Once the purview of crime labs and TV shows, DNA tests have instead become common gifts for birthdays, holidays and special occasions like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Quick tests like 23andMe and AncestryDNA have made the process of learning more about your family history easier, cheaper and faster than ever. 

But in her new book, The Psychology of Genealogy, psychologist Susan Moore warns that you should consider all the risks before undergoing a test. 

“Should you give DNA kits as gifts? It can be fun; it can be risky,” Moore said. 

Why you should exercise caution 

Beyond the safety concerns of a company having your DNA on file with the potential of data breaches and privacy concerns, emotional fallout can be an unexpected — yet not uncommon — result of these DNA tests. While genetic testing promises answers and connection, those findings can upend long-held beliefs about your identity and family. 

Read more: Tired of Booze and Beard Oil for Father’s Day Gifts? We’ve Got Over 30 Different Options to Try Instead

With over 30 million users and a multibillion-dollar industry, surprising matches and results are common. Misattributed paternity, donor-conception discoveries, late-found adoptions and unknown family members have all emerged from growing databases. For people unprepared for these outcomes, the psychological effects can be severe, according to Moore. 

Moore calls it “identity disruption” when new genetic information can undermine a person’s sense of self and belonging. She says some integrate the news and move on, while others face betrayal, mistrust and grief. 

Why do people test anyway? 

There are many practical, real risks when it comes to DNA testing. So why do millions of people still purchase them and send in their swabs?

Moore points to a few basic drives, such as curiosity, a need for rootedness and the intellectual thrill of uncovering family lore as to why people still undergo genetic tests. Genealogy can bring joy when people find long-lost relatives or overcome research barriers. Yet, curiosity often meets hard, unexpected truths.

“DNA gives you some new and interesting clues to your family tree structure, but the hard work of making sense of those clues must still be done,” Moore said. 

If you’re still interested in pursuing genetic testing anyway, Moore offers some simple advice: Test only if you want to explore ancestry and are ready to learn how to interpret results and contact matches ethically. Do not gift a kit without asking first, and make sure recipients are emotionally prepared and aware of privacy risks.

TL;DR: ASML’s most advanced chipmaking tools have become the focus of a renewed dispute in Washington over how far the US should go to keep cutting-edge semiconductor technology out of China. In recent months, the Trump administration has pressed ASML over whether one of its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines may have slipped past export controls and ended up in China. According to people familiar with the talks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised the issue directly with ASML’s senior leadership, asking whether a machine that has never been approved for export to China could have nonetheless reached the country.

EUV is the technology that underpins today’s most advanced processors. The machines are used by companies such as TSMC to manufacture high-performance chips for Nvidia and Apple. They are roughly the size of a school bus, are produced in limited quantities, and require constant maintenance from ASML engineers.

US export rules have long barred ASML from selling EUV tools to China, and the company says it complies with those restrictions. In its discussions with Lutnick, ASML pushed back on the suggestion that an EUV system could be operating in China, according to people familiar with the talks.

A company spokesperson, responding to questions about those meetings, said ASML has never shipped an EUV machine to China and stressed that it regularly engages with governments worldwide while adhering to export regulations.

The conversation has taken on a sharper edge in Washington. Multiple senior Trump administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believe ASML is not acting in good faith, citing exports to China of equipment they say is specifically related to EUV tools.

They declined to provide documentation, citing the sensitivity of the information, and did not say they had proof of an actual EUV machine operating in China. ASML, for its part, denied to Bloomberg that it has shipped any EUV-specific equipment to China.

Credit: Bloomberg

Behind the scenes, the pressure has triggered an internal scramble at ASML. After Lutnick’s April meeting, the company prepared a document titled “No Indication of Any ASML EUV System in China” and circulated it among officials in Washington, according to people familiar with the situation.

The document, reviewed by Bloomberg, says there are 314 EUV machines in use worldwide and 26 that have been decommissioned, with none located in China. It also states that ASML can automatically detect “any interruption, abnormal behavior, or loss of connectivity” across its EUV fleet, and that customers “cannot remove, transport, or relocate EUV systems without ASML involvement due to specialized handling procedures.”

Those technical constraints are central to ASML’s argument. EUV tools are so complex that they effectively remain under the company’s oversight throughout their operational life. ASML says customers cannot remove, transport, or relocate EUV systems without its involvement because of specialized handling requirements.

Yet skepticism within the Trump administration persists. Senior officials say they have evidence that ASML shipped specialized transport equipment and other components for use with EUV systems to Chinese customers, though they have declined to provide supporting records.

The technology at the heart of the dispute is critical to China’s AI ambitions. Huawei Technologies, which has been cut off from EUV tools, has made progress in producing advanced chips without ASML’s most sophisticated equipment, narrowing the gap with TSMC. That absence of EUV capability is widely seen as one of the most significant constraints on Huawei’s ability to mass-produce cutting-edge AI chips.

If investigators were ever to confirm that a full EUV system had reached China, it would amount to one of the most serious known breaches of the US-led export control regime designed to limit Beijing’s access to high-end AI hardware. For now, officials have declined to explain why, if they suspect such a violation, they have not brought public enforcement actions or further tightened restrictions.

ASML’s broader China business is already constrained. The Netherlands has blocked EUV sales to Chinese chipmakers and, under US pressure, has also restricted certain types of immersion deep ultraviolet tools. Washington has been frustrated that ASML accelerated shipments of some DUV systems before the newer rules took effect.

Senior Trump administration officials say those episodes, along with alleged EUV-related exports, point to a company that is too willing to prioritize short-term revenue over national security.

The dispute over EUV is unfolding as Washington debates how far to extend its export control regime. The US has effectively severed Huawei from most foreign technology and has used extraterritorial measures to draw companies such as ASML into that effort.

At the same time, gaps remain in how allied controls are applied and how far they extend to maintenance, servicing, and support for restricted Chinese firms such as SwaySure Technology, which US officials say has received technological support from ASML. The administration has tools to halt those relationships outright but has not done so, and negotiations with the Netherlands and Japan over tighter rules have yet to produce a decisive outcome.

In Congress, lawmakers are pushing a bill that would bring foreign suppliers, including ASML and Tokyo Electron, under restrictions more closely aligned with those on US firms, and would effectively ban ASML’s shipments of immersion DUV tools to China.

That shift would hit a business ASML expects to generate about one-fifth of its 2026 revenue. The Trump administration has not taken a formal position on the legislation, and US diplomats have suggested that a broader US-EU trade deal could reduce momentum behind the bill, which several European governments oppose.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) disclosed a data breach at its license system vendor that exposed personal information for more than three million individuals.

The Texas Cyber Command discovered the intrusion and launched an investigation to determine the extent and impact of the unauthorized access. The state authority found that Social Security Numbers (SSNs), dates of birth, or any financial information, such as credit cards, have not been impacted.

However, the threat actor may have obtained personally identifiable information that includes the following data types associated with 3,087,721 Texas hunting and fishing license customers:

• Driver’s license information
• Passport numbers
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Residential addresses

The exposed data set is sufficient for hackers to target impacted individuals in phishing and social engineering attacks that lead to web pages distributing malware or seeking more sensitive information.

“There is no evidence that customers under the age of 18 were involved or that any specific group was targeted,” TPWD says in the data breach notification.

TPWD is the Texas state agency responsible for managing wildlife and fisheries, state parks, conservation programs, hunting and fishing regulations, boating registration, and enforcement by Texas Game Wardens.

The Texas state agency also issues hunting and fishing licenses and permits, which are sold through an external vendor.

BleepingComputer contacted TPWD for more information about the incident and the name of the third-party service provider, but we have not yet received a statement.

The agency  says that it is “working closely with the license system vendor to implement new safeguards and enhanced monitoring services.”

TPWD advises customers to monitor their credit reports and financial statements. Impacted individuals are eligible for one year of free credit monitoring and should consider placing a credit freeze or fraud alert with major credit bureaus as an added protection against identity thieves.

It is also strongly recommended to remain vigilant for phishing and impersonation scams, as threat actors may try to send communication posing as a company or an official.

Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.

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Jon Prosser, the leaker Apple is currently suing for allegedly leaking iOS 26 trade secrets, has published yet another video on his YouTube channel called Front Page Tech, showing what he says could be the final design of the purported iPhone Ultra.

