines, of course, share the H2 chip, Adaptive Audio, customized Spatial Audio with head tracking, and voice separation during calls. The Pro 3 case also has some great details, such as magnetic charging from the MagSafe case, a Find My speaker, a second generation ultra wideband chip that aids in accurate location tracking on a compatible iPhone, and a strap loop. The buds and casing are both water and dust resistant, with an IP57 rating. Of course, you can still regulate the volume with a swipe on the stem.
Fubo does not have one fixed nationwide channel bundle or one price that applies to every viewer. Your base plan sets the starting price, while your location, regional sports coverage, and optional add-ons can change both the channels you receive and the amount you pay.
Quick Take
Start with the regular monthly plan price, then check your ZIP code, must-have channels, regional sports coverage, and optional extras. Fubo’s channel totals, trial terms, promotional prices, and some sports costs can vary, so the checkout total and your location-specific lineup matter more than a headline channel count.
Promotional pricing can reduce the first payment, but the regular monthly rate is more useful for estimating long-term cost. Before subscribing, identify the channels or teams you consider essential and verify them against the plans Fubo offers for your area.
Fubo plans and prices at a glance
Think of the base plan as the starting layer of your subscription. It determines the broad mix of sports, news, entertainment, and Spanish-language programming before optional services or location-specific charges are added.
Fubo’s regular monthly plan prices currently include the following widely advertised options. The same page can show temporary first-month discounts, and Fubo states that prices are subject to change.
| Plan | Regular monthly price | Broad focus | Regional sports | Distinctive point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sports + News | $64.99 | National sports, broadcast programming, and news | Eligible local regional sports can be added through My Local Sports in select markets | Lower-cost sports-focused route with ESPN Unlimited included |
| Pro | $88.99 | Broad live TV with sports, news, and entertainment | Regional sports coverage and an additional fee can apply by area | Main full-size general TV package |
| Elite | $98.99 | Expanded live-TV lineup | Regional sports coverage and an additional fee can apply by area | Broader channel selection than Pro, with 4K programming included where supported |
| Elite with Sports Plus | $108.99 | Expanded lineup plus the Sports Plus package | Regional sports coverage and an additional fee can apply by area | Includes Sports Plus with NFL RedZone |
| Latino | $19.99 | Spanish-language sports and entertainment | Coverage differs from the main English-language plan family | Lower-cost Spanish-language option |
Do not assume the promotional price, free-trial length, or displayed channel total will be identical for every visitor. Fubo’s live signup pages can show different offers and lineup totals, so use the plan details presented for your account and location.
What channels you get with each Fubo plan
A plan name alone does not tell you the exact lineup at your address. National networks can appear across several tiers, while local broadcast stations and regional sports networks depend more heavily on location.
Fubo carries national sports networks including ESPN, FOX Sports, NFL Network, and CBS Sports Network. Local broadcast and regional sports availability can differ by market, which is why two subscribers on the same named plan can receive different local or regional programming.
A regional sports network, often shortened to RSN, focuses on teams within a particular geographic territory. If a local NBA, NHL, or MLB team matters to you, the RSN serving your ZIP code can be more important than the plan’s overall channel count.
Instead of relying on a long static directory, search for the networks you cannot do without. Fubo lets you compare plans and search for a specific channel. If the channel is absent from both selected plans, the tool can indicate that another plan or add-on is required, or that the channel is unavailable.
Channel totals also change across Fubo’s live landing-page variants. Treat those totals as a snapshot for the offer and location being shown rather than a permanent nationwide specification.
Once the subscription itself is sorted, the way you watch it on a television is a separate choice. A Smart TV app, Google Cast setup, or streaming stick can each deliver streaming video, with different hardware and control trade-offs.
Sports + News and My Local Sports explained
If most of your viewing revolves around sports rather than a large general-entertainment bundle, Sports + News is the lighter Fubo option to examine. Fubo also refers to the service as Fubo Sports in its corporate materials.
The service has more than 20 sports and broadcast networks, includes direct access to ESPN Unlimited, and costs $64.99 per month after the introductory first month for eligible new customers.
Local-team coverage is separate. Fubo launched My Local Sports on September 29, 2026, allowing Sports + News subscribers in select markets to add an eligible regional sports network together with sports-focused FAST channels. FAST means free ad-supported streaming television: linear-style streaming channels funded by advertising rather than a separate subscription fee.
