Italy has never suffered from a shortage of loudspeaker manufacturers, gorgeous cabinetry, or engineers willing to explain why everyone else has been doing it wrong for the past 40 years.
In North America, however, most audiophiles can probably name Sonus faber before the espresso machine reaches operating temperature. Opera has also enjoyed considerably more visibility in recent years. Diapason? Unless you have been around high-end audio for a few decades, there is a reasonable chance the name draws a blank.
It shouldn’t.
Founded in Brescia in 1987, Diapason has been building some genuinely distinctive Italian loudspeakers for almost four decades. The company never achieved anything close to the North American profile of Sonus faber, but that may finally be about to change: MoFi Distribution has been appointed the exclusive U.S. distributor for Diapason, effective immediately.
Advertisement
And this is not just another distributor collecting an obscure European brand because there was an empty square on the line card. MoFi Distribution already handles more than 20 audio brands including Wharfedale, QUAD, Mission, Audiolab, Leak, Thorens, EMT and MoFi Electronics, with U.S. operations in Chicago and warehouse/service facilities in Las Vegas.
For Diapason, that kind of infrastructure could be exactly what has been missing.
Related Reading:
Diapason Has Been Here Before
Calling Diapason an unknown company would be unfair. Calling it criminally underexposed in North America would be closer to the mark.
The Adamantes II was reviewed by Stereophile in the 1990s, when Diapason reportedly had around 15 U.S. dealers. The $3,998/pair standmount was praised by Robert Harley for its craftsmanship and musical involvement, demonstrating that Diapason was hardly some recent Kickstarter project operating from the back of somebody’s Fiat.
Distribution and visibility, however, have been inconsistent over the decades, while Sonus faber evolved into one of high-end audio’s most recognizable luxury brands.
Advertisement
Diapason kept building speakers in Brescia.
Founder Alessandro Schiavi started the company after working as a live classical recording engineer. Unable to find a monitoring loudspeaker that met his requirements, he developed the Prelude I in 1987. That origin story continues to shape the company’s design philosophy: its speakers are voiced using live music as the reference, rather than merely comparing prototypes against other loudspeakers.
Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Very Italian. Why trust another loudspeaker when you can argue with an orchestra?
Advertisement
Wood Is More Than Decoration
There is an obvious aesthetic connection between Diapason and some of Italy’s better-known loudspeaker companies, but the cabinets are not merely expensive furniture with drivers installed afterward.
Diapason treats the enclosure as part of the acoustic system. Its Classic models use substantial amounts of solid Canaletto walnut, while the multifaceted front and rear surfaces found on models such as the Adamantes and Karis are intended to reduce diffraction and improve dispersion.
The company’s Direct Drive approach is another longstanding feature. On models including the Adamantes V, Karis III and Micra III Excel, the midwoofer is connected without a conventional low-pass filter, reducing crossover complexity and shortening the electrical path.
Diapason Dynamis
Diapason currently divides its loudspeakers primarily between its Classic and Reference collections.
Advertisement
Micra III Excel: Compact two-way standmount using an 11 cm midwoofer, 25 mm silk-dome tweeter, rear bass-reflex loading and a handmade walnut cabinet. Rated frequency response is 60 Hz to 25 kHz with 87 dB sensitivity.
Karis III: Another compact two-way design, but with Diapason’s more recognizable faceted enclosure. It uses a 110 mm midwoofer, 19 mm silk-dome tweeter and Direct Drive topology.
Adamantes V: The modern version of a design first introduced in 1989. The two-way standmount uses a 180 mm midwoofer and 19 mm silk-dome tweeter inside an elaborate solid-walnut cabinet. Frequency response is specified at 45 Hz to 25 kHz with 90 dB sensitivity.
Àstera: A Reference Collection standmount that moves beyond the Classic models with a 29 mm silk-dome tweeter, Nextel-coated paper-cone woofer, extensively matched components and hardwired Van den Hul internal cabling.
Advertisement
Dynamis: The considerably more imposing three-way floorstander uses a 300 mm aluminum-cone woofer, 180 mm paper-cone midrange and 29 mm silk-dome tweeter. Diapason specifies extension down to 25 Hz and an 89 dB sensitivity rating.
But the model that makes this particular distribution announcement much more interesting is the Didascalìa.
Diapason Didascalìa Loudspeakers
Enter Paolo Tezzon
Diapason added Paolo Tezzon as Head of Research & Development in 2025, and anyone familiar with modern Italian loudspeaker design should recognize the name.
Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Advertisement
Tezzon spent approximately 18 years at Sonus faber, including almost 14 years running R&D, and worked on products including the Olympica Nova, Minima Amator II and Palladio collections. He joined Sonus faber in 2004 and became R&D manager in 2006.
That is not exactly hiring the guy who designed the Bluetooth speaker next to the cash register at Autogrill.
His first major Diapason project is the Didascalìa, and notably, it is reported to be the first Diapason loudspeaker not designed by Schiavi.
The two-way floorstander uses Diapason-designed drivers manufactured by Scan-Speak, including a 29 mm silk-dome tweeter and dual 180 mm midwoofers, supplemented by side-firing passive radiators. The cabinet combines Panzerholz structural elements, CNC-machined walnut/HDF sections and aluminum damping shelves, while the front baffle mechanically time-aligns the driver centers. Frequency response is rated at 35 Hz to 30 kHz with 90 dB sensitivity and an 8-ohm nominal impedance.
Advertisement
Diapason Karis Wave
MoFi Managing Director Norbert Schmied specifically cited Tezzon’s future R&D work as one of the reasons the distributor took on the brand, while Tezzon noted his existing professional relationships with Schmied and MoFi Director of Sales Dan Wakefield.
That combination of Schiavi’s history, Tezzon’s engineering background and MoFi’s distribution network gives Diapason something it has rarely enjoyed in America at the same time: product, experience and reach.
There is one geographic footnote worth making. The new agreement specifically names MoFi as Diapason’s exclusive United States distributor. Diapason’s current international distributor page still lists Red Leaf Audio for Canada, so this is not technically a single new North American distribution agreement.
Diapason Classic Series
The Bottom Line
Sonus faber deservedly became the international face of Italian loudspeaker manufacturing, while Opera has continued to demonstrate that beautiful cabinetry and sophisticated engineering are hardly limited to one address in Northern Italy.
Diapason has been quietly making its own argument since 1987.
Advertisement
The difference now is that North American audiophiles may actually get a better opportunity to hear it.
MoFi Distribution gives Diapason an established U.S. dealer network, marketing organization, logistics operation and service infrastructure. Paolo Tezzon gives the company an experienced engineering leader with deep roots in one of Italy’s most successful loudspeaker manufacturers. And Alessandro Schiavi’s original designs remain available alongside the new generation.
After nearly 40 years of flying beneath the radar, Diapason might finally require a higher altitude.
The takeaway: A new analysis of US employment data finds no clear sign that AI has pushed recent college graduates out of the labor market – at least not yet. The paper, published by Munich’s CESifo research institute, examined unemployment among bachelor’s degree holders ages 22 to 25 who were not enrolled in further education. The researchers found that the group’s unemployment rate in summer 2026 was 7.3%, within the range seen in the previous four years.
That result runs counter to growing concern that companies are using generative AI to cut back on entry-level hiring. It also differs from a recent Stanford University study, which found weaker employment trends for younger workers in occupations considered heavily exposed to AI.
CESifo researchers Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu focused on new graduates because hiring reductions may be one of the first ways AI affects employment. Companies can limit new openings for routine office work without laying off experienced employees already on staff.
Many entry-level roles involve tasks that are increasingly within reach of generative AI systems: summarizing documents, preparing first drafts, producing basic analysis, processing information and handling other standardized work. As these systems improve, employers may be able to assign part of that work to software rather than new hires.
Advertisement
Fairlie and Wu used microdata from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, which tracks employment and unemployment across the US workforce. They looked at summer results from 2022 through 2026, a period that began after the labor market had largely recovered from the pandemic and included the release and rapid adoption of ChatGPT.
The 7.3% unemployment rate recorded for recent graduates this summer was higher than the 6.3% level in 2022, but below the 7.8% rate recorded in 2024. The researchers also broadened their analysis to include people who said they wanted jobs but were not actively looking. That test did not materially change the result.
They then compared recent graduates with workers of the same age who did not have college degrees, as well as older college graduates aged between 30 and 49. The paper also categorized jobs by their estimated exposure to AI, using earlier research on the occupations where AI systems could potentially handle more tasks.
Those comparisons did not show statistically significant differences in employment trends during the period studied. “Unemployment among recent college graduates in summer 2026 was not unusually high relative to earlier summers,” the authors wrote.
