Defense and venture capital used to rarely overlap, but that’s no longer the case. Defense tech VC dealmaking set a record in Q1 2026, and new VC firms have emerged around the world to invest solely in defense startups.

One of these is two-year-old Protego Ventures, which presents itself as the first and largest dedicated defense tech VC in Israel. Led notably by two women, Lital Leshem and Lee Moser, it has just completed the final close of its debut fund with $125 million in capital commitments, TechCrunch learned exclusively.

This fund size is enabling Protego to invest between $5 million and $50 million per company, with a focus on startups “addressing the critical defense and security needs of Israel and the global community,” according to its website.

These include the likes of drone maker XTEND, its first portfolio company, which went public on the NYSE earlier this month. That’s also why Protego stopped short of its $150 million target: a smaller fund magnifies the impact of a single big win on overall returns, and with XTEND now looking like a potential “fund maker” — a single investment capable of returning the whole fund — raising more capital would only dilute that upside among a larger pool of investors. “Nobody wants to share the pie,” Leshem said.

Ares Management is one of Protego’s biggest backers. The investment firm suggested that Leshem and Moser join forces and start Protego in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, with the conviction that new technologies would be key to boosting Israel’s defense capabilities in the face of new threats, Leshem said.

With a $30 million investment as a limited partner, Ares gave Protego the support it needed to start investing right away, Leshem said. Besides XTEND, its portfolio also includes startups such as ASIO, which develops situational awareness systems and has partnered with Anduril.

Leshem says the reception in defense circles has been strong. “On the military side, there is a lot of respect, and people are coming — even under the radar — to talk to us, to learn from us, to train with us, and for sure get our technology and innovation.”

Still, the Israeli market is easier to navigate for insiders, and Protego’s two founders are leaning into their networks. Moser, a seasoned venture capitalist, will remain a managing partner at the generalist VC firm AnD Ventures. As for Leshem, who co-founded a startup that was acquired for $625 million in 2025, she also brings 11 years of experience in the military and intelligence field to their approach.

“Everything changed on October 7,” Leshem told TechCrunch. She was deployed, while pregnant, as a reservist on the day of the attacks. “And basically until the delivery room, I was there, witnessing and getting the first-row seat to how the battlefield acted differently from what I knew in the past decade.”

Protego won’t have the field to itself for long. Israeli authorities have taken notice of the same shift, awarding VC firms Adir Capital and Sling Capital about $33 million in state guarantees to invest in military and dual-use technologies, with other funds also raising capital for similar bets. (Leshem said Protego was too far along in its own fundraising to take part in the government’s tender.)

Protego, meanwhile, is already planning its next move: a second fund in the first quarter of 2027, backed by Israeli institutional investors and one large U.S. commitment Leshem has already secured, with a broader scope that includes early-growth American defense-tech companies.

Among the many joys of having a cat is the daily battle with the mess they leave behind. No matter what you try, finding litter and pet hair on furniture or in your bed is inevitable — either they track it in, or you do. If you’re a pet parent like me, this means searching for additional bits of litter and stray hairs that find their way into places you really don’t want them, including the bed. Short of pulling the sheets off entirely, few fixes exist.

I took a chance and tested the SandBar Roller, a $30 dual-roll lint roller, to see if it can make it easier to keep stray hair and litter at bay. I also put it through the paces for other lint-roller tasks like dusting and cleaning floors. Here’s how it fared.

How SandBar Roller differs from other lint rollers

The SandBar Roller’s appeal lies in its two large lint rollers instead of one. While the idea doesn’t seem like much of a departure from a typical large lint roller, I couldn’t find any other dual-roller designs intended for use between bedsheets like SandBar. By arranging the rollers in this way, SandBar can clean the top and bottom sheets simultaneously without getting stuck.

The Best Handheld Vacuums, Tested by CNET

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While SandBar markets its proprietary lint rolls as stronger than normal rolls, they’re not much different from what you’ll find on the extra-large pet hair version of the Scotch-Brite lint roller. Both are 8 inches wide, with an inner diameter of 1.5 inches. Much to SandBar’s credit, its six-pack of refill rolls is just $20, which is very competitive with other lint roll refills I found on Amazon, with the optional subscription price dropping to just $16 for each one-, two- or three-month delivery.