Along with slightly different renders from last time, Prosser also points to iOS 27 developer code to back up his claims, particularly regarding the existence of the iPhone Ultra and a new feature that iOS users have been requesting for years.

So what does the latest iPhone Ultra leak actually show?

The renders show a book-style foldable that Prosser describes as a “chunky iPhone” when closed and an “iPad” when opened, something we’ve already known for a while. When unfolded, the phone could measure just 4.5 mm, making it slimmer than the iPhone Air at 5.6 mm.

The titanium body pairs with what the host calls an “over-engineered hinge” designed to produce a near-creaseless display. Apple has reportedly been developing the technology for quite some time and has also faced a couple of setbacks.

As seen in the video, the purported iPhone Ultra could come in two colors: white and black (or a dark gray finish). Most of these details aren’t entirely new and have been echoed by several different sources.

What stood out to me, however, were a few smaller details that didn’t get much attention in the video.

What’s changed since the December leak?

Front Page Tech also uploaded a similar video in December 2025, calling the foldable the “iPhone Fold” instead of iPhone Ultra. After watching both videos side by side, here are some changes that I’ve noticed.

While the previous video had the power button (with integrated Touch ID) at the top of the smartphone, right above the camera bar (with the display facing you), the new renders show volume buttons in that position instead. There’s also a speaker grille on the top frame.

The power button is now located on the right frame, where it normally sits on an iPhone, but on the bottom half of the foldable. This isn’t the typical iPad button layout everyone is used to, and it may take some adjustment.

The elephant in the room is the new, more compact camera visor. Instead of covering the entire width of the rear panel, it extends only around the dual rear-facing camera module, elevating the sensors above an otherwise flat panel and creating a more seamless look.

What about the new iOS feature?

Prosser claims the iPhone Ultra will bring split-screen multitasking to iOS, though it would reportedly be exclusive to the foldable. That means your current iPhone likely won’t get it, even though it supports iOS 27.

Apple appears to be laying the groundwork in iOS 27 code, with strings like “fold state” and “angle degrees” surfacing in the developer beta. 

Following WWDC 2026, Apple also instructed developers to prepare for a dynamic range of screen sizes and aspect ratios. If Prosser is right, the iPhone Ultra would be the first iPhone to properly run two apps side by side.

Other claims about the phone, such as the A20 chip, the C2 modem with satellite-based 5G connectivity, and a price tag north of $2,000, remain similar. Whether the iPhone Ultra will ship with Touch ID and a Camera Control button remains unclear, but a September 2026 launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max seems likely.

Demand for artificial intelligence compute continues to rise, necessitating the search for new sources of reliable power and effective cooling. Facilities built on land frequently face opposition from communities concerned about electricity bills, noise, and water consumption. Panthalassa, a Pacific Northwest-based company, has spent the last decade developing floating platforms that generate power straight from ocean waves while staying cool in the surrounding waters. Data is transmitted to and from the platforms via satellite links rather than undersea cables. The strategy isolates operations far from shore and takes advantage of wave energy that is available around the clock in strategically chosen places.

Current prototypes for continuous wave power resemble large steel barges that sit primarily at the ocean’s bottom, with only a small portion visible above the water. Since 2025, the Ocean-2 test unit has been located off the coast of Washington state. It is around 70 metres long and produces a full megawatt of power when the waves are perfect. Waves shaking the floating part of the item push all of the water down a conduit into a reservoir underwater, where gravity simply allows it to drop into a unique water-tight turbine that generates energy. They’ve engineered it such that strong ocean conditions can’t get in and cause damage, and there are no exposed bits to break.

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Photos of the Ocean-2 in the ocean reveal a plain steel construction with scale markings, antennae protruding out, and a few other components visible above the waves. Engineers made the prototypes out of thick steel coated with zinc or aluminum to prevent rusting, and they expect them to last at least 15 years. The compute bits that will be added when they go commercial will be in sealed containers with cold saltwater circulating inside, as they picked this design because the seawater will absorb the heat for them without the need for mechanical cooling or large fans to blast the moisture away.

