Tech

Fifth Circuit Cites A Ruling Calling Mail-In Ballots “Vital” To Falsely Claim They “Jeopardize Democracy Itself”

Published

3 hours ago

16 August 2026

from the judicial-citation-laundering dept

You may have seen news of the recent Fifth Circuit decision, with an opinion written by Judge Andrew Oldham, overturning a lower court ruling, and reinstating highly questionable ID requirements for mail-in ballots. We can debate how this decision blends two great MAGA obsessions, mail-in ballots and voter ID (both overhyped panics designed to suppress the vote of people who are more likely to vote for Democrats), but I want to focus just on the opening lines of the opinion, and how it should be seen as judicial malpractice. Here’s how Oldham opened his ruling:

It has long been established that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud. See, e.g., Veasey v. Perry, 71 F. Supp. 3d 627, 676 (S.D. Tex. 2014) (“Mail-in ballots are not secure.”), aff’d in relevant part, 830 F.3d 216, 256 (5th Cir. 2016) (en banc). That is why voting by mail jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.

As the internet is known to say: citation fucking needed.

I went digging to understand the origins of that claim and what I found is that Judge Oldham (and his colleague, Judge James Ho) are willing to totally misrepresent things for partisan gain. There is a very out of context quote saying that “mail-in ballots are not secure” but in context it’s making a wholly different argument (one against voter-suppressing voter ID laws) and all the supporting documentation directly cuts against Oldham’s completely fabricated claim that “voting by mail jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.”

There is nothing that supports that claim. Not the rulings Oldham cites (which actually suggest mail-in ballots are vital!) nor the actual data.

You may recognize the name of Judge Andrew Oldham of the Fifth Circuit from that time he rewrote basically a century’s worth of First Amendment law to claim (incorrectly as the Supreme Court later made clear to him) that internet companies have no right to moderate content on their platforms. If you look, there is basically no MAGA culture war talking point that Oldham — a Federalist Society member, former Justice Alito clerk and Texas Deputy Solicitor General — won’t bend over backwards to justify.

You might also recognize the name of Judge James Ho, and credit where credit is due, Judge Ho beat Judge Oldham to the particular trick we’re talking about in an earlier ruling, in a separate appeal out of the very same consolidated challenge to S.B. 1.

“Mail-in ballots are not secure.” Veasey v. Perry, 71 F. Supp. 3d 627, 676 (S.D. Tex. 2014), aff’d in relevant part, 830 F.3d 216, 256 (5th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (crediting district court finding that “mail-in ballot fraud is a significant threat”).

Judge Ho is probably Oldham’s biggest competitor on the Fifth Circuit in attempting to suck up to Donald Trump in hopes of being the next Supreme Court nominee. So perhaps it’s no surprise that he used that same truncated “Mail-in ballots are not secure” line in pursuit of the same culture war MAGA voter suppression.

But they’re playing a nasty bit of judicial telephone, taking an original ruling that struck down an attempt by Republicans to suppress minority votes… and repurposing a quote totally out of context to now justify Republicans suppressing minority votes.

As noted in the citation, the original case goes back to a district court ruling in 2014, in Marc Veasey v. Rick Perry, who was governor of Texas at the time. At issue was a different Texas attempt at voter disenfranchisement, though also one involving voter ID laws. Texas had passed a burdensome voter ID law at the time, which very much appeared to be targeted at disenfranchising minority voters. Texas argued that the law was fine because even if you did not have access to a qualified ID that would allow the resident to vote in person, those individuals (if over the age of 65 or disabled) could still vote by mail.

Now, remember, back in 2014, this was before Donald Trump (and therefore all MAGA cultists) decided that mail-in ballots were evil. Remember, Donald Trump regularly votes by mail-in ballot. Back then, Texas defended restrictions on in-person voting by saying it’s no big deal because people can vote by mail. Now they’re seeking to restrict mail-in voting by claiming that it (the same thing they pushed for to defend the last law) jeopardizes democracy.

So the issue in the earlier case was only the validity of the voter ID law, and Texas’s defense that there was no burden on a class of voters without qualifying IDs, since they could turn to mail-in ballots. The court ruled against the law, finding that it had disparate impact on minority voters, and somewhat in passing said that Texas’s defense of “oh they can just do mail-in ballots” wasn’t sufficient, mainly because many of the affected voters (largely older voters) simply didn’t trust mail-in ballots:

There was substantial testimony that people want to vote in person at the polls, not even in early voting, but on election day, and they were highly distrustful of the mail-in ballot system. For some African-Americans, it is a strong tradition—a celebration— related to overcoming obstacles to the right to vote. Reverend Johnson considers appearing at the polls part of his freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of speech.

As part of that discussion, the judge noted in passing that compared to in person voting the risk of fraud was greater with mail-in ballots, though doesn’t substantiate that claim other than saying that there was “universal agreement” on that point. But the main complaint with mail-in ballots was that they required other burdens on voters: application for a ballot in advance and the requirement that you return the ballot prior to election day.

The evidence also indicates that the choice of using the absentee ballot system is not truly an appropriate choice. At trial, there was universal agreement that a much greater risk of fraud occurs in absentee balloting, where some campaign workers are known to harvest mail-in ballots through several different methods, including raiding mailboxes. Mail-in ballots are not secure and require an application in advance of the election and mailing or returning the ballot before election day.

So, yes, the lower court said “mail-in ballots are not secure” but it was very clearly in the context of saying that minority voters felt less comfortable being shunted into mail-in ballots by a racist voter ID law, and wanted to be able to vote in person. In context, there is zero support for the claim that Oldham makes in his ruling that “mail-in ballots are prone to fraud” or not secure. And there’s certainly no support for going even further and claiming that “voting by mail jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.”

Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos’s original ruling was doing the opposite of what Oldham is now using it for. Her ruling was making the point that these laws were looking to disenfranchise voters by forcing them to use a form of voting they were less comfortable with or less willing and able to use, thus diminishing their access to the polls. Oldham is using it to support voter disenfranchisement by pushing a disproven claim that mail-in ballots are an attack on election integrity.

Even worse, what Oldham is doing is claiming that the earlier en banc ruling in the Fifth Circuit supports his claims about mail-in ballots. But again that’s very much taking the ruling out of context. You can read it here. It includes a footnote on the quote about mail-in ballots that makes it clear it is not claiming there’s a problem with mail-in ballots, and explicitly talks about how “vital” they are:

This statement is not intended as a criticism of allowing mail-in ballots, which are a vital means of enabling voting when it would otherwise be difficult or impossible for some people to exercise their right to vote in person. It is simply an acknowledgement that the evidence supporting the need for reform was minimal on the in-person voting side.

It gets even more ridiculous: Ho’s parenthetical isn’t a misquote. The en banc court really did credit a finding that mail-in ballot fraud is “a significant threat.” What Ho strips out is what that finding was doing there. It appears in a passage explaining why being shunted onto mail ballots was a burden on the plaintiffs — seven of them testified they were reluctant to vote by mail precisely because they’d heard about harvesting. The court credited their fear as a reason the state couldn’t tell them “just vote by mail.” Ho takes a finding about why voters didn’t want mail ballots forced on them and repurposes it as a reason to take mail ballots away.

The district court did not clearly err in finding that mail-in voting is not an acceptable substitute for in-person voting in the circumstances presented by this case. We are by no means criticizing Texas for making mail-in voting available, as it represents an important bridge for many who would otherwise have difficulty appearing in person. Instead, we conclude that it is not the equivalent of in-person voting for those who are able and want to vote in person. Mail-in voting involves a complex procedure that cannot be done at the last minute…. It also deprives voters of the help they would normally receive in filling out ballots at the polls, which Plaintiff Naomi Eagleton cited as a reason why she prefers to vote in person.
Elderly plaintiffs may also face difficulties getting to their mailboxes, like Plaintiff Carrier, who has to be driven to his mailbox because it is at the local post office. Id. at 673. Seven of the Plaintiffs further testified they are reluctant to vote by mail due to the increased risk of fraud because of people who harvest mail-in ballots from the elderly. Id. at 676–77. The district court credited expert testimony showing mail-in ballot fraud is a significant threat— unlike in-person voter fraud. Id. at 639–41, 676. Finally, with mail-in voting, voters lose the ability to account for last-minute developments, like candidates dropping out of a primary race, or targeted mailers and other information disseminated right before the election.

So even the part that the Fifth Circuit previously “affirmed” tries to make it abundantly clear that it’s not challenging the importance of mail-in ballots at all, it’s reinforcing how important they are. It’s just saying that for some voters it’s not a substitute, and that elderly voters are concerned about the potential for harvesting ballots from the elderly. Judge Ho ignores all that context to briefly quote a tiny bit of the ruling totally out of context.

Of course, in the years since, Trump and MAGA Inc. have decided that one of the best ways to attack election integrity is to falsely claim that mail-in ballots are unsafe. This is simply untrue. And we have tons of evidence to debunk the claim that mail-in ballots are inherently at higher risk of fraud.

Indeed, we now have actual empirical data that looks at the rates of fraud in states that switched to mail-in voting, which shows no noticeable increase in fraud (and, again, it bears repeating that documented cases of fraudulent voting are vanishingly rare in all cases, both in-person and mail-in):

… we find no evidence that voting by mail increases the risk of voter fraud overall; if voting by mail creates more opportunities for fraud, those opportunities do not appear to have been realized in the data.

Speaking of actual data, the data that Judge Oldham cites actually cuts against his own claim. Part of his argument for why there’s no evidence that the plaintiffs in this case will “continue to face problems” in voting is that the number of voters who have their ballots rejected has decreased significantly over the years:

But the evidence since S.B. 1’s enactment says otherwise. The number of mail-in application or mail-in ballot rejections caused by missing or mismatched identification numbers dropped from 11 or 12 percent to 2.7 percent in just eight months. And officials testified that the numbers will “continue to decline” because Texas’s identification database will “continue to get more robust,” and voters will “get more used to” the new procedures. ROA.46413. That’s far from the “substantial risk” of injury the district court prophesied.

But 2.7% is potentially still a lot of voters. Even with this law suppressing vote by mail, in the 2024 general election about 350,000 people in Texas voted by mail. 2.7% of that would be about 10,000 people who had their mail-in ballots rejected. And as Oldham notes, originally it was in the 11 or 12% range, which would be a massive number of voters.

That is way, way, way higher than the amount of fraud found in literally any study of any kind of voting, mail-in or in person. Indeed, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tasked his team with finding voter fraud, spent 22,000 hours researching it… and found a grand total of 16 prosecutions. And all were for having the wrong address on their registration forms, not any kind of fraud that “threatens democracy.” And, actually, it’s the same thing that Ken Paxton himself is now being accused of doing.

So if we’re talking about threats to election integrity and democracy, it sure seems like this law has way more empirical evidence in support of that claim than the one about mail-in ballots: approximately 10,000 rejected ballots against 16 cases of “ballot fraud” (basically all with the wrong address). Which one is the bigger “threat” to democracy?

Hell, just in the ruling from Judge Oldham alone, we have an actual real human example of someone harmed by the law:

Yvonne Yvette Iglesias… is blind in one eye and has paraplegia and diabetes. She had applied to vote by mail in the 2022 primary and general elections, her applications were rejected because she failed to include an identification number, and her curative attempts were unsuccessful because she still did not include an identification number.

Oldham’s answer to Iglesias is that she testified that she’s since learned more about the requirements under the law and is therefore “better able” to comply. To him, that means no substantial risk of future injury. But even Oldham cites others who had similar issues. And while each of them eventually had those issues resolved, all of these examples should be evidence of real problems with the law:

Teri Saltzman is a legally blind voter. She testified that her mail-in-ballot application was rejected during the March 2022 primary election and that her blindness caused difficulty using the online ballot tracker to cure her application. But her struggles were quickly resolved; she voted in the November 2022 general election without incident. Similarly, Stella Guerrero-Mata has limited vision. Her mail-in ballot was rejected because she forgot to put her identification number on the carrier envelope. But she put the correct identification information on her application for a mail-in ballot, and is now aware that the carrier envelopes contain a space for her identification number in future elections. None of these members has shown a “substantial risk” of disenfranchisement.

So, yes, some people eventually figure it out, but only after significant difficulty and often rejected applications. And Oldham is literally dismissing the fact that a blind woman couldn’t use an online ballot tracker because she’s blind as no big deal.

There is also further evidence that this law pushed people to not even try to vote.

The study found that 30,000 voters in that primary — or 1 out of 7 voters who started the process to vote by mail — had either their application or ballot rejected, and that “roughly 90% of these individuals did not find another way to participate in the 2022 primary.”

So we have real world empirical evidence that this law is suppressing voter access to the polls, which does impact election integrity and democracy. There remains zero empirical evidence that voting by mail harms election integrity.

What this really is, though, is judicial citation laundering. Oldham and Ho, for the sake of partisan gamesmanship, need the claim that mail-in ballots are fraud-prone to be true, and they certainly can’t show it with facts. So they run it through a lower court’s out-of-context sentence and cite it back to themselves as established law. Indeed, if they had to discuss this point in context they would admit that the lower court ruling was an effort to strike down an attempt to suppress voters.

It’s also important to point out that none of this was necessary for this case. Oldham’s actual opinion is based almost entirely on the question of standing (the one bit that is reached on the merits is because district attorneys don’t administer elections). Neither of those holdings requires mail-in ballots to be fraud prone. Nothing in the opinion requires it. Oldham just includes that for window dressing… and to help the next judge who will point to this ruling to re-emphasize the false claim that mail-in ballots are “prone to fraud.”

Filed Under: 5th circuit, andrew oldham, james ho, ken paxton, mail-in ballots, voter id, voter suppression, voting

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Tech

What The World’s Oldest Telecommunications Company Looks Like Today

Published

8 minutes ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

It’s nearly two hundred years old.

Byliam/Getty Images

BT Group is best known today for broadband, mobile service and the infrastructure running underneath much of the UK’s communications network. Its history, however, starts long before the telephone was a household fixture. BT’s lineage reaches back to the Electric Telegraph Company, founded by William Fothergill Cooke and businessman John Lewis Ricardo in 1846 to commercialize electric telegraph technology developed by Cooke and Charles Wheatstone.

The Electric Telegraph Company merged with the International Telegraph Company in 1855, forming the Electric and International Telegraph Company, before being taken over by the General Post Office in 1870. So BT’s claim to 1846 comes through its family tree, rather than one company somehow surviving intact for nearly two centuries.

BT isn’t the only telecom company with an impressive pedigree, either. Sweden’s Telia traces its roots to a state telegraph agency founded in 1853, Telecom Egypt points to its first telegraph line in 1854 and Norway’s Telenor dates its beginnings to the Norwegian Telegraph Administration in 1855.

France can go further still, with a state-run optical telegraph network dating to 1794. The catch is that none of these are perfect apples-to-apples comparisons. Like BT, their histories run through government agencies, reorganizations and later commercial companies, which makes crowning a single “world’s oldest” telecom company considerably messier than comparing birthdays.

BT’s 1846 roots took a few detours

A vintage photograph of the British telephone exchange.

Ilbusca/Getty Images

The early British telecommunications business had the sort of structure you might expect from a brand-new technology in Victorian Britain. Private companies built competing networks, struck agreements with railways and fought for customers while lawmakers figured out what exactly to do with all these wires suddenly appearing around the country. By the late 1860s, Parliament was debating whether the government should simply buy the telegraph companies and put the network under the Post Office, but not everyone was sold on this idea.

During debate in 1868, MP George Goschen called it “most absurd” to think the Post Office could create a “hunger and thirst … for telegrams” among rural customers who could send much cheaper letters instead. Parliament went ahead anyway. Private telegraph systems were bought and consolidated under state control, with the Electric and International Telegraph Company joining the Post Office network in 1870.

Telephone infrastructure eventually took a similar route. The National Telephone Company was absorbed into the Post Office system in 1912, then Post Office Telecommunications became British Telecom in 1980. British Telecommunications formally took over the Post Office’s telecoms and data-processing operations in 1981, before privatization began in 1984 with the government selling a majority stake in the newly formed BT plc.

So much for a straight line from 1846.

What BT looks like today

An Openreach van parked out on a street in London.

John Keeble/Getty Images

The telegraph machines are long gone, but moving information around Britain is still very much the business. Modern BT operates several familiar consumer brands, including BT itself, EE and Plusnet, alongside its business services operation. It also owns Openreach, the infrastructure company responsible for maintaining and expanding the UK’s main fixed telecom network.

If anything inside modern BT resembles that original telegraph business in spirit, it is probably Openreach. It looks after the copper wires and fiber cables connecting homes and businesses, then provides access to hundreds of communications companies that sell broadband and phone services directly to the people using those lines, rather than serving most households itself.

Openreach has been legally separate from BT since reforms proposed by Ofcom, with its own board, employees, management and strategy. However, BT Group still owns it since Ofcom did not require a full ownership split. Mobile is another major part of what BT became. BT completed its acquisition of EE in 2016, giving the group control of what was then the UK’s largest mobile network, and EE’s 5G+ network now reaches 77 percent of the UK population. BT has also brought BT Mobile back in 2026 for its broadband customers.

William Cooke probably would not recognize much of that, but the cables might look reassuringly familiar. As of June 30, Openreach’s full-fiber footprint covered 23.4 million premises, with 9.4 million connected.

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How to tell if your AI platforms’ accounts have been hacked

Published

22 minutes ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Just like any other online service, hackers can target and break into your accounts on popular AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.

TechCrunch has created a comprehensive guide to help you protect yourself if you suspect someone has broken into your account on one of the internet’s most popular platforms, social networks, or messaging apps. Now, we’re here to show you how to check whether your accounts on AI platforms have been hacked.

As usual, we recommend using unique passwords stored in a password manager, and turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA), so that even if someone steals your password, they won’t be able to log in without that second piece of information.

ChatGPT and Perplexity offer MFA. Claude doesn’t, because instead of asking for a password, Anthropic’s AI chatbot sends a login link to your email address.

All three of these AI platforms offer similar ways to check if there’s a suspicious device logged into your account. Here’s exactly how each platform works.

ChatGPT

To find out if someone has broken into your ChatGPT account, open it on your computer’s browser, click on your username in the bottom left corner, go to “Settings,” then “Security and Login,” and finally click on “Active Sessions.”

You will see where you are logged into your ChatGPT account. If you see any device you don’t recognize, you can log out of that single device. You can also click on “Log out all.”

**Image Credits:**Screenshot/TechCrunch /

At this point, if you want to change your password, you need to log out of your account.

Then, on ChatGPT’s website, click “Log in” located in the bottom-left corner, enter your email address, click on “Forgot password,” and then “Continue.”

ChatGPT will then send you an email containing a six-digit code. Enter the code on the ChatGPT login page, click “Continue,” and then enter a new password.

You can also click “reset your password” in the email you received to see the official instructions on how to do that.

Claude

For Claude, open it in your computer’s browser, click on your username in the bottom-left corner, then “Settings,” and click on “Account.” That’s where you will see your “Active sessions.”

If you don’t recognize one of them, hover over it, click on the three vertical dots that appear on the right, and click “Log out” or “Terminate.”

If you want, you can click on “Log out of all devices.”

At that point, you’ll be able to log back into your account using your email address. You will receive an email with a link to log in. Claude does not allow you to use passwords at all, so there’s no password to change.

Perplexity

In the case of Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine does not show you where you are logged in.

So if you’re worried someone may have broken into your account, go to Perplexity in your browser and click your username in the bottom-left corner, then “All settings.” Finally, click on “Sign out of all sessions,” and then “Confirm.”

At that point, you can log back in by entering your email address. You will then receive an email with a unique six-digit code. Enter the code on the website to log in, or click on the “Sign in” button in the email to log in directly.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

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Tech

This Beautifully Weird Necklace Is Secretly a USB Drive

Published

31 minutes ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

I’m already growing hoarse in Golden Gate Park as Charli XCX takes the stage at a San Francisco music festival. The crowd starts jumping as a guitar hook hits, and I reluctantly comply, bouncing around on these aging knees as my chunky Puff necklace almost flies off the chain.

During a lull in the set, someone next to me compliments the necklace, which has stainless steel swirls and a bulbous orange center. Their eyes grow wide as I flip the cap off and explain that it’s a hidden USB flash drive—I plugged the Puff into my phone to show off the animations.

When Harry Isaac and Sebastian Bidegain, working together under the Noware moniker, posted an early prototype of their retro-futuristic necklace on social media in 2025, it quickly racked up over a million views with thousands of waitlist sign-ups to buy one. The duo has spent the last year attempting to turn the online attention on their prototype into a mass-produced reality. Now, Noware is finally ready to ship units this October.

Image may contain Accessories Gemstone Jewelry and Sapphire

The pair arrived at the WIRED office wearing Puff necklaces, naturally, that match with their trendy gorpcore outfits. They seem nervous, albeit excited, to show off their creation. Neither has had a wide release for their products before, though both are well-versed in whimsical designs. Isaac previously went viral for making an electric scooter that shoots out bubbles. Bidegain was already sculpturally approaching electronics, with prototypes like a vape camera and lo-fi sampler built into a rock.

The design ethos of the Puff is just as much about aesthetics as it is about usefulness. Noware’s marketing materials show a cool girl with a Puff clipped onto her purse, where a Labubu might have sat last year, as well as styled on her neck with a pile of other silver chains. Bidegain says the “squishy, doughy” textures of food partially inspired Puff’s design, as well as cellular biology and tactile devices, like old phones and radios.

“On one end, I want anyone to be able to wear it, just if they think it’s pretty,” he says. “Though, I also want people who actually find utility in flash drives as part of their workflow: photographers, DJs, IT people.”

The small screen in the middle of the necklace is my favorite aspect. When it’s plugged into my phone or laptop, Puff’s center lights up with a customizable design. The Noware duo showed me goopy animations that reacted to the direction I held the phone as well as an aquarium mode. They even put the WIRED logo on it through custom software anyone can use to craft their own designs. The Puff doesn’t have an internal battery, so the USB drive can live as a piece of jewelry far longer than the expiration date of most electronics.

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Tech

Apple pulls ad over ‘electronic babysitting’ concerns

Published

40 minutes ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Someone missed the point of an iPhone billboard, prompting Apple to pull the advertisement down after it was accused of normalizing “electronic babysitting.”

Apple has removed one of its billboards in Milan, Italy, after public outcry. The ad in question depicted a toddler holding a food-smeared iPhone paired with the text “Tutto ok, e iPhone,” which translates to “It’s okay, it’s an iPhone.”

Apparently, the Italian children’s rights watchdog Autorita Garante per l’Infanzia e l’Adolescenza (AGIA) had received a call from a concerned citizen. The citizen believed that Apple was normalizing “electronic babysitting,” or the act of placating a child with an electronic device.

So, AGIA wrote a statement, first spotted by 9to5Mac, that accused Apple of not taking the issue seriously. It said that Apple was putting children on the path to digital addiction and was potentially putting children’s psychological and cognitive development at risk.

However, the advertisement campaign wasn’t saying that toddlers should be given iPhones. Instead, it was part of Apple’s larger “Relax, it’s iPhone” campaign designed to promote the device’s durability.

Other images in the campaign included someone using the iPhone in the rain, a dog with an iPhone in its mouth, and an iPhone sitting at the edge of a bathtub. All situations that used to make smartphone owners cringe before companies like Apple made extra efforts to increase device durability.

Yet Apple is still aware of the ad’s optics. So, down it came.

It has since been replaced with an advertisement showcasing the device’s Find My capabilities, as reported by la Repubblica.

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Tech

TalkTalk Business and ARO to borg into UK tech services giant

Published

55 minutes ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

channel

70,000 customers will join the collective, whose name and leader remain unknown

TalkTalk Business and UK technology services biz ARO plan to merge, creating what they say will be one of the country’s largest communications and managed services providers.

The pair claim the combined organization will be “uniquely positioned” to serve as a single technology partner for British firms pursuing digital transformation. It will have annual revenue of about £200 million ($270 million) and a combined customer base of more than 70,000 companies.

Analyst firm Megabuyte noted that ARO, formerly known as Arrow, is the larger of the two businesses by earnings.

However, the vast majority of the combined customer base will comprise TalkTalk Business’s small-business clients, with the remainder mainly ARO enterprise customers. Megabuyte expects fixed-line and mobile communications and connