The Sea-Scan research team from Trinity College Dublin has been awarded the Defence Innovation Challenge top prize, for its AI-enhanced real-time vessel detection system.

Given the growing threats to subsea communications and energy infrastructure, the need for continuous, reliable monitoring of Ireland’s maritime environment has come to the fore in recent years. This was reflected in the winning project at today’s announcement.

This morning (25 February), Irish Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science James Lawless, TD and Minister for Defence Helen McEntee, TD announced more than €1.8m in prize phase funding under the co-funded Research Ireland – Defence Innovation Challenge, with Trinity College Dublin-based project Sea-Scan winning the top award.

The Sea-Scan research team is working on a next-generation maritime situational awareness project to strengthen Ireland’s naval security. The Mash – Mobile Adaptable Shelter – team, led by Dr Daniel McCrum and Dr Kevin Roche from University College Dublin and Defence Forces liaison Captain Dave McKenna, was awarded runner-up funding.

Ireland’s ability to monitor maritime activity, including the detection of so-called “dark” vessels, has been much in the headlines in recent year, with fears over our ability to adequately protect the subsea cables that are the backbone of our international communications.

Sea-Scan will develop an AI-enhanced real-time vessel detection system to support early warning and improved situational awareness, while it also offers potential applications in environmental monitoring. The Sea-Scan team is led by Prof Marco Ruffini and Dr John Kennedy from Trinity College Dublin and Defence Forces liaison Commander Cathal Power. The prize funding was awarded under the Maritime Situational Awareness Challenge.

“Challenge-based research funding encourages researchers to work directly with those most affected by the problems they seek to address,” said Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, CEO of Research Ireland. “The teams being funded today have developed their solutions through close collaboration with Defence Forces personnel. The Sea-Scan team are developing a high-quality solution to a complex problem that will deliver a transformational capability for the Irish Defence Forces.”

“Maintaining strong awareness of activity in Ireland’s maritime domain is essential, particularly given the country’s role as an island nation and a key Atlantic gateway for digital connectivity,” said Ruffini.

“As subsea communications and energy infrastructure continue to grow in strategic importance, so too does the need for continuous, reliable monitoring of the surrounding maritime environment.”

Ruffini says the Sea-Scan team has demonstrated the potential to detect and characterise vessel activity using existing subsea fibre infrastructure, “showcasing a robust sensing capability embedded within operational communications assets and enabling effective vessel monitoring and subsea infrastructure protection”.

“The prize‑winning projects demonstrate how cutting‑edge research can deliver practical, real‑world solutions that strengthen national security while driving technological innovation,” said Lawless.

“Innovation is critical to ensuring our Defence Forces have the tools they need to operate effectively in an increasingly complex environment,” said McEntee. “This investment reflects our commitment to modernising defence capabilities and embracing innovative solutions for the future.”

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When Alan Cole saw Elon Musk fans eagerly bidding up a contract on the prediction market Kalshi that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could effectively reduce federal spending in a year, he knew he had to take the bet, according to a story about Cole’s winnings in the Wall Street Journal.

If Cole, an international tax accountant, knew anything in life it was this: federal spending couldn’t be quickly whacked, he told the WSJ. Even if DOGE nixed some federal contracts and laid off workers (which it did), plenty of remaining obligations and the skyrocketing federal debt would remain.

So, he wagered his entire life savings — over $342,000 — to take the counter bet that the U.S. federal budget wouldn’t insta-shrink. He slowly amassed 3% of a Kalshi prediction market that had grown to $12 million (making a few hedging bets along the way), he told the WSJ.

When the government released the 2025 year-end spending report on February 20, showing increases compared to 2024, Cole walked away with $470,300 and a handsome $128,000 profit.

Japan’s SoftBank will be the first to deploy the new SN50 chips, while Intel is partnering with SambaNova to roll out its Intel-powered AI cloud.

Intel-backed Nvidia rival SambaNova has raised $350m in a Series E round led by Vista Equity Partners and Cambium Capital, with strong participation from Intel Capital.

Reuters was first to report the planned raise earlier this month. While details of the investment were not disclosed at the time, sources had told the publication that Intel Capital’s contribution would be around $100m, with potential commitments of up to $150m.

Other participants in the round included Gulf Development, Assam Ventures, Battery Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, GV and BlackRock.

According to SambaNova, proceeds from the raise will be used to expand the production of the company’s newly introduced SN50 chip – touted to deliver “the best tokens per watt” – as well as to scale ‘SambaCloud’ and deepen enterprise software integrations.

SoftBank will be the first to deploy SN50 within its AI data centres in Japan, powering inference services for sovereign and enterprise customers across the Asia-Pacific.

Intel has close ties with the 2017-founded SambaNova, with CEO Lip-Bu Tan serving as chairperson on SambaNova’s board. Alongside the raise, the two companies have also jointly announced a multi-year collaboration to deliver cost-efficient AI inference solutions for AI companies, model providers, enterprises and governments worldwide.

As part of the collaboration, Intel is making a strategic investment in SambaNova to accelerate the rollout of an Intel-powered AI cloud.

“AI is no longer a contest to build the biggest model,” said Rodrigo Liang, co‑founder and CEO of SambaNova.

“With the SN50 and our deep collaboration with Intel, the real race is about who can light up entire data centres with AI agents that answer instantly, never stall, and do it at a cost that turns AI from an experiment into the most profitable engine in the cloud.”

The company positions itself as a rising competitor looking to take some of Nvidia’s gigantic share in the AI chips market. Liang, who previously worked as an executive at cloud provider Oracle, said in 2024 that Nvidia had “lost some of its sheen” and that “rivals are biting at its heels”.

Kevork Kechichian, the executive vice-president and general manager for Intel’s data centre group, said: “Customers are asking for more choice and more efficient ways to scale AI.

“By combining Intel’s leadership in compute, networking and memory with SambaNova’s full-stack AI systems and inference cloud platform, we are delivering a compelling option for organisations looking for GPU alternatives to deploy advanced AI at scale.”

Other companies are also looking for alternatives to Nvidia. Meta yesterday (24 February) said that it would buy billions of dollars’ worth of AMD’s chips to develop AI tech and power new data centres. The deal could see Meta taking a stake of up to 10pc in AMD.

Earlier this month, Cerebras Systems, which also positions itself as a rival to Nvidia, raised $1bn in a Series H round led by Tiger Global with participation from AMD. In January, Cerebras and its early backer OpenAI announced a partnership to deploy 750MW of Cerebras’s wafer-scale systems to make OpenAI’s chatbots faster.

Positron, another Nvidia competitor that offers energy-efficient AI chips for inference, raised $230m from Arm Holdings and the Qatar Investment Authority in recent weeks, taking its valuation above $1bn.

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Wearables startup CUDIS is launching its newest series of health rings this week. The updated ring comes equipped with a number of features, including an AI “agent coach” designed to keep users on track to attain their fitness goals.

CUDIS says it differentiates itself from other wearables by not just delivering health metrics but also incentivizing healthy behavior through a points system. Users garner digital “health points” for healthy behaviors — things like daily sleep, 10,000 steps every day, sports activities, and conversations with the ring’s AI coach — which can then be redeemed through an integrated marketplace for discounts on health supplements and other products.

The ring’s AI Agent Coach, meanwhile, is designed to leverage generative AI to aid with healthy programs for exercise and daily health. The company says that its agent generates tailored programs including “daily tasks, recovery protocols, supplement recommendations, and direct referrals to licensed medical professionals.”

The ring also tracks a host of body metrics and daily behaviors, such as sleep quality, stress management, movement, and recovery. This helps them see how these metrics affect their Pace of Aging (PoA), showing whether their body is aging faster or slower than their chronological age, the company explains.

CUDIS CEO and co-founder Edison Chen told TechCrunch that since his company’s first wearable was launched in 2024, the company has sold over 30,000 units across its first two models. The app’s user base has also grown to 250,000 users across 103 countries, he added.

“Our strongest markets so far have been North America, Europe, and Asia,” Chen said. “What we’re good at is pattern recognition for healthy people trying to optimize,” Chen told TechCrunch.

“The AI spots when you’re trending in the wrong direction, such as chronic poor sleep, declining HRV, elevated resting heart rate, and either suggests lifestyle changes or connects you to a professional. The control is in the escalation pathway to the right care access,” he said.

The company claims that it keeps user data encrypted and secure via the Solana blockchain. It has previously been described as a “web3 AI wellness company.” (TechCrunch was not able to test the smart ring directly to verify its security claims.)

CUDIS announced $5 million of seed funding in 2024. The round was led by Draper Associates and included a number of other investors, including a number of blockchain-associated investor groups like Skybridge, DraperDragon, Monke Ventures, and Foresight Ventures, among others. The company also plans to launch a Kickstarter soon.

In San Francisco, it feels like OpenClaw is everywhere. Even, potentially, some places it’s not designed to be. According to posts on social media, people appear to be using the viral AI tool to scrape websites and access information, even when those sites have taken explicit anti-bot measures.

One of the ways they are allegedly doing this is through an open source tool called Scrapling, which is designed to bypass anti-bot systems like Cloudflare Turnstile. While Scrapling, which was built with Python, works with multiple types of AI agents, OpenClaw users appear to be particularly fond of the software. On Monday, viral posts promoting Scrapling as a tool for OpenClaw users started to spread on X. Since its release, Scrapling has been downloaded over 200,000 times.

“No bot detection. No selector maintenance. No Cloudflare nightmares,” reads one viral post this week about the open source tool. “OpenClaw tells Scrapling what to extract. Scrapling handles the stealth.”

Cloudflare is not enthused. The company already blocked previous versions of Scrapling, since users of the open source software kept trying to get around anti-scraping protections. This week, the company was working on a patch for Scrapling’s most recent iteration. “We make changes, and then they make changes,” says Dane Knecht, chief technology officer at Cloudflare. He says the company’s trove of website data and its ability to track trends has given it the upper hand.

“We already had a signal that they’re starting to get a higher ability to get around us,” says Knecht. “The team of security operations engineers had already been working on a new set of mediations.”

Large language models were trained on the corpus of the internet—and the process involved a lot of scraping. In some sense, Scrapling users are following in the footsteps of the original model builders, but on a more individualized scale.

Over the past few years, website owners have attempted to put up additional anti-bot protections, either to block software like Scrapling or to find a way to make money off of the bots trying to access their sites. In turn, Cloudflare has been working overtime to keep blocking increasingly powerful bots attempting to get around these protections.

In July 2024, Cloudflare started to offer its customers additional tools that block AI crawlers, unless the bots pay for access. In less than the span of a year, the company claims to have blocked 416 billion unsolicited scraping attempts.

“I Didn’t Know What I was Getting Into”

As Scrapling gained traction in recent days, crypto enthusiasts capitalized on the attention by launching a $Scrapling memecoin. Karim Shoair, who claims to be the sole developer of Scrapling, posted about the memecoin on X (those posts have since been deleted). After the price skyrocketed for around five hours, $Scrapling quickly fell off a cliff as users sold off their stakes. “Bunch of fucking scammers,” reads one comment on the Pump.Fun site that hosts the coin.

“I didn’t know what I was getting into when people made that coin and I endorsed it,” says Shoair, in a direct message with WIRED. “But once I knew, I didn’t want any association with it and the money I withdrew before will go to charity, I won’t benefit from it in anyway. Or maybe just leave it to be wasted.”

In the fallout of this event, the unofficial GitHub Projects Community account, which has over 300,000 followers on X, deleted its posts from this week highlighting Scrapling’s open source software, and appeared to distance itself from the project. “We do not support, promote, or engage in crypto assets, token offerings, trading activity, or crypto-based fundraising,” it said in a post late Monday night.

Putting the crypto forays aside, most software leaders continue to see agents and autonomous AI tools as the future of the web. Even Knecht from Cloudflare, whose work includes blocking bots from nonconsensual scraping, wants to build toward a world where humans and agents benefit from online data and the wishes of website owners are respected. “I see a path forward for an internet that is both friendly to agents and humans,” he says.

This is an edition of Will Knight’s AI Lab newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.

If you want to excel in the robotics field, these programming languages can get you there.