The larger commercial ones they’re planning on are about 85 meters long and will have some AI components in those seawater-cooled containers, allowing numerous ones to work together as a larger data center. The results will be sent back to the control center via SpaceX Starlink satellites, eliminating the need to connect to the grid or run cables all the way back to the shore. They believe this technology is best suited for large, time-consuming operations that do not require immediate results.

Setting it all up begins on the beach or in a secluded body of water. Then they pull the object out to deeper water and let it sit up, as it will go from there on its own or with a little aid from a crew to its eventual destination. Targets are stretches of the Southern Ocean away from all maritime lines. The first commercial one with all of the AI gear is scheduled for 2027 and will be constructed at a new plant in the United States.
[Source]

security

Owners of affected iPhones can stop checking for patches now: the fix for this SecureROM bug comes in a new handset

A newly disclosed BootROM exploit affecting Apple’s A12 and A13 chips gives researchers a way to break the secure boot chain on millions of iPhones and other Apple devices.

The exploit, dubbed “usbliter8” by security researchers at Paradigm Shift, targets a flaw in the SecureROM code found on the iPhone XS, XR, 11, and 11 Pro models, plus other devices powered by Apple’s A12 and A13 processors. Because the vulnerability resides in immutable BootROM code burned into silicon during manufacturing, it cannot be patched. 

The researchers traced the issue to the Synopsys DesignWare USB controller used by Apple. A flaw in how the hardware handles certain USB setup packets allows attackers to corrupt memory during Device Firmware Update (DFU) mode, and ultimately gain control of SecureROM itself.

That might sound like an unremarkable minor moment in boot process, but SecureROM sits at the very bottom of Apple’s chain of trust. If an attacker can compromise it, they can interfere with everything that comes afterward.

For ordinary iPhone owners, there is little reason to panic. Exploitation requires physical access to a device and the ability to place it into DFU mode, which means this isn’t the sort of bug criminals are likely to weaponize in phishing campaigns or drive-by attacks.

For security researchers, however, BootROM vulnerabilities are the gift that keeps on giving. Unlike software flaws that disappear after the next patch Tuesday, these bugs remain exploitable for the lifetime of the hardware.

Paradigm’s proof-of-concept demonstrates the ability to run unsigned code during the boot process, load custom iBoot images without signature checks, and modify DFU behavior. The exploit also marks compromised devices with the traditional “PWND” – a string familiar to anyone who spent time around the jailbreaking community over the last decade.

Not every generation of iPhone has the flaw. According to the researchers, Apple’s A11 chips dodge the issue thanks to a different USB implementation, while A14 and later hardware appears to have fixed the conditions that make the exploit possible in the first place.

“While newer generations have addressed the underlying issue, affected A12 and A13 devices will carry it for the remainder of their lifetime,” said Paradigm researchers. “For those who have followed the history of iPhone exploitation and jailbreaking, this research is a reminder that the BootROM still occasionally has a surprise left to give.

The team said it disclosed the findings to Apple before publication and coordinated the release of the research with the company. Apple did not respond to The Register’s request for comment. 

The exploit doesn’t directly compromise Apple’s Secure Enclave Processor, which remains responsible for protecting passcodes, encryption keys, and other sensitive data. Still, gaining control of SecureROM is about as close as researchers can get to the keys to the kingdom without crossing that final boundary.

There’s no fix, but a remedy is simple, if somewhat expensive: buy a new iPhone.  ®

In 2018, Amazon brought me in as the lead UX Sound Designer for Astro, their first consumer home robot. Astro used cameras and other sensors to map and navigate your home and workplace, and could proactively patrol, check up on loved ones, and transport small items using its built-in cargo bin. While there was a well-defined feature set and form factor, initially there was no character direction. In fact, even before Astro had a name, there were two main questions—was it simply Alexa on wheels, or was it a robot with its own character?

The Astro team was divided. One option was to focus on Alexa, and treat the mobile robot simply as an added utility. I argued for Astro to not focus on Alexa, along with the majority of the UX team. Our belief was that a thing that moves through your home and turns toward you with intent can never be just an appliance. People would ascribe character to whether we wanted them to or not, and so the only question was whether we shaped that character or let it happen by accident.