There is no single nationwide My Local Sports price because RSN add-on pricing varies by market. Availability also depends on which regional network serves your area.
If local teams determine your subscription choice, understanding how Fubo regional sports availability works can help you separate national sports coverage from market-specific team access.
Fubo add-ons and premium channels
Add-ons let you pay for extra programming without moving every viewer to a larger general-purpose package. Some expand sports coverage, while others add premium movies, international channels, or a specific league service.
Fubo also operates a Channel Store where individual services are available without a Fubo base plan. That means not every extra service has to be purchased on top of Pro or Elite.
As of October 3, 2026, representative Channel Store prices include:
- MLB.TV: $29.99 per month.
- Paramount+ with SHOWTIME: $10.99 per month.
- FOX Nation: $8.99 per month.
- NBA TV: $8.99 per month.
- STARZ: $11.99 per month.
- MGM+: $7.99 per month.
- Hallmark+: $8.99 per month.
- Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, STARZ, and MGM+ bundle: $20.99 per month.
Fubo also sells sports and international packages whose contents and prices can change. Before paying for one, search for the exact channel or event you want rather than assuming the package name includes it.
MLB.TV shows why access rules can matter as much as price. Fubo offers it for $29.99 per month for out-of-market MLB games, but blackout and other restrictions apply. A viewer trying to follow a local team should therefore check regional coverage separately rather than assuming MLB.TV replaces the local sports network.
The fees that can change your monthly bill
The advertised base-plan price is not always the final recurring charge. A useful estimate starts with the base plan, then adds any applicable regional sports fee, subscription add-ons, and taxes.
The largest location-dependent surcharge to check is the Regional Sports Fee. If your plan includes qualifying regional sports coverage, the fee can be as high as $16.99 per month. New customers can see the applicable amount during signup.
The fee is tied to receiving regional sports programming rather than being an optional switch. Fubo states that if your plan includes regional sports programming, the fee is applied automatically and cannot be removed while you keep that qualifying plan. Moving to a base plan without regional sports programming is the way to avoid that fee.
For example, a subscriber starting with the $88.99 Pro rate can owe more than $88.99 when a Regional Sports Fee applies. Subscription add-ons and taxes can raise the total further, so the recurring amount shown at checkout is the number to use for budgeting.
There is also a Roku billing exception: Fubo states that if you signed up through a Roku device, the Regional Sports Fee is $16 per month regardless of area.
If the checkout total is higher than the advertised plan price, tracing unexpected Fubo charges starts with regional sports fees, selected subscription add-ons, an expired promotional rate, and taxes.
Do this before paying if one local station, sports network, or team determines whether Fubo works for you. The goal is to verify the channel against the plans and location Fubo is actually offering you. Choose this if: you mainly want national sports and news and do not need the broader entertainment lineup in Pro.
Avoid this if: your must-have entertainment channels fall outside its lighter lineup or your local team requires regional coverage that My Local Sports does not offer in your market.
Main trade-off: a lower base cost in exchange for a narrower general-TV package.
Choose this if: you want a broad mix of live sports, news, local television, and entertainment without paying for Elite’s expanded lineup.
Avoid this if: a must-have channel appears only in a higher tier or add-on, or the final price after regional sports charges exceeds your budget. Main trade-off: broader general-TV coverage at a higher monthly price than Sports + News.
Choose this if: you have confirmed that its additional channels or supported 4K programming fill a real gap in Pro.
Avoid this if: the extra programming does not add anything you regularly watch.
Main trade-off: an expanded lineup for $10 more per month than Pro before applicable fees. Choose this if: you already need Elite and have confirmed that Sports Plus channels such as NFL RedZone matter to you.
Avoid this if: the bundled sports networks do not add programming you would otherwise pay to watch.
Main trade-off: Sports Plus is bundled into a higher recurring base price.
Choose this if: your viewing is primarily Spanish-language sports and entertainment and its lineup covers your essential channels. Avoid this if: you need the broader English-language channel selection offered by the main full-size plans.
Main trade-off: a much lower base price paired with a more specialized lineup.
How to check your exact Fubo lineup
Which Fubo plan fits different viewing needs
Sports + News
Pro
Elite
Elite with Sports Plus
Latino
Make the decision from the channels or teams you cannot replace, not from the largest advertised channel total. Once you find the smallest suitable plan, compare its recurring checkout price with any required sports fee and the extras you would actually buy.