Coding skills are a valuable and often crucial skill for professionals in the STEM space, even in the wake of ‘vibe-coding’ and AI advancements. For those who want to work in the area of robotics, an in-depth knowledge of the uses of programming and an education in more than one language can give a professional an edge.

But more often than not, there are far too many to get through before you find the ones that best suit your ambitions. With that in mind, what are some of the programming languages that tend to go hand-in-hand with a career in robotics.

For beginners

We all start somewhere, so whether you are an enthusiast, a beginner or an established professional, you should have a knowledge of a standard or starter language that can help you get to the next phase.

Python is one such language. Considered accessible, easy to learn, versatile and with a wealth of online resources available, pretty much anyone who wants to learn this language can – if they put in the time. Education platform Coursera notes that in robotics, Python is particularly useful in scripting robot behaviours, quickly building prototypes and in elements requiring artificial intelligence, such as systems that integrate predictive analytics or use machine learning algorithms.

There is no reason that your chosen programming language, to aid a robotics career, can’t be funky as well as functional. If you want a language a little off the beaten track that offers a more unique learning experience, consider Scratch. It is aimed at younger learners and complete beginners, so if you are only at the start of your educational journey, it can be of real help in developing early and foundational skills. This graphical programming language developed by the MIT Media Lab, offers a simple interface, where students can create digital stories, games and animations, improve their conceptual and computational thinking and develop their problem-solving abilities.

High performance

For the professionals or enthusiasts looking for a coding language that packs some punch, there are a number of programs considered to be high performers.

C++ is in this category. An object-oriented language, C++ is regarded as a strong foundation for robotics engineers and those who work in the hardware ecosystem and can be useful to those interested in competitive robotics or embedded systems. Advantages include strong cross-platform support, high execution efficiency, and concise and flexible low-level control.

Another high performer is the less commonly-used Rust. This systems-level language emphasises memory safety and performance, two highly critical aspects of working with robotics software. It has been compared to C++ in CPU-intensive tasks and is an ideal language for those wanting a bit of a challenge in the name of progress and reliability. 

Another high-level language to consider is MATLAB, which is typically used for numerical computation, for example, in work involving linear algebra, data analysis and algorithm development. MATLAB is commonly used by academics, researchers and developers and can be used to create detailed robotic models. Anyone who wants to learn MATLAB can, but it is primarily suited to academic researchers, control systems engineers and those working in labs or companies using MATLAB for rapid iteration. 

Features

So, what makes up a ‘good robotics language’? In truth, that is like asking, ‘how long is a piece of string’? The answer really depends on your own professional needs and ambitions. That being said, there are a number of features and characteristics that often jump out as being important for a programming language used primarily in the robotics space. 

Performance is one such element that is critical in robotics. Experts tend to use a high volume of data and have to make quick decisions, so high performance is important. Ease of use, especially for those just starting off, is also important, as students and professionals often depend on a simple interface and a large community of peers. The robotics space is ever-evolving so flexibility is a key feature, as is easy access to support and resources when needed. 

Anyone looking to boost their coding skills should make sure to check out local groups and organisations, attend industry events, engage with online learning opportunities and if a more in-depth approach is required, consider in-person courses at relevant third-level institutions. 

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The global TV business just tilted again. Weeks after Sony sent shockwaves through the industry by negotiating a manufacturing partnership with TCL, Panasonic has made its own decisive move. The company announced a “strategic partnership” with China-based Skyworth aimed at strengthening and accelerating sustainable growth in its U.S. TV business. The agreement takes effect April 1, 2026.

Let’s not pretend these are routine supply-chain tweaks. When two of Japan’s most recognizable TV brands shift production relationships toward Chinese manufacturing giants within weeks of each other, that signals something bigger than cost optimization. It reflects a structural reset in how premium TV brands compete in 2026 — where scale, panel access, pricing pressure, and speed to market matter as much as brand heritage.

Sony’s move was significant. Panasonic’s is equally telling. The balance of power in the TV industry continues to migrate east, and legacy brands are adapting in real time.

“North America remains a key strategic region for Panasonic, with consumers consistently recognizing the exceptional quality and value of our products,” said Akira Toyoshima, CEO of Panasonic Entertainment & Communications Company (PEAC). “The new business model change will leverage the power of Panasonic’s core technical excellence in AV processing, quality, and service standards with the global scale economy of Skyworth’s manufacturing volume and speed to provide a winning formula for the customer value proposition.”