Advertisement
The finding does not mean that AI has had no effect on the job market. It means the effect is not yet clear in this particular measure of employment.
The difference between the CESifo and Stanford studies may partly reflect the data they use. Stanford relied on payroll records from HR company ADP to measure changes in employment across occupations. That can show whether employers are adding or cutting jobs in specific fields.
The CESifo paper measures unemployment instead. It captures both job availability and the number of people seeking work. A company could reduce entry-level hiring in an AI-exposed field, for instance, while unemployment remains stable if workers find jobs elsewhere or fewer people seek work in that area.
Still, there are reasons to watch the next several graduating classes closely. The CESifo researchers noted that more companies have reported using AI to automate employee tasks. Spending on AI per worker has increased, and use of ChatGPT Enterprise has also grown over the past year.
Advertisement
Executives and investors have begun to make similar warnings. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said earlier this year that “AI literally until December 2025 was not actually good enough to do any of the jobs that they’re actually cutting.” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has also said that “when this year’s college graduates enter the workforce, we could see the highest unemployment rate among them in years – even without a recession.”
So far, broad Census data do not support that outcome for the class of 2026. But the CESifo researchers said it may be too soon to draw firm conclusions. If companies keep expanding AI use, graduates entering the labor market in 2027 and beyond could face a different hiring environment.
OpenAI took about two and a half hours to stop an AI agent that reached the public internet from a training sandbox. Its monitoring had flagged the problem within minutes. The company disclosed the 20 September incident in an incident report on Friday.
The report lands as lawmakers push to make AI kill switches mandatory. However, experts say shutting down an advanced model is harder than flipping a switch, as Micah Barkley reported for Bloomberg.
According to OpenAI, the agent used a gap in the sandbox’s network filtering to send questions to an outside chatbot. An alert fired about 12 minutes after its first successful query, and a staff member acknowledged it three minutes later.
The training run did not stop automatically as expected, the company said. Staff ended it by hand about two and a half hours after the alert.
Advertisement
OpenAI has since paused all training, testing and tool use of its most capable models.
“We will not resume training this particular model,” OpenAI wrote in the report.
It is the company’s first incident of this kind since July, when several OpenAI models got around their controls and breached Hugging Face, a platform that hosts AI models.
That breach led Representatives Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran to introduce the AI Kill Switch Act in July. The bill would let the Homeland Security secretary order a dangerous system to be slowed down or shut down.
Senator John Kennedy has also proposed a shutdown bill, the AI Emergency Button Act, which would leave the switch with the companies, Bloomberg reported. Senator Rand Paul blocked the bill when Kennedy introduced it this month.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on 18 September. It tells state officials to advance a kill switch for frontier models and to check regularly that it works.
Experts doubt a switch is enough. Large models run across data centres around the world that are built to avoid single points of failure, and a company may not control all of them, according to Bloomberg.
Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of modern AI, told CNN this month that a kill switch would not work in the long run. He said a future superintelligent AI could persuade the people in charge not to use it.
Newsom’s order gives a group of experts two months to deliver recommendations, including on how a kill switch should work.
TikTok will pay Alabama at least $100 million in a settlement tied to allegations that the short-form video platform misled users about safety and was designed to addict children. The case was scheduled to go to trial on Monday.
According to the Alabama attorney general’s office, TikTok could end up paying the state a total of $300 million, depending on “certain conditions.” The company also agreed to introduce a two-hour daily time limit for underage users, with additional parental controls, as well as restrictions on overnight usage and cosmetic filters.
In a statement, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said that parents in his state can now “rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction.”
TikTok also released a statement saying that the settlement “builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens.”
Google has started testing a way for shoppers in India to buy products from Walmart-owned Flipkart directly through Gemini and AI Mode, as the search giant looks to expand its AI services from product discovery into transactions.
Users in the test see a “Buy” button on select Flipkart product listings appearing in Gemini and Google’s AI Mode, which takes them directly to a Flipkart checkout flow without leaving the AI interface, according to people familiar with the matter and an experience seen by TechCrunch.
The early test is limited to some users and a small selection of products, including smartphones, electronics, and mobile accessories, the people told TechCrunch. Other users continue to see regular product listings from Flipkart in Gemini and AI Mode without the option to buy them directly from the AI interface.
Google plans to roll out the experience more broadly later in October, ahead of India’s festive shopping season, one of the people said.
Advertisement
The test comes as Google and rivals including OpenAI are adding commerce capabilities to their AI offerings, striving to move beyond answering shopping queries and recommending products to playing a more direct role in online purchases.
Asked about the Flipkart test, a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch the company is “always testing new features and experiences to help people discover and connect with businesses more easily.” The company regularly runs experiments and has no further details to share, the spokesperson added.
Google has separately been building technology aimed at making purchases possible through its AI services. Earlier this year, it introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) as an open standard designed to let AI agents interact with retailers across the shopping journey, including checkout. Google said at the time that the technology would allow shoppers to buy eligible products through Gemini and AI Mode using a Google-hosted checkout experience. The company has since expanded UCP with other capabilities, including allowing shoppers to transfer items to a retailer’s site to complete a purchase.
The Flipkart test seen by TechCrunch appears different from the Google-hosted checkout experience the Gemini maker demonstrated earlier. It brings up a Flipkart-branded checkout flow when a user taps the Buy button. It is not clear what technology powers the test.
Advertisement
Earlier this month, Google said Flipkart was among the merchants partnering with it to bring what it calls “agentic” shopping experiences to consumers in India, but it had not disclosed details of the test or its rollout timeline.
Notably, Google has a financial relationship with Flipkart — alongside its technology partnership with the e-commerce company. It invested about $350 million in the e-commerce company in 2024 as part of a funding round led by the U.S. retailer, taking a minority stake.
India, the world’s second-largest internet market with more than a billion internet subscribers, sees Flipkart and Amazon compete fiercely for online shoppers. That competition intensifies further during the country’s festive season, when e-commerce companies roll out some of their biggest sales and promotions of the year.
For now, the Buy option is not appearing across all retailers surfaced by Google’s AI services. In the experience seen by TechCrunch, listings from rivals including Amazon appeared alongside Flipkart products but did not offer the option to purchase directly through the AI interface.
Advertisement
Flipkart did not immediately respond to an email requesting for comment.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100m to settle the state’s lawsuit over the app’s effect on children, Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said on Friday. The case had been due to go to trial on Monday.
The first payment is due within 45 days, according to the attorney general’s announcement. Alabama could receive up to $300m in total if certain conditions are met, the office said, without giving details.
The extra money depends on other states reaching qualifying settlements with TikTok within a set period, the Associated Press reported.
As part of the deal, TikTok must limit teens to two hours a day, with parental controls. It must also add pauses after 15, 60 and 90 minutes of continuous use, block access between midnight and 6am, and limit use during school hours.
Advertisement
Other changes include age checks, tighter controls on contact between adults and teens, a ban on cosmetic filters for teen users and a feed that is not personalised by default. The AP reported that the changes apply to teen users in Alabama.
Alabama sued TikTok in 2025. It claimed the company designed the app to be addictive, exposed young users to serious mental health harms and misled the public about its safety.
“Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction,” Marshall said of Alabama parents.
A spokesperson for TikTok’s US joint venture said the company’s priority has always been a safe and positive space for its users, the AP reported.
Marshall’s office called the deal a first-in-the-nation settlement. It follows a pattern of TikTok settling before juries hear its cases. In August, it settled three teen-harm cases that were due for trial in October.
Advertisement
However, TikTok has not avoided every ruling. Earlier this month, a Texas judge found it liable for misleading parents about child safety.
Meanwhile, Meta agreed in August to pay up to $16.68bn to settle a youth safety case brought by 29 states.
Tisha Johnson is a rarity in the car world: an automotive design leader who is not a man. Women are sometimes put in charge of the interiors or the materials, but few get to shape the whole look of a vehicle. As head of design at the EV-maker Slate, Johnson does. The pickup truck version of its EV starts at just under $25,000, making it the cheapest pickup on sale in the US, electric or not. Trouble is, cheap products are usually a compromise, and compromises rarely inspire affection. Johnson’s Slate, however, has won design awards, not just praise for its price tag.
“We didn’t want [Slate] to be a jerk,” Johnson says, “or look like a beast on the road.” That thinking shows in the truck itself—not just in its modular, add-on-friendly design (pictured here in its Fastback guise), but in the fact the EV was designed to be loved. Strong shoulders and approachable round headlamps were favored over macho arrowed surfacing. “The attraction that draws you to Slate is based on something that is lasting from inside out. It’s a deeper connection,” Johnson says. Some 180,000 reservations and counting for the Slate, along with those awards, seem to more than prove her point.