If Fubo’s mix still does not fit your needs, a Fubo vs YouTube TV comparison is most useful when it compares your must-have channels, local sports access, and total monthly cost rather than raw lineup size.
Amgen’s Conor Hughes explores Ireland’s biotechnology industry and how an early STEM education can be the gateway to a future career.
A process development associate in inspection at Amgen, Conor Hughes’ first foray into the STEM space actually began in childhood.
He told SiliconRepublic.com: “The biotech industry made sense to me, given how well established it is in Ireland. However, my interest in science started much earlier, when I was a child. My grandparents used to bring me to the Young Scientist Exhibition every year and from the ages of six to 12, I never missed an exhibition at Trinity’s Science Gallery.
“So from an early age, I had an interest in science and discovery. As I progressed with my undergraduate and master’s studies in chemical engineering at UCD, the industry’s economic significance became more apparent. It was also clear that biotech provided numerous opportunities for growth.”
As part of his master’s programme, Hughes completed a 12-month internship at Amgen and eager to continue in this space, he explained a graduate programme “felt like a natural next step”.
He said: “I already had a good sense of the culture and could hit the ground running, while still having plenty to learn.”
Can you describe a typical day in your role?
Usually, my day starts with an assessment of our inspection performance at a cross-functional meeting. We look back at the previous 24 hours, see how the process development unit has performed and then look ahead to the next day. I am part of the commercial support team and a key part of my role is focused on problem-solving to ensure we get the most from our inspection machines. Working with colleagues across different functions to find solutions is also important.
There is a technical side to the job too, our inspection machines can process up to 400 vials and 300 syringes per minute and I develop vision tools that use image processing to identify any potential defects.
My favourite part of the job is the variety. I can spend part of the day in meetings discussing a problem or a new piece of technology, then head onto the manufacturing floor and implement the solution. It is very rewarding to develop an idea all the way from discussion stage through to physically putting it into practice.
Did your responsibilities and workload change as the programme progressed?
The programme has a natural progression. From the outset, it gave me exposure to different departments. Graduates are expected to attend meetings, ask questions and work with experienced colleagues, so I really value being part of team conversations.
As your experience grows, people start coming to you more often, which is recognition of your development. As my knowledge of processes has increased, I have become an established point of contact for colleagues, including senior staff members.
A recent example was working as inspection lead for the introduction of a new product on-site. As I’ve progressed, I’ve had more interaction not just across functions in Ireland but across the wider Amgen network. For example, I’m working with colleagues at other Amgen sites, including California and Puerto Rico, on developments in visual inspection and deep learning.
What skills have you developed since being part of the company’s programme?
My communication and problem-solving skills have developed significantly. In a fast-moving biotech environment, it’s not enough to have an idea or a solution in your head. You need to be able to explain it clearly so other people can understand it, challenge it and help you to move it forward. Troubleshooting is also a big part of my role and taking part in the programme has improved my ability to break down a problem and to arrive at a workable solution. I’ve also built up my technical skills on the job in inspection, vision engineering and image processing.
In addition to the programme itself, there’s a strong focus on continuous professional development at Amgen. For example, there is a weekly technology-sharing forum where people from different departments teach others about developments in their function. It gives you exposure to technical areas that are beyond your own day-to-day role.
What have been the most challenging parts of working life since taking up this programme?
Managing varied projects is one of the programme’s more challenging aspects. On one hand, it gives participants a real breadth of experience, but at the same time, switching your focus from one project to another can take some adjustment. Shift work and early start times make for a steep learning curve, but they also provide an opportunity to build close bonds with the colleagues who are working shifts and to take on more responsibilities.
Would you recommend the graduate programme at Amgen to others?
Absolutely. There is a huge variety of roles and the ability to move between departments and broaden your experience provides a major advantage during the early stages of your career. Amgen’s workplace culture means that it’s easy to speak to a colleague to find out what they do and to learn about their department.
Cross-functional learning is a big part of the culture here. Recently, the graduates took part in training at NIBRT, where we gained practical experience about filling lines and carried out activities linked to commercial manufacturing. Although my role is focused on inspection, the course was valuable because it gave me a better understanding of other parts of the process.
Amgen also has great social activities, including sports, fundraising and volunteering. The mix of technical learning, career development and community is a big part of what makes the experience so rewarding.
What advice would you like to give to future graduates who are just starting out?