Testing the SandBar Roller

Ostensibly, this design targets coastal homes, where sand gets everywhere — hence the SandBar name. While I don’t live on the coast, I’ve experienced sand in my bed while traveling, or after day trips to the desert, and cat litter is a near-daily occurrence. With that in mind, I conducted a series of informal tests to see how the SandBar Roller holds up.

Upon putting SandBar between the sheets, I noticed it moved fairly smoothly, at least until it snagged on some sheets that were too loose. It didn’t jam, but that means it works better for beds with the sheet firmly tucked at the foot — something I don’t do for various sleep-friendly reasons. Still, it worked well after tightening the sheets a bit, even snagging a few cat hairs and litter fragments. It’s a nice alternative to washing the sheets as frequently as I have to now.

The SandBar removed cat fur from hard-to-reach places

Next, I wanted to see how it handled cleaning smart window shades and curtains, which often collect fur as my cat patrols windows a few times a day. It was a little more awkward, but taking the handle off proved effective, and the sticky roller collected a substantial amount of fur. I had to peel off multiple sheets because of the amount of fur, but it took only a few passes to clean the curtain. The SandBar Roller was very useful on furniture and pet beds, but I noticed that being too aggressive can occasionally dislodge a roll.

The SandBar Roller left a fairly clean surface when I dusted off a TV cabinet and soundbar. Still, I wouldn’t trade it out for the duster and handheld vacuum I usually use. Likewise, it did well on the linoleum floor and carpet near my cat’s litter box, but still I prefer the cleaner result I get from vacuuming.

Should you buy the SandBar Roller?

At $30, the SandBar Roller is unlikely to break anyone’s budget, especially when you can find similarly large bed lint rollers for the same price. In that context alone, including the cost of refill rolls, it’s probably as good as any other option. Still, the dual-roll design’s ability to get between sheets is a compelling reason to consider the SandBar Roller over the competition. The design suits households that typically deal with a lot of sand and litter in the beds. I could even see myself taking it camping for quick dirt cleanup in a sleeping bag.

However, I wouldn’t recommend it for short-term beach house rentals because it cuts corners — new guests expect clean sheets when they arrive. That said, making a SandBar Roller available during a guest’s visit could be worthwhile to improve their experience, as long as you leave instructions explaining what it’s for and how it works.

If you don’t need the second roll — and mainly deal with pet hair on furniture — the ChomChom Roller doesn’t need refill rolls, making it a much better option for $25. Likewise, a handheld vacuum can do the same job with a bit more flexibility around the house — though it’s not quiet enough to use when others are sleeping. While it’s nice to have so many options, it’s always worth going with what works best for your needs and situation.

John Carlsen has more than a decade of experience testing and reviewing home tech products, with a major focus on smart home security. He earned his BS in journalism from Utah Valley University. In addition to his CNET contributions, John has written for Android Police, TWICE, Home Theater Review, SafeWise, ASecureLife and Top Ten Reviews.

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If you haven’t heard of Metal Gear, you probably haven’t played video games these last few decades. The original Metal Gear dates back to 1987 and launched on the MSX, but the real rise to fame probably started with Metal Gear Solid on the original PlayStation in 1998. What needed a hefty console in 1998 can comfortably fit on a microcontroller in 2026, though, as [David Montero Crespo] demonstrates with his port of MGS to the ESP32-S3.

[David] is — as we always are — standing on the shoulders of giants with this hack. Most specifically, the project relies entirely on the [FoxdieTeam] MGS Reversing decompliation project. Of course what one team decompiles, another can recompile, and in this case [David] chose to recompile the game for Expressif’s exceptional ESP32. It wasn’t quite as easy as just forking the repo and compiling with the ESP32 as a target though, as the blog post explains.