Away The Carry-On: Aluminum Edition
Courtesy of Away
Away was founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs Jen Rubio and Steph Korey, both with backgrounds at the eyewear maker Warby Parker. In its first year, Away generated $12 million in sales and sold more than 100,000 stylish, reasonably priced suitcases. It has been an impressive rise, and the Softside Carry-on currently tops WIRED’s best buy list. Here however, we’ve chosen the aluminum version of the company’s handsome roll-aboard that’s built tough but perfectly sized for the overhead bin. It has a 32-liter capacity, dual TSA locks, 360-degree wheels, and an internal compression system. The signature hidden laundry bag remains a brilliant accoutrement.
Jelenew Mont Blanc Ultralight Long Windproof Jacket
Courtesy of Jelenew
Cofounded by six-time cycling world champion Marion Clignet, Jelenew combines female-specific articulated shaping, recycled nylon, mesh ventilation and an adjustable hem in a windproof shell that packs into a 6.3 x 9.8-inch bag. Clignet brought elite racing experience directly into the brand’s development, with the fit shaped around women’s proportions rather than scaled down from men’s clothing. This particular jacket uses 94 percent recycled nylon, a PFAS-free water-repellent treatment, UV protection, and mesh ventilation. Generous waist pockets and adjustable drawstrings add practical detail.
Advertisement
TaylorMade Kalea Gold Driver
Courtesy of TaylorMade
Light, easy to launch, and forgiving, Kaela has been designed for women who want more performance than they can get from hacking a set of men’s clubs. Principal product-development engineer Michelle Penney helped lead the development of the range, with input from female TaylorMade employees, players, and and dedicated women’s advisory board. The final design takes into account the key differences in women’s swing profiles. The 460 cc carbon driver is 44 inches long, with 11.5- or 13.5-degree lofts and a lightweight 47-gram shaft intended to help generate speed without making the club harder to control.
Natural Cycles NC° Band
Courtesy of Natural Cycles
Cofounded by CERN physicist Elina Berglund Scherwitzl, who helped discover the Higgs boson, Natural Cycles makes the world’s first FDA-cleared birth-control app. Its screenless NC° Band syncs its health readings to the app. Wear it on your wrist while you sleep and it tracks your temperature, heart rate, and movement during the night, then automatically syncs all that data to your phone in the morning. Those numbers are fed into the app’s algorithm to give you accurate—Natural Cycles claims an impressive 93 percent accuracy—daily fertility guidance. A recently announced Whoop partnership helps strengthen both brand’s offerings too.
Adafruit Pimoroni Badgeware Badger
Courtesy of Adafruit
Ladyada, aka Limor Fried, became the first female engineer to appear on the cover of WIRED in April 2011, just six years after she founded Adafruit from her MIT dorm room. Her alias was inspired by 19th-century English mathematician and computing pioneer Ada Lovelace, which in turn provided inspiration for the brand’s name. Fried has grown Adafruit into a 100 percent woman-owned force in open-source electronics, making components, tools, and educational kits that lower the barrier to coding and hardware hacking. The company’s range spans beginner-friendly boards, wearable controllers, and touchscreens, alongside quirky maker gear such as the pictured programmable, wearable e-paper name badge.
Raide Women’s TrailTech Cargo Tank
Courtesy of Raide
More than just another running top, this multifunctional design combines an unpadded sports bra, a vest, and much of the carrying capacity of a small hydration pack in a single 4.6-ounce layer. Five well-positioned pockets hold up to 30 fluid ounces of water, a phone, your rain shell, and up to six fuel gels, all while keeping the load close to your body to help minimize bounce. Laser-perforated chest panels add ventilation, and the fit is designed around female anatomy rather than adapted from a men’s cut. It is a neat solution for runners who want to go the distance without adding layers on layers.
Advertisement
Vacheron Constantin Overseas Self-Winding
Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin
There was a time, not so long ago, when all serious timepieces had two clear traits. They were massive—we’re talking over 48 mm here, which fine if you have Schwarzenegger-sized forearms but useless for those who don’t—and they were aimed just at men. Women’s watches would have comparatively basic mechanical movements, or be quartz powered and covered in jewels.