Just go for it. The more responsibility you are willing to take on, the more experience you will get. Talk to managers and other graduates about what their day-to-day work entails. Follow the ‘ask and you shall receive’ approach, if there’s something you want to learn or get involved in, people will do their best to support you.
I also recommend getting involved in extracurricular activities. Amgen offers everything from tag rugby and five-a-side football to golf and beach clean-ups. It’s another great way to meet people and hear from experienced colleagues. Also, don’t be afraid to create something yourself. The main thing is to stay curious, get involved and enjoy the experience.
Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
Apple’s long-rumoured smart home hub could be more colourful than expected, with a new leak suggesting the device may launch in four finishes when it arrives (hopefully) later this month.
The home hub is reportedly set to be unveiled on October 13, and a leaker known as “pdfu” claims Apple will offer it in Silver, Space Gray, Starlight and Rose Pink. The same four colours were previously spotted in the code for macOS 26.7 Release Candidate by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris, giving the latest leak some extra context.
The colours could also tie into one of the hub’s more personal features. Users will reportedly be able to create a Photo Face, with Apple’s preview artwork for the feature matching the colour of the device itself.
That said, the colour options aren’t confirmed just yet. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman previously reported that the home hub would come in Apple’s familiar grey aluminium finish, without mentioning the other three options. So while Silver, Space Grey, Starlight and Rose Pink have now appeared in separate reports, we’ll have to wait for Apple’s official announcement to know which finishes actually make it to store shelves.
Beyond the colours, the home hub is expected to have a roughly 6-inch square display, with Apple reportedly planning both tabletop and wall-mounted versions.
The tabletop model sounds particularly distinctive. According to Gurman, its display will sit on a polished metal arm connected to a round metal base with perforated speaker holes. The design is said to resemble Apple’s unusual iMac G4, which launched back in 2002.
The home hub is expected to sit at the centre of Apple’s broader push into smart home products, although the company has yet to officially confirm the device.
For now, the four reported finishes give us another small detail to look out for when Apple finally shows it off. If the leak is accurate, the home hub won’t be limited to the usual Apple grey after all.
Amazon is trying to buy back trust. Facing a nationwide data center backlash that has stalled projects worth billions of dollars, the e-commerce and cloud giant announced this month that it will stop using nondisclosure agreements with government agencies and will donate more than $1 billion over five years to communities living near its server farms. The response from critics: not nearly enough.
The announcement, laid out by Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman in a company blog post and press release, marks one of the clearest acknowledgments yet from a major tech company that the public is losing patience with the AI-driven data center boom. Across the country, more than 100 moratoriums on new data center construction are reportedly under consideration, driven by complaints about secretive permitting processes, spiking electricity bills, strained water supplies, and diesel generator pollution.
What’s Fueling the Data Center Backlash
The anger has been building for months. Environmental activist Erin Brockovich recently said the number one complaint she hears about data centers is a lack of transparency, describing a familiar pattern: projects announced only after permits are already secured, developers who go silent, and local officials who sign NDAs before their own neighbors learn a massive facility is coming to town. New York has already imposed a one-year moratorium on permits for large data centers, and similar measures are being debated in statehouses nationwide.
Garman tried to push back on what he called four myths fueling the data center backlash: that these facilities guzzle too much water, drive up electricity costs, spew excessive pollution, and offer nothing to the communities that host them. He cited an Amazon-commissioned report claiming direct data center water consumption makes up just 0.5% of industrial water use in the U.S., far less than golf courses or almond farming. He also argued that backup generators at data centers sit idle 99.9% of the time, running roughly 10 hours a year.
Independent experts and advocacy groups have challenged those framings. Scientists have noted there are no federal or state requirements forcing tech companies to report water and energy usage, making it difficult to verify numbers that come straight from the companies themselves. And an independent grid watchdog recently found that data centers were the main driver behind a 76% year-over-year electricity price spike on America’s largest power grid, undercutting Amazon’s suggestion that rising rates stem mostly from aging infrastructure rather than surging demand.
Critics Say Amazon’s Pollution Claims Don’t Add Up
Nowhere has the pushback been sharper than over pollution. Stand.Earth, a global nonprofit that has fought data center expansion in affected communities, told Ars Technica that Amazon’s generator claims are misleading, citing cases where its facilities ran on diesel backup power for days at a stretch rather than mere hours. The group also pointed to a planned Amazon data center in Pecos, Texas, permitted to emit 33 million tons of carbon dioxide annually — more than any other power plant in the United States — which went unmentioned in Amazon’s community commitments.