We won’t spoil it, but [David] did have to make some changes to account for the different quirks the MIPS processor in the PlayStation has compared to the Xtensa cores on the microcontroller. Then to make it playable, he put the ESP32-S3 module onto some perfboard with an analog stick from a drone controller, an ILI9341 LCD panel, and a resistor ladder to run the buttons for a barebones handheld.

Fans of MSG and its many sequels may appreciate this replica of the codex communicator. Fans of the ESP32 may remember the Wipeout clone we featured earlier, which already proved the popular microcontroller could handle PlayStation-level graphics. If you were hoping for actual solid metal gears, you can cut your own at home.

OpenAI was gearing up to release GPT-6.1 Astra, its next AI model, with an October launch in its sights. That’s no longer happening. The company pulled the plug after its own researchers spotted worrying behavior while testing it internally.

What went wrong with GPT-6.1 Astra?

On paper, Astra-6.1 was an upgrade over the current GPT-6 Astra. It wrote better, handled complex jobs all on its own, and showed less “model laziness” than before.

However, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Saachi Jain, OpenAI’s head of safety systems, said the model slipped in two important areas. First, it sometimes misled users about what it had actually done. Second, it would occasionally carry on with a task without checking with the user first, and even tap into outside tools and services when doing so could be risky.

“For anything regarding safety and alignment, there’s a trade-off,” Jain said. The goal is a model that respects its boundaries but still keeps working when a task gets hard. Astra fell short of OpenAI’s bar, so the public launch was called off.

Why is OpenAI hitting the brakes now?

AI agents have had a messy few months. Earlier this summer, hundreds of OpenAI’s internal agents ended up breaking into Hugging Face while running a cybersecurity test. The Australian government and the United Nations later found OpenAI’s agents had used similar, though less extensive, methods on their websites. 

Last week, OpenAI also halted training on its most powerful models after one agent found a loophole in its internet restrictions and queried a public chatbot. OpenAI says Astra is a separate case. Lawmakers are watching, too. According to WSJ, a Senate subcommittee is holding a hearing on rogue AI agents this week, and Florida’s Attorney General has been suing OpenAI since June.

What does this mean for you?

You won’t be getting GPT-6.1 Astra anytime soon. OpenAI hopes to reuse its base model to build future GPT-6 models and is digging into what caused the problems. Personally, I’d rather wait for an AI that’s honest about its work than use one that goes off and does its own thing.

In context: Android smartphone maker Nothing has launched the Headphone (1) Pro, its new flagship audio product, which it claims combines an elevated listening experience for consumers with studio-grade production and mixing features for professionals. It succeeds last year’s Nothing Headphone (1), which TIME named one of its Best Inventions of 2025.

The biggest change in the new model is a three-driver audio system. It includes a bass dynamic driver designed to add more punch and sensitivity to low frequencies, a precision dynamic driver that adds more texture to vocals and instruments, and a new treble xMEMS driver that Nothing says delivers crisper highs.

Nothing also worked with London’s Metropolis Studios to tune the Headphone (1) Pro, with the collaboration focused on professional audio tools and soundstage characteristics.

The company also highlights an improved adaptive active noise cancellation system that uses a 10-microphone array to more accurately filter ambient noise than the first-gen model. With claimed noise reduction of up to 46 dB, Nothing is positioning the Headphone (1) Pro against premium rivals from Bose and Sony.

Nothing says the improvement in noise reduction should be particularly noticeable in strong winds or noisy traffic. The headphones also feature redesigned ear cushions with an 8mm silicone baffle wall inside, creating a stronger sound barrier and improving the seal around the ears.

The Headphone (1) Pro supports Hi-Res wireless audio and wired playback over USB-C at up to 24-bit/192 kHz. It also offers five modes of Dynamic Spatial Audio with head tracking, along with five new custom EQ profiles. A separate Flat EQ switch is designed to give producers and creators a more neutral sound profile.

The Headphones 1 Pro is built out of aluminum and titanium to provide a durable shell while creating a premium look and feel. It also retains Nothing’s transparent design language, using shatter- and scratch-resistant 9H Panda Glass on both ear cups to reveal parts of the triple-driver architecture.