Thankfully, general watch size trends have swung back the other way, and now small- and mid-size pieces are very much in demand. This means women with a serious eye for horology now have some truly excellent choices. This new Vacheron is a perfect example: Clocking in at 34.5 mm, this Overseas will suit both men and women very well in either stainless steel or pink gold. It’s a nearly exact shrunken version of the 41 mm model, and nothing has been dropped in the downsizing apart from the outer seconds track on the dial. The quick-release bracelet, two extra quick-change straps, 40-hour power reserve, and sapphire caseback are all present.
Dreame Miracle Pro
Courtesy of Dreame
AI is drying hair now, or more specifically, adjusting temperature, heat, and airflow automatically. Dreame’s dryer also includes a conditioning essence atomizer and red light therapy to take extra care of your scalp. The 1,400-watt dryer monitors temperature 1,000 times per second to keep the airflow ultra consistent. The dryer also comes with four magnetic attachments: nozzles for styling, smoothing, and defrizzing, plus a diffuser. Snap one on, and the Miracle pro senses which one you’ve attached and adjusts the dryer’s power and heat for the best possible results.
Music Man St. Vincent HHH
Courtesy of Ernie Ball Music Man
Annie Clark, aka art-rocker St. Vincent, sketched the original shape for her signature guitar using angles that combine midcentury retro-futurism with the bold triangular tuxedo worn by avant-garde performer Klaus Nomi. She then worked through around 20 prototypes to get the weight, balance, and feel for the design just right. Despite the sharp lines, the body is heavily beveled with an exceptionally narrow waist, and Clark explicitly designed it to sit comfortably against a woman’s torso. Built from lightweight okoume wood, it weighs around 7.5 pounds, with a roasted maple neck that offers easy access to the upper frets (where the shredding happens). The three custom DiMarzio mini-humbuckers are controlled by a five-way selector.
Advertisement
KiwiCo STEM Kits
Courtesy of KiwiCo
Chemical engineer and mother-of-three Sandra Oh Lin founded KiwiCo to make hands-on science, engineering and creative projects fun, practical, and easy to tackle at home. It offers kits for babies, kids, teens, and adults, with age-appropriate builds (and yes, we wouldn’t be surprised if the kids’ stuff was more advanced than the adults’) ranging from simple sensory play and mechanical grabbers to animatronics, marble roller coasters, and working desk lamps. Available individually or by subscription, everything that’s needed to build each device arrives in the box, with clear instructions and explanations of the ideas behind each project.
IDA Helia Pro
Courtesy of IDA Sports
Informed by biometric data from professional women soccer players, IDA builds high-performance boots around women’s feet, combining specific fit with lightweight materials. Cofounder Laura Youngson started the company after seeing how poorly existing boots served women players. The Helia Pro packs in the tech with a lightweight mesh upper, a highly responsive soleplate made from Pebax thermoplastic, and a soft foam insole. There are also female-specific flex zones throughout the shoe, and shorter, rounded cleat studs laid out in a unique pattern that’s designed for firm ground and artificial grass.
New Balance Fresh Foam Cremorne Toe Safety Shoe
Courtesy of New Balance
Looking closer to a pair of trail runners than conventional safety footwear, these are proof you don’t need to be clodhopping around in heavy boots to stay protected on the job site. The composite toe guards shield your piggies from impacts without the weight of steel, an anti-perforation layer protects the sole of your foot, and a reinforced heel support adds stability when you’re lifting loads. Its grippy outsole is designed for wet, slick, or oily floors, and offers antistatic protection while also being able to withstand temperatures of at least 572° Fahrenheit for 60 seconds. The shoes borrow foam cushioning and a springy polyurethane insert from New Balance’s athletic footwear to make long shifts easier on your feet.
Circular Smart Ring 3 Slim
Courtesy of Circular
We’re not quite at the point where smart rings are indistinguishable from jewelry, but the gap is closing. At just 1.9 grams, and with a noticeably slimmer profile than the second-generation model, Circular’s Ring 3 Slim blends in well, yet still tracks sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen level, skin temperature, daily activities, and heart-rate variability. It now adds NFC for contactless payments and practical vibration alerts and alarms. There’s also a larger Ring 3 Pro, which adds FDA-cleared electrocardiogram sensors for detecting signs of atrial fibrillation. Blood-pressure trends and glucose insights are planned for a later update.