“For all the claims Amazon makes about investing in carbon-free energy, it conveniently leaves out that it is constructing the single-largest source of climate emissions in the United States,” Stand.Earth said, noting the facility would consume as much energy as 1.9 million homes.
Amazon has separately pledged to become “water positive” by 2030 and says 75% of its projects have already hit that mark. But Stand.Earth argues that figure ignores the much larger water footprint tied to generating the electricity that powers data centers, as well as unresolved questions about potential contamination from newer cooling technologies.
Is $1 Billion Enough to Change the Conversation?
Perhaps the most pointed criticism concerns scale. Amazon’s $1 billion pledge, spread across five years, is roughly the same amount the company says it already contributed to data center communities over the past three years — meaning the new commitment may not represent much of an increase at all. Stand.Earth called it “a drop in the bucket” next to the $220 billion Amazon is expected to pour into data center infrastructure in 2026 alone, calling the gesture “a flailing attempt at damage control for the harm its data center build-out has already caused.”
Garman has framed the stakes in geopolitical terms, warning that moratoriums risk handing China an advantage in the AI race and suggesting that foreign actors may be stoking opposition to American data centers — language that echoes rhetoric from the Trump administration about disinformation campaigns undermining U.S. tech dominance.
Not everything about Amazon’s announcement was dismissed outright. Even Stand.Earth acknowledged that scrapping NDAs is a genuinely positive step that should make future projects more transparent to the communities that will live alongside them. But transparency alone doesn’t resolve the deeper dispute over whether data centers are good neighbors or costly burdens.
That tension gets at something bigger than any single policy fix. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently described the broader AI backlash as fundamentally a “crisis of trust,” in which the public assumes governments and corporations are perpetually scheming against their interests. Writer Jasmine Sun made a similar observation, noting that when data center opponents are shown corporate rebuttals, their reflexive response is simply: “I don’t believe them.”
That skepticism may be the real obstacle facing Amazon and its rivals. No matter how many statistics companies publish about water usage or idle generators, the data center backlash appears rooted less in any single disputed fact and more in a broader sense that communities are being asked to shoulder the costs of the AI boom while tech giants reap the profits. Until that perception shifts, pledges of transparency and charitable billions may do little to quiet the opposition building in statehouses and city councils across the country.
Sources:
If your eSIM is not working on iPhone, first identify what has actually failed: the eSIM may be missing or unable to activate, installed but disconnected from the carrier, connected to the carrier but unable to use mobile data, or affected by a Dual SIM configuration problem. The correct fix depends on which of those states you can see.
Do not start by deleting the eSIM or changing network settings at random. An installed eSIM profile, successful carrier connection, and working mobile data are separate states, so troubleshooting the wrong layer can create another problem without fixing the original one.
This guide uses Cellular for the mobile-network menu. Depending on your iPhone’s language and region, it may appear as Mobile Service, Mobile, or Mobile Data. Likewise, Cellular Data may be labelled Mobile Data, and Carrier Lock may appear as Network Provider Lock.
Start With What Your iPhone Is Showing
Open Settings > Cellular to check whether the expected line is listed. Then inspect its carrier status in Control Centre: swipe down from the top-right corner on an iPhone with Face ID, or swipe up from the bottom on an iPhone with a Home button. Match the result to the branch below.
- The eSIM is missing: the expected mobile plan does not appear in Settings. Start with the activation section.
- The eSIM appears, but you see SOS, No Service, or Searching: the profile exists, but the iPhone is not currently connected to the mobile network. Use the network-registration section.
- The carrier appears, but mobile data fails: the phone has progressed further than a complete No Service failure. Isolate the selected data line, roaming requirements, and Access Point Name (APN) configuration.
- One line works but another does not: treat it as a Dual SIM problem rather than assuming the whole cellular system has failed.
This distinction matters because eSIM activation involves more than storing a digital SIM profile on the phone. The carrier still has to provision the plan and the iPhone has to register successfully for service.
If you are troubleshooting a phone that previously used a physical SIM, the basic network role has not changed: an eSIM and a physical SIM both connect the phone to a carrier network. What changes is how the carrier profile is installed and transferred.