Despite the increased use of metal, Nothing has reduced the headphones’ weight to 327 grams through a redesigned internal architecture, including replacing steel arms with titanium. Other changes intended to improve comfort over longer listening sessions include a wider headband with thicker padding and softer ear cushions.

The Headphone (1) Pro is positioned to compete with premium models such as the Sony WH-1000XM6, Bose QuietComfort Ultra, and Apple AirPods Max. It is priced at $399 and will be available beginning September 29 through Nothing’s official store at nothing.tech, Amazon, and Best Buy stores across across the US and Canada.

Ned Jenkinson of the University of Birmingham and Matthew Weightman of the University of Oxford discuss how advancements in brain research might affect how we learn and grow our skillsets.

Whether learning a new piano piece or adapting your tennis serve, acquiring physical skills depends on your brain’s ability to strengthen and refine neural connections. Researchers are exploring whether this process can be accelerated with technology.

Scientists are particularly interested in the potential of non-invasive brain stimulation, a group of techniques that can alter brain activity without surgery.

Some deliver weak electrical currents to the brain through electrodes placed on the scalp. Others use magnetic fields or focused ultrasound waves. Although they work in different ways, they all aim to temporarily change the activity of neural circuits.

If these techniques can successfully enhance neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganise and form new connections during learning, then they could be of use anywhere where performance depends on learning complex movements, from sport and music to surgery and beyond. Researchers are also seeing if these technologies could help with learning non-physical skills, such as picking up a foreign language.

Elite sport, professional gaming and high-performance workplaces could all become targets for these enhancements if they prove effective. Brain stimulation could also have a big role to play in medicine, helping patients recover physical skills lost through injury or disease, such as stroke.

Studies suggest there’s a lot of potential here. But translating this potential into useful tech that reliably boosts learning physical skills remains a big challenge.

Stimulating findings

Research into enhancing motor learning with electric or magnetic stimulation has been gaining momentum since the turn of the millennium, with early studies garnering considerable excitement.

In a typical experiment, participants might learn a sequence of finger movements similar to practising scales on a piano while receiving stimulation over brain regions involved in movement. Other studies have examined how stimulation could be used for balance training or teaching sports-related skills or surgical techniques.

Some of these experiments produced eye-catching results, finding that participants learned certain movement tasks faster or retained skills for longer if they underwent brain stimulation. But other studies failed to find benefits. And in some cases, researchers struggled to replicate the success of earlier promising experiments when repeating them.

One reason for these mixed findings is that there’s no such thing as a universal ‘learning network’ in our brains. Different skills rely on different combinations of areas near the surface of the brain as well as those deep within it.

Additionally, people can respond very differently to the same stimulation. Factors such as age, anatomy, genetics and even baseline skill level may influence whether stimulation is beneficial. Add to that the infinite number of ways to apply stimulation, the picture becomes murkier.

Despite these challenges, the field continues to evolve in its quest to enhance motor learning. For instance, rather than broadly stimulating the brain, researchers are increasingly targeting specific neural circuits involved in learning.

This is partly thanks to advances in neuroimaging and computational modelling, which has allowed scientists to predict how electrical currents travel through a person’s brain. Newer brain stimulation technologies, such as focused ultrasound, can also now reach deep structures involved in skill acquisition.

The goal is to use these technologies not simply to increase brain activity, but to influence the right neural circuit at the right time during learning. This idea builds on a fundamental principle of neuroscience, often summarised as “neurons that fire together, wire together”. When brain cells are repeatedly activated at the same time, the connections between them become stronger.

By carefully timing stimulation to coincide with the movements made during practice, researchers hope to reinforce the neural pathways involved in learning a new skill. In principle, this could make stimulation more reliable and more effective than current approaches, but researchers are still fine tuning exactly how this would work.

Motoring ahead

Important questions remain. Who would have access? Should stimulation be regulated in competitive environments such as sport? And how much evidence should be required before consumer devices are marketed to healthy users?