What It Means for the U.S. TV Market in 2026

Here’s what we know so far.

Skyworth USA Corporation will serve as the principal operating partner in the U.S., handling sales, marketing, and logistics. Panasonic, meanwhile, retains responsibility for development expertise and quality assurance to ensure its established performance standards are maintained.

In plain terms: Skyworth will manufacture Panasonic-branded TVs for the U.S. market.

Panasonic has also confirmed it will continue to support all TVs sold through April 2026, as well as models produced under the new agreement. Customer service and warranty coverage are not being handed off and forgotten.

The real question that TV reviewers and industry analysts are already circling, is what this means for Panasonic’s product development going forward, particularly its highly regarded OLED lineup. Over the past several years, Panasonic has delivered OLED models with some of the strongest video processing and image accuracy in the category.

If manufacturing shifts, does the performance DNA remain intact? That’s the part that will determine whether this is simply a business realignment or something more consequential.

Skyworth is hardly new to OLED. The company already produces OLED TVs under its own brand using LG Display panels; the same panel supplier Panasonic relies on. On paper, that creates technical overlap. In practice, the U.S. market is where things get complicated.

Panasonic has struggled to regain meaningful traction in the United States. Once the undisputed king of plasma, the company exited that business in 2014, which led to a 10-year absence from the U.S. TV market. Although Panasonic did continue TV operations internationally, their return to the crowded U.S. TV market in 2024 failed to capture shoppers attention, despite generally high praise among reviewers.

So what happens now?

The likely framework is straightforward: Skyworth manufactures Panasonic-branded TVs at a cost structure designed to win back market share. That requires profitability for both companies. This isn’t charity. It’s math.

Panasonic will define the product, whether OLED or LCD based on its performance standards, processing expertise, and brand expectations. Skyworth’s role will be to engineer and source the components at scale to meet those targets.

The pressure point comes if Panasonic’s traditional quality benchmarks push costs beyond what the U.S. market will bear. At that stage, both sides face a decision: preserve every performance advantage and accept limited volume, or adjust specifications to hit competitive price tiers.

That balance between maintaining Panasonic’s performance DNA and achieving aggressive pricing, will determine whether this partnership strengthens the brand or quietly reshapes it.

In other words, if you’re shopping for a high-end Panasonic TV built entirely under the company’s current structure, now might be the moment to act. Once the Skyworth agreement takes effect and newly manufactured models begin arriving in the U.S., the formula, even if only slightly, could change.

That’s not a knock on Skyworth. It’s a reality of scale manufacturing in a brutally competitive market. If a TV can’t be produced at a price that resonates with a broad enough audience, it won’t survive long no matter how good it looks in a calibration lab. Performance definitely matters, but sales volume keeps the lights on.

Who Is Skyworth? 

Skyworth may not have the brand recognition in the U.S. of fellow Chinese heavyweights Hisense and TCL, but globally, it is a major force. The company ships roughly 36 million TVs annually and ranks among the top five worldwide in TV revenue, reportedly moving ahead of Sony in overall TV sales revenue. That’s not a minor player, which is why this move by Panasonic is rather significant.

Under the broader Skyworth Group umbrella, the company manufactures far more than televisions. Its portfolio includes consumer electronics, display devices, digital set-top boxes, security systems, networking and communications equipment, semiconductors, refrigerators, washing machines, smartphones, and LED lighting. Skyworth sells products under its own brand while also operating as an OEM for other companies — a role that makes this Panasonic agreement less surprising.

In the U.S., recent Skyworth-branded introductions include the Canvas Elite Art TV and the Clarus S1 Outdoor TV — niche-focused models aimed at lifestyle and specialty segments rather than direct mainstream domination.

In addition to the Panasonic-Skyworth agreement, the company has also outlined a broader corporate shift. Effective April 1, 2026, Panasonic confirmed that PEAC (Panasonic Entertainment & Communication) will be reintegrated into the main Panasonic Corporation structure. The stated objective is to strengthen the long-term positioning of Panasonic’s consumer business globally including in the United States.