Use this procedure if the eSIM never appears as an available line, setup produces an activation error, or activation starts but does not complete. At this stage, concentrate on getting the plan installed and recognized before troubleshooting mobile data.
If the eSIM Is Missing or Won’t Activate
Do not delete an installed eSIM merely to repeat these steps. Reinstallation and activation-code rules can vary by provider, so remove the profile only when the carrier or eSIM provider specifically instructs you to do so.
If the eSIM appears in Settings but the iPhone shows SOS, No Service, or Searching, installation is no longer the main problem. No Service or Searching means the device is not connected to a mobile network, so the next job is to restore or diagnose that network connection.
If the carrier appears and the line is enabled but websites or apps cannot use cellular data, isolate the data connection instead of repeating activation steps. Start by making sure Wi-Fi or another cellular line is not hiding which connection the iPhone is actually using.
If the eSIM Is Installed but Shows SOS or No Service
If the Carrier Appears but Mobile Data Does Not Work
After testing, turn Wi-Fi back on and restore your preferred data line and switching setting. The data-line selection and call-related switching controls determine which plan supplies the connection.
Successful voice service does not prove that cellular data is configured correctly, and the reverse can also be true for a data-only eSIM. Judge the result against the services included with your actual plan.
If One Line Works but the Other Does Not
When an iPhone has two active plans and only one is failing, troubleshoot the affected line rather than treating the phone as completely offline. Dual SIM adds another variable because the two plans can have different carriers, account states, coverage, and data roles.
- Confirm that both plans are valid for Dual SIM. Both plans must be set up and ready to use, and the carriers involved must support Dual SIM with eSIM. If the plans come from different carriers, the iPhone must be unlocked.
- Check that the affected line is present and enabled. Open Settings > Cellular and confirm that both expected plans are listed. Tap the failing line and enable Turn On This Line if it is off. With no voice call in progress, check its carrier status in Control Centre. If the plan is missing, use the activation branch above; if it remains enabled but shows SOS or No Service, use the network-service branch.
- Check the affected line’s account and network state. If the plan exists but will not work, confirm with its carrier that the plan is eligible for Dual SIM, coverage is available, there is no outage, and billing has not blocked service. Corporate plans may also require confirmation from the company or carrier that Dual SIM is supported.
- Check which line is handling mobile data. An iPhone uses one mobile-data network at a time. Go to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data and select the intended line. If you are testing a data failure, use the isolated data test above, including its temporary switching setting and no-call condition.
- Account for call-related Dual SIM behavior. Seeing No Service on the other line during a call does not always mean that eSIM has failed. The other line can show No Service while one line is being used for a call; available behavior depends on features such as Wi-Fi Calling and Allow Mobile Data Switching.
- Escalate only the failing line. If one plan works normally and the other remains unavailable after these checks, contact the carrier responsible for the failing plan. That isolates the support request from the line that is already known to work.
If you regularly choose between two active plans, the difference between using an eSIM and configuring Dual SIM matters because eSIM describes the SIM technology, while Dual SIM describes using two mobile plans on the iPhone.
Stop changing iPhone settings when the correct line is present and enabled but activation or network service still fails after the relevant sequence above. At that point, the carrier may need to inspect provisioning, billing, account eligibility, a device block, an outage, or another network-side condition that is not visible from the iPhone.
The eSIM still will not activate
Contact the carrier that issued the eSIM after you have confirmed internet access, current iOS, Airplane Mode, line visibility, a restart, and carrier settings. Keep the exact activation error visible or write it down before contacting support.
The eSIM is installed but the iPhone still has no carrier service
Ask the carrier to verify that the account is active, the correct plan is provisioned, the device is not blocked or barred, coverage is available, and there is no relevant outage. If the carrier confirms that its account and network are normal and a hardware problem is suspected, Apple service may be the next step.
The carrier appears but cellular data still fails
Tell the carrier that network registration succeeds but data does not. Ask it to verify the plan’s data provisioning and, when applicable, the correct APN. Do not substitute APN values from another carrier.
Only one of two mobile plans is failing
Contact the carrier responsible for the failing line and identify it clearly. Ask it to verify Dual SIM eligibility, account status, coverage, outages, and billing. A working second line is useful evidence because it shows that the iPhone is not completely disconnected from cellular service.
What information should I have ready for carrier support?