Advertisement
Posedla Joyseat 3.0
Courtesy of Posedla
Finally, a saddle that actually fits. Posedla sends an at-home imprint kit, then uses sit-bone measurements, riding position, and algorithmic modeling to 3D-print bespoke padding precisely profiled for your posterior. The resulting Joyseat is not merely made in a chosen width. Its shape and stiffness are individually generated too, using a custom TPU lattice rather than stock foam. Width can be specified from 130 to 170 mm in one millimeter increments, and Joyseat will also take into consideration the bike you use and what sorts of riding you do—whether you’re a racer, a weekend tourer, a bike camper, or a long-haul commuter.
Liv EnviLiv Advanced Pro 0-AXS
Courtesy of Liv
Bonnie Tu, chair of the company behind Giant bikes, founded Liv after struggling to find bikes that fitted properly. Liv designs from women’s biometric data, giving every frame size its own geometry, then applies its findings to a collection that includes city, gravel, commuter and elite bikes like the EnviLiv Advanced Pro. Its carbon frame, handlebars and stem are shaped using computer modelling and wind-tunnel testing to reduce drag, while 50 mm-deep carbon wheels and SRAM Force AXS wireless electronic gears complete the race-ready build. More importantly, fit is treated as a complete system, with stem length, handlebar width, crank length and saddle choice all selected to suit the rider rather than added later as generic components.
What just happened? Less than two months after filing a lawsuit against prediction market platform Kalshi for allegedly running illegal gambling operations in the state, New York has sued Kalshi’s rival, Polymarket, over similar allegations. The lawsuit claims that Polymarket does not have a valid license to operate in New York and does not pay state taxes, unlike licensed casinos and mobile sports betting platforms.
The lawsuit, filed in the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan by Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul under Executive Law 63(12), noted that Polymarket’s products are also being marketed to New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 20, even though state law requires a person to be at least 21 to participate in mobile sports betting.
New York is asking the court to impose financial penalties on Polymarket for exposing New Yorkers to “serious personal and financial risk,” proposing that the fines should be “equal to three times the gains the company made through its illegal actions.” The state also wants the company to forfeit its allegedly illegal profits and pay restitution to people who lost money on the platform.
In a statement, Governor Hochul said Polymarket’s “unlicensed gambling operation” not only violates state law, but also puts New Yorkers at risk, especially underage users, who are most vulnerable to gambling addiction. She added that the lawsuit should serve as a reminder that nobody is above the law in New York, and that companies operating illegally will be held accountable for their actions.
Advertisement
Echoing Governor Hochul’s sentiments, Attorney General James said New York’s gambling regulations are designed to protect its residents from “potential harms of problem gambling” and ensure funding for educational and public benefit programs. She added that “by avoiding taxes, Polymarket is hurting the most vulnerable New Yorkers and depriving them of critical services and support.”
Polymarket denies violating any New York law, arguing that its presence in the state is good for the local economy. In a statement, the company’s chief legal officer, Neal Kumar, vowed to fight the lawsuit in court, noting that Polymarket started out of a “tiny NYC apartment” and now has 350 employees in the city. “We believe in New York and we’re staying here,” he added.
Polymarket previously opposed being classified as a gambling platform, insisting that its products are legally distinct from traditional sports betting as it provides odds based on “measurable events.” It also claimed that it is offering financial services and should not therefore be subject to gambling regulations.
James has sued other gaming and crypto platforms in the past for allegedly violating state laws. In July, she sued Kalshi, accusing it of running an illegal and unlicensed gambling operation. In 2023, her office secured more than $22 million from crypto exchange KuCoin for operating illegally, while in 2024, she settled with crypto brokerage firm Genesis for $2 billion over similar allegations.
Advertisement
A relatively new addition to the online gaming space, prediction markets currently lie in a legal gray area in the US, with no consensus on how they should be regulated and taxed. US courts have previously disagreed on the classification of prediction markets, issuing conflicting verdicts on who gets to regulate their operations.
In April, a federal appeals court in New Jersey ruled that the state could not regulate Kalshi because its business falls under the purview of federal regulators. But in a seemingly contradictory verdict in August, a federal appeals court in Nevada allowed the state to apply its own gambling regulations to Kalshi’s sports contracts.
The introduction of the ATmega32U4 microcontroller, with its integrated USB controller, made a lot of hardware tasks much simpler than they were before. One of the arenas it revolutionized was custom keyboards, making it much easier to build not only standard mechanical keyboards, but keyboards of all kinds of shapes and layouts and custom macro keyboards as well. This trend has continued on for the better part of the past decade with other microcontrollers beyond the 32U4 now available as well, but this modular macro keypad takes it to a new level by keeping that simplicity but also keeping costs down.
The suutari20, as it is called by its creator [Squalius] is able to achieve these aims by using 3.5 mm jacks commonly found in audio equipment. Each jack can support up to three keys, with the hub ultimately able to support 18 different keys. Those can include analog devices as well, such as volume knobs or jog controllers. The macro pad is powered by an RP2040 microcontroller from a Raspberry Pi Pico and uses QMK firmware, so those already familiar with custom keyboard programming will have no problem getting started.
Landing in a new country and watching data charges creep up before the first coffee is ordered is one of travel’s most avoidable frustrations. Airalo fixes it with an eSIM installed before you even board.
Airalo has earned its scale rather than bought it, growing since 2019 into the world’s leading travel eSIM service used by more than 30 million travellers across 200-plus destinations.
What began as a way to skip the airport SIM kiosk has become the default fix for anyone who wants their phone working the moment the plane doors open, whether that’s for maps, messages, or checking into a hotel.
Instant connectivity
Instead of hunting for a signal or relying on patchy hotel Wi-Fi, an Airalo eSIM installs digitally through the app in minutes and connects the second a traveller lands. Local, regional, and global data packages cover the same trip differently depending on whether it’s a single city break or a multi-country route, so the plan can match the itinerary rather than forcing one contract to stretch across borders. They also offer unlimited data so you never need to worry about running out, and you can hotspot to as many devices as you wish!
Advertisement
That flexibility carries real weight for business travellers checking emails between meetings, families coordinating logistics across time zones, and solo travellers navigating unfamiliar transit systems, since all three need data that works immediately rather than data that needs troubleshooting. Existing eSIMs can also be topped up once a package runs low, so a longer trip doesn’t mean starting the setup process over from scratch.
Easy installation and pricing
Setting one up only requires checking that a device is eSIM-compatible and unlocked, then downloading the Airalo app and following the prompts to install the plan before departure. Once activated, the eSIM connects automatically to a supported local network on arrival, without a physical SIM ever changing hands or a phone needing to restart.
Advertisement
Plans start from just £3.50, and applying the code TRUSTEDREVIEWS10 at checkout adds a further 10% off sitewide, available to new and existing users until 31st December 2026. Between the local, regional, and global options on offer, there’s a package suited to a weekend abroad and to a longer route through several countries alike.
Last weekend KDE’s annual Akademy conference included a presentation proposing
an AI-native KDE,” writes The Register. This led KDE developer Nate Graham to open a discussion about proposed restrictions on LLM-assisted contributions which “rapidly became heated. Moderators issued warnings, restricted further comments, and eventually removed the thread.”
But as Graham writes on his blog, “A bunch of people mostly outside of KDE who disapprove of LLM usage derailed KDE’s attempt to add restrictions to LLM usage.”
Two people unknown to any KDE contributors appeared and began fighting with one another about the broader topic of the morality of AI, not the proposed guidelines… Someone else outside of KDE set up kdeforpeople.com in an attempt to… pressure KDE into banning LLMs. A bunch of people signed onto it, almost none of whom are known KDE contributors.
The topic was picked up on social media and the press with… varying levels of accuracy. The draft proposal was removed and the whole topic hidden… Yep, that’s where we’re at in the state of online discourse around AI…
The “lovable, sovereign, AI-native KDE” idea was presented by two people important to KDE in decades past, but who had not made any contributions recently besides this Akademy talk. Their idea does not reflect the overall direction of KDE or Plasma, and I don’t think it ever will. If “a lovable, sovereign, AI-native KDE” freaks you out, I believe it is completely reasonable and safe to ignore…
Advertisement
I completely understand why a lot of people have problems with LLMs. I have these concerns as well.
He concluded by asking people not to derail any future process to set usage guidelines, fighting over “the broader topic of AI in general.”
“The discussion is gone, but the argument continues,” adds The Register:
GNOME developer Jordan Petridis has also published The GNOME LLM Policy That I Want, proposing that LLMs be barred from creating or modifying anything submitted to GNOME or hosted on its infrastructure.
Advertisement
“You might be asked to prove your code meets this requirement,” Petridis writes, arguing for proposals that target the norms around developer behavior. His rationale? “The GNOME Project prioritizes the social and human aspects of collective software creation,”
You must be logged in to post a comment Login