The Bottom Line 

The TV business isn’t just competitive in 2026. What we are witnessing is a monumental shift in power that is going to change what we buy and from brands that many of us might not have considered a few years ago. But is that bad news for the consumer?

On one side, display technology keeps advancing at a relentless pace: brighter OLED panels, better processing, smarter platforms. On the other, brand stability is anything but secure. Former giants are fighting to stay relevant, and consolidation across both TV and audio continues to thin the herd. Legacy names aren’t disappearing quietly; they’re restructuring, and partnering with rivals in China to make themselves more competitive. That tension was on full display at CES 2026.

While walking the halls of the Venetian during the show, I noticed a suite marked Skyworth. Inside were several televisions clearly wearing the Panasonic badge. Not concept sketches. Not mockups. Finished sets. I took a few photos. That didn’t last long.

I was quickly informed that photography wasn’t permitted and that what I was seeing was not something I could report on. At the time, it was obvious something was brewing. The question wasn’t whether Skyworth was involved with Panasonic, it was how deep the relationship would go.

Now we know.

With Panasonic’s official announcement confirming a strategic partnership and manufacturing shift, what felt like a quiet industry rumor on a CES show floor has become a formal restructuring of one of Japan’s most storied TV brands.

In the case of both Sony and Panasonic, it will likely take another year before the real impact of their manufacturing partnerships with major China-based TV companies becomes clear, as new product cycles roll out and revised models reach the U.S. market. 2026 will be a transition year, and 2027 should provide a more accurate picture of how these strategic shifts affect performance, pricing, and brand positioning.

Find out more about skyworthusa.com.

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In an era where “new model” usually means “time to replace the old one,” Cambridge Audio just did something refreshingly unglamorous and important. The company has rolled out Qobuz Connect to its legacy StreamMagic Gen 2 and Gen 3 platforms, extending modern streaming control to products that have been sitting in racks and on shelves for years.

That means owners of the StreamMagic 6 V2, CXN, CXR, Azur 851N, CXN V2, and Edge NQ can now control playback directly from the Qobuz app via an OTA update; no new hardware, no forced upgrade cycle. Qobuz still works through the StreamMagic app as before, but Connect adds a more direct, native control path that many subscribers prefer.

It’s good to see a brand remember that its customer base didn’t magically appear in the last 24 months. Supporting Gen 2 and Gen 3 after rolling out Qobuz Connect to Gen 4 isn’t flashy, but it sends a clear message: what you bought still matters. Your streamer didn’t just age out because a new box showed up with a higher number on it.

It also proves something else; customers aren’t shouting into the void. The questions, feature requests, and yes, the complaints that show up on Instagram, Facebook, Audiogon, and the forums? They do get seen. Sometimes they even lead to action. That kind of accountability shouldn’t be rare in the hi-fi category, but too often it is.

There are plenty of alternatives out there. Some cost less. Some arguably do more. In a crowded field, long-term support isn’t just goodwill on the part of the manufacturer but smart business strategy. It’s also hard not to wonder whether Cambridge’s recent decision to appoint Fidelity Imports as its new U.S. distributor played a role here. Distribution shifts aren’t just about logistics and dealer networks, they’re about market responsiveness. If you’re trying to rebuild momentum and reinforce trust in a crowded category, showing existing owners that their gear still has a future is a smart place to start.

This update follows Cambridge’s recent additions of Spotify Lossless, Amazon Music, and QPlay to the StreamMagic platform. Rather than introducing new hardware, the company has continued expanding service support across existing models.

What Is Qobuz Connect and Why Should Cambridge Audio Owners Care?

Qobuz Connect lets subscribers stream directly from the Qobuz app to compatible devices over Wi-Fi or Ethernet, turning the app into the primary control interface. Your Cambridge streamer (or other supported hardware) becomes the playback endpoint, while your phone or tablet functions as the remote. The result is native control with full lossless and high-resolution streaming up to 24-bit/192 kHz. So no Bluetooth, no compressed handoffs, and no need to route playback through a secondary app.