Ultimately, Astro became Astro rather than Alexa, and user testing backed up our decision. People didn’t see the robot as Alexa. They saw it as its own character, and that’s what they wanted it to be. Alexa on the device felt somewhat strange and creepy, but building Astro its own voice was too slow and expensive in 2018. So, we settled on Alexa as a supporting character that handled any actual talking, while Astro was the main character, communicating as much as it could without words, through sound, motion, and facial expressions.

I had been brought on to the Astro team to define the robot’s sound design language and voice. But there was no one to flesh out the robot’s actual character. You cannot make a single real decision about a character without defining it first. Every choice about how Astro moved, sounded, paused, or reacted was a character choice, and those choices required all disciplines working together. As Sound Lead, I was weaving together sound, motion, and character, and how they played together inside each story moment. The animators, who programmed Astro’s motion and facial expressions, were extraordinary at what they did, but the emotional arc they were animating came from the sound (and therefore character) work first. So I stepped into that role, which is where my real work started. What I learned about building character for robots applies to nearly everything being built in embodied AI right now.

Character Is a Design System

Developing a character for Astro meant answering questions that had never been asked about a product at Amazon: What is the emotional range of this robot’s baseline state? How does this robot communicate uncertainty without eroding trust? Where is the line between being expressive and annoying? What are the vulnerabilities of this device’s character?

These are design questions. They have real answers, and every team working on the product has to build from them. For example, Astro’s emotional range was designed to be relatively small at first. We never wanted Astro to get too sad or too angry. It could play sad, but would snap out of it quickly and end the reaction on a high note to keep things positive.

Character leaks out of every seam and can create a disjointed experience if not defined correctly. Even if it’s just animation timing that’s slightly off, or a response that’s technically correct but contextually tone-deaf, users feel every one of these inconsistencies, even if they can’t name them. Watch what happens at the beginning and end of this Sing sequence:

Astro goes from nothing, into the emotional moment, and then lands back on nothing. No build up, no cool down, no sense that the feeling came from somewhere or had anywhere to go. I pushed hard for better character stitching, the transitions in and out of expressive moments that make a performance feel continuous rather than assembled, but it never got implemented. The moment itself works. But without the stitching, it reads as a clip playing on a robot rather than coming from within the robot character itself.

Story and Sound at the Beginning

We had decided that Astro would have no spoken dialogue, but it had something that functioned the same way: a vocabulary of sounds, tones, and rhythms that acted as its voice. This vocabulary became the leading output of the character’s personality. The robot’s motion and facial expressions were built around it.

Astro’s wake-up sequence is a great example. Waking wasn’t just a boot animation on the screen; it was an entire performance. Slow and humble at first, the robot oriented itself quietly, then stretched its screen, checked its wheels, and finally, with an upward gesture toward its telescoping mast, it popped it up slightly, and did a little dance of joy. Sound, motion, and eyes hit every beat together in full choreography.

The character’s output in that sequence was first written as a story. Astro is waking up in its new home for the first time. Its main aspiration is to be part of a family, so this is the moment it has been waiting for, this is its purpose. Being the responsible character that it is, it wants to make sure everything is good to go before it introduces itself and starts learning its new home.

This narrative came first because it drove every other decision that we made. After the story was written, sound gave that story a metaphorical voice: the excited tones, the pacing as it checked its wheels, and the bright melodic phrase as Astro looked up at its new family for the first time and introduced itself. Once the sound was laid down, animation did their thing with motion and facial expressions, taking cues from the emotional arc the sound had established. Motion didn’t lead—it followed the feeling of the story and the sounds, the same way an animator follows a recorded vocal take.

That wake up sequence became one of the most-discussed moments in early user testing. People described it as “alive.” What they were responding to wasn’t any single element. It was all three channels (sound, motion, and facial expressions) expressing the same defined character in harmony.

Context Is Where Character Becomes Real

The most compelling characters are defined not by a fixed disposition but by how they respond to their environments and the people in them. They’re still recognizably themselves even as they adapt. This is what I call contextual character. A robot living in a home doesn’t occupy a single emotional state. It moves through rooms with different energy, encounters people in different moods, operates at different times of day, and responds to an endless range of social situations it was never explicitly designed for.

We got close to a contextual character output with Astro’s sound. When a specific piece of environmental context was fed in, the system adapted beautifully, and Astro felt completely alive. But every state like this was still a prediction we made by hand—a situation we had to imagine in advance and design a response for. A random home throws more situations at a robot than anyone can possibly predict, so there was always a longer tail of moments the system was never prepared for.

The difference between a product people describe as “smart” and one they describe as “aware” often comes down to this. Smartness is capability. Awareness is context. Presence is character. And character is always in reaction to the people around it, to its environment, to its own evolving state. That’s what makes it feel like something is emotionally present with you.

This is where AI changes the game for character design in ways that go well beyond what was possible with Astro. AI-driven adaptation doesn’t require the contextual predictions that we relied on. It learns the specific rhythms, preferences, and emotional context of the people it lives and works with. The character doesn’t just respond to context. It grows into it.

What Industry Is Missing

The character and soul of the impending wave of embodied AI products appears to almost always be an afterthought. And character defined late is character defined by default. It becomes the sum of a thousand small decisions made by different people thinking about anything but character. People project character onto devices whether you plan for it or not, especially if those devices move—a robot that moves is already a character. If nobody has designed this character, the result will be products that feel like nothing, or worse, feel confusing and not trustworthy. Technically impressive, but lifeless.

We did not get this fully right with Astro. So many things were moving in parallel that character was rarely treated as a utility, and it made sense why. When you are building a first-of-its-kind product, the things that are the loudest are the ones that break, the deadlines, the costs, the features a customer can point to on a box. Character is quieter than all of that. It’s easy to assume it can come later. On a team as large as the Amazon Astro team, it’s lucky to get any idea onto the roadmap when it is competing with a hundred others that all feel more urgent in the moment. None of this came from people not caring. It came from character being the kind of thing that is hard to prioritize until you see what its absence costs you.

My Asks to Product Leaders

If you are building a product that will share physical or conversational space with people, three things are worth considering:

Define character before you define interactions. You need a defensible character with enough emotional logic to answer hard questions consistently. Find answers to character questions early, and have every discipline build from the same foundation.

Build story and sound into the character pipeline, not the production pipeline. Story and sound developed alongside character definition has the chance to inform motion, expression, and interaction logic. This requires a different kind of collaboration, and a different kind of hire.

Design for adaptation, not just consistency. A consistent character is necessary, but the products that will matter most in people’s lives are the ones that deepen through use. The infrastructure to support that is more and more accessible, but the design thinking to take advantage of it is still rare.

An unabridged version of this story can be read on Medium.

Sennheiser has launched its first serious challenger in the growing open-ear earbuds market, with the new Accentum Clip promising the situational awareness that this category is known for. It does so without sacrificing sound quality.

Open-ear earbuds have become increasingly popular among commuters, runners and gym-goers who want to stay aware of their surroundings while listening to music. However, the trade-off has often been weaker audio performance. That’s exactly what Sennheiser is aiming to address here.

The Accentum Clip uses a 12mm dynamic driver and carries Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification, with support for LDAC on compatible devices for higher-quality music streaming. In addition, Sennheiser has included a Dynamic EQ feature that automatically adjusts audio performance at lower volumes. This helps maintain bass and clarity without introducing distortion.

The earbuds feature a clip-style design that sits outside the ear canal rather than sealing it off. According to Sennheiser, this allows users to hear traffic, conversations and other environmental sounds naturally, without relying on transparency modes.

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Each earbud weighs just 6.8g and uses a flexible silicone bridge designed to fit a wide range of ear shapes. An IP54 rating means they’re protected against dust and sweat, making them a natural fit for workouts and outdoor use.

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Battery life is another highlight. The Accentum Clip can deliver up to nine hours of listening on a single charge, while the included charging case extends total playback to 36 hours. Notably, a quick 10-minute charge provides up to two hours of listening time.

Elsewhere, the earbuds are powered by Bluetooth 6.0. They support multipoint connectivity and Google Fast Pair. Furthermore, they use dual microphones with AI-powered noise reduction to improve call quality in noisy environments.

The Accentum Clip will be available in Black and Cream from 23 July 2026 in the UK, with pricing set at £149.

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