Record the exact error message and have your phone number plus the carrier account password or personal identification number (PIN) available. Also collect the iPhone’s IMEI, which identifies the phone on mobile networks, and its EID, the identifier associated with the embedded SIM. Both are available under Settings > General > About. Have those identifiers ready when contacting the carrier about an eSIM setup failure.
The useful stopping point is observable: either the intended line reconnects and the service included with your plan works, or you have narrowed the failure far enough that the carrier or Apple can investigate the remaining account, network, provisioning, or hardware layer.
Apple says it is changing its macOS privacy settings to stop third-party app developers from misusing them to access message histories.
Friday’s announcement comes two weeks after tech columnist Jason Aten said that Meta’s new general-purpose AI agent Muse sent him an unsolicited notification referencing a thread between him and a co-worker over Apple Messages. Aten said he never granted Muse permissions to read his messages and had assumed they were off-limits. Social media last week blew up with masses of people who agreed and said the incident showed that AI assistants given access to calendars, emails, messages, shopping accounts, and other resources are akin to a skill saw or other power tool. While potentially useful, they can do real damage if not used carefully.
He said/she said
Meta CTO David Singleton joined the fray with a rebuttal that appeared solid. For Muse to access Apple Messages, a user must manually give it two privileges. One is full-disk access, a macOS system-level permission. The other is to enable a Messages connector setting in Muse.
“The Messages integration in the Muse Mac app is opt in,” Singleton said. “Your Muse can only read Messages content if macOS system-level Full Disk Access is granted and the Messages connector is enabled.”
Singleton’s implication was clear. Muse could have read Aten’s Messages communications only if he had enabled both settings, and if so, the columnist had only himself—and certainly not Meta—to blame.
Earlier this week, I spoke to macOS security expert Patrick Wardle, who questioned Singleton’s denial. His reasoning: “From a technical point of view, with FDA (full-disk access), any (non-root file), is readable, browsing history, browser cookies, chats, etc etc etc.” I asked Meta how Muse couldn’t read messages when the app had full disk access, while every other app with that privilege could. Meta PR’s only response was to requote Singleton saying: “The Messages integration in the Muse Mac App is opt-in. Your Muse can only read Messages content if macOS system-level Full Disk Access is granted and the Messages connector is enabled.”
Tech & AI32 minutes ago
Designer babies: Should you try embryo selection via polygenic testing?
Entertainment1 hour ago
Julianne Hough’s Trick for Long Lashes Is on Sale Now
Tech & AI2 hours ago
Sony WH-1000XM5 remain some of our favourite headphones, especially at this low price
-
Fashion2 days agoWeekend Open Thread: Veronica Beard
-
Business & Hustles6 days ago
Perpetua Resources at Mining Forum Americas 2026: shift to construction
-
Business & Hustles6 days ago
Greatland Resources at Mining Forum Americas 2026: cash-rich growth push
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoAndreessen Horowitz backs AI-era college alternative with $42M
-
Tech & AI4 days agoFigure F.02 Robots Meet Molten Steel as Arnold Schwarzenegger Watches in Finland
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoRomania, Georgia and Latvia Lead Latest WHO-Based Ranking
-
Tech & AI5 days agoAlternatives to Animal Testing Are Finally Taking Off
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoSpaceX Starship launches on first orbital test flight with Starlink
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoBob Chapek on Disney Bob Iger power battle: Raised concerns weekly
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoTrump approves new fuel economy standards, reversing Biden’s EV push
-
Tech & AI7 days agoGoogle is launching AI chips into space to see if they survive up there
-
Business & Hustles7 days agoGeneral Mills brands undergo innovation and renovation
-
Tech & AI7 days agoOpenAI Pauses Training Its Most Powerful Models After Rogue Agents Target Government
-
Business & Hustles7 days agoGeorge Bamford to become JCB joint chairman alongside father
-
Business & Hustles5 days agoOpenAI rebrands AI agents as ‘dots’ amid security fears
-
Tech & AI7 days agoAmazon, Apple, AMD, Google, Tesla, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Qualcomm are all reportedly evaluating Intel’s 14A process
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoWhat is the Budget and what could be in it?
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoApple ordered to pay $5.7bn in haptic tech patent case
-
Business & Hustles6 days agoCanadian defence creating 250 jobs in Merthyr in new research alliance
-
Tech & AI7 days agoHow to Avoid Malware Online: 11 Practical Safety Tips
You must be logged in to post a comment Login