Launched on May 15, 2025, Qobuz Connect has expanded quickly. In less than a year, support has grown to more than 100 hardware partners, covering A/V receivers, network streamers, powered speakers, and integrated amplifiers. That broader compatibility keeps control centralized inside the Qobuz app while giving subscribers more flexibility across systems and brands.

The Bottom Line

The biggest winner here is the existing Cambridge Audio owner. Adding Qobuz Connect to StreamMagic Gen 2 and Gen 3 extends the useful life of hardware that, in many cases, is still performing at a very high level. It removes friction, adds native app control, and keeps those products aligned with how people actually stream music in 2026. No new box required. No forced upgrade cycle.

In 2026, StreamMagic isn’t just a control app, it’s Cambridge’s full streaming ecosystem. It supports major services including Qobuz, TIDAL, Spotify (including Lossless where available), Amazon Music, QPlay, AirPlay 2, Chromecast built-in, Roon Ready integration, and local UPnP playback.

With Qobuz Connect now folded into that framework across multiple generations, Cambridge has strengthened the platform’s long-term relevance. In a crowded streaming market where alternatives are plentiful and often cheaper, sustained software support is what separates a product you replace from one you keep.

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A former candidate in the 2026 race for governor of California and a popular YouTuber have been kicked off Kalshi’s platform for alleged violations related to insider trading, the popular prediction market revealed Wednesday.

In a blog post detailing the cases, Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, noted that the company’s surveillance system had flagged suspicious behavior in both instances.

In the case of the political candidate, Kalshi cited a video posted online “that appeared to show him trading on his own candidacy.” Kalshi froze the candidate’s accounts and reported the activity to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the government agency that oversees prediction markets. It instituted a five-year ban and is fining the account a penalty 10 times the size of the initial trade, which Kalshi says it intends to donate to charity.

While Kalshi does not mention the candidate by name, DeNault notes that they have recently dropped out of the race and shifted to running for Congress. This fits the description of only one person involved in the race: Kyle Langford, a far-right Republican candidate best known for inflammatory antisemitic comments praising Nazis. Langford has since dropped out and launched a campaign styled as a progressive Democrat in California’s 26th district.

In May 2025, Langford posted a video to X showing a screen recording of a trade order placed on Kalshi for an event in the governor’s race. Shortly after the incident, Kalshi confirmed that it was looking into Langford’s activities. In his description of the investigation into the candidate, DeNault notes that Kalshi began its investigation that May.

“Tensions between the USA and Iran are at an all-time high, and the media has chosen to cover a $200 campaign gimmick (aka betting on I, myself) from last year,” Langford said in a statement to WIRED. “Is this really the state of our political discourse?”

This is not the only suspension tied to the California governor race; as Politico reported on Tuesday, Democratic megadonor Stephen Cloobeck, who was briefly a candidate before dropping out to endorse representative Eric Swalwell, has also been blocked by the platform for attempting to trade on the race. “In the event we ever see a candidate trading on their own candidacy, it triggers disciplinary action on the exchange. Their trade gets frozen. They may be permanently suspended from having an account,” DeNault said in a statement. Cloobeck confirmed the bets to Politico and said he is still able to trade on other events.

This crackdown underscores how expansive definitions of “insider trading” can be on prediction markets; while traditional insider trading cases hinge on subjects profiting from “material nonpublic information”—confidential data or intelligence that can impact stock prices—here, even placing bets while working on an election or running for office can violate the rules.

In the case of the YouTube streamer, Kalshi reports that its surveillance systems flagged the account based on “statistically anomalous” trading success. It also received concurrent tips from Kalshi users, who had flagged the unusual activities. “We investigated and found that the trader was employed as an editor for the streamer’s show and likely had access to material nonpublic information connected to his trading,” DeNault writes in the report. The account was frozen before it could withdraw funds; it is now suspended for two years, and it has also received a financial penalty. Kalshi did not disclose the identity of the YouTube streamer.

As prediction markets have exploded in popularity, there has been a series of high-profile incidents of suspected insider trading, including major trades made just prior to geopolitical events like the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. In Israel, two Polymarket traders were recently arrested for leaking classified information in connection to trades made on military activity. Following the Maduro incident, Congress introduced a bill to ban government officials from insider trading on prediction markets—but there have not been any enforcement actions made public.