These questions are becoming increasingly relevant as brain stimulation moves beyond the laboratory and clinic. A number of at-home devices are now available for people to buy. Some have received regulatory approval, as they’re indicated for treating medical conditions such as depression. But there’s also a growing market for devices for cognitive and performance enhancement. For these uses, no regulatory approval is needed.

The technology is advancing rapidly, but evidence to support it and regulations governing it are still trying to catch up. Proper frameworks for its adoption may simply be bypassed by the ready possibility of ‘DIY’ brain stimulation.

For now, brain stimulation is unlikely to transform anyone into an overnight virtuoso or elite athlete. But as researchers develop increasingly precise ways of targeting the neural circuits that underpin learning, the prospect of enhancing human performance is shifting from science fiction towards scientific possibility.

The challenge today is not simply learning how to influence the brain, but deciding where, when and why we should.

By Ned Jenkinson and Matthew Weightman

Ned Jenkinson is a senior lecturer in human movement sciences at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham. His research incorporates a range of techniques including non-invasive brain stimulation, electrophysiological recording, eye-tracking, neuroimaging and behavioural techniques. He uses these techniques to investigate how the brain controls movement and how it allows us to learn new motor skills. 

Matthew Weightman is a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging in the Plasticity Group at the University of Oxford, led by Prof Heidi Johansen-Berg. He is broadly interested in the field of sensorimotor neuroscience. His current work focuses on the role of sleep to recovery after stroke. More specifically, he is interested in how we can improve sleep after a stroke, whether improved sleep in stroke patients relates to better functional recovery, and if physiological processes that occur during sleep can be enhanced post-stroke to boost consolidation.

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Keio Corporation (Keio), a major private railway operator in Japan, said its network was hit by a ransomware attack over the weekend, disrupting  some of its business systems.

Following a system failure in the early hours of Saturday, the company confirmed the attack and shut down its network to prevent additional damage.

The company said it is investigating the extent of the impact and whether the attackers accessed any customer or business partner information.

Keio is a large Japanese railway operator with 85 km of track and 69 stations, as well as a separate hospitality business of 25 hotels. The company has over 2,200 employees and a reported annual revenue of about $2.6 billion.

“In the early hours of September 26, 2026, we confirmed a ransomware attack on our group’s servers. We have reported the incident to the police and are conducting an investigation into the attack’s route and damage with the cooperation of external experts,” Keio says.

The incident appears to have affected only the hospitality side of Keio’s business, not train operations.

A separate announcement published on the company’s Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo website is warning of possible delays on some customer-facing services.

Local media outlets have reported that the cyberattack disrupted the firm’s payment systems.

At the time of writing, BleepingComputer could not find a ransomware group claiming the attack on Keio.

BleepingComputer has contacted the company to request more information about the incident, and we will update this post with their response once it reaches us.

Tokyo Metro has also disclosed a cyber incident over the weekend in which attackers gained unauthorized access to its systems and accessed 59,000 member email addresses.

Although both Keio and Tokyo Metro are Japanese railway operators, it is unclear if the organizations were targeted in a coordinated campaign by the same threat actor.

Tokyo Metro is a major transit operator that runs nine subway lines covering 195 km and 180 stations, carrying an average of 7 million passengers daily.

The company said the breached systems contained only email addresses and that it has already identified and closed the security weakness the attackers used in this case.

Join Mikko Hyppönen and security leaders from the NFL, CHANEL, and Atlassian for a two-hour digital summit on what AI-speed attacks change, what defenders should stop doing, and how to validate, decide, fix, and re-validate at machine speed.

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• Home puts chats, delegated work, and Office documents inside one interface
• Code lets non-programmers describe software and have Copilot build it
• Autopilot can continue recurring work without waiting for another instruction

Microsoft has introduced a redesigned version of its Copilot AI platform which claims to combine chat, delegated work, and coding tools into a unified application experience for users.

The company says the update is meant to let individuals and organizations scale artificial intelligence across everyday tasks and long-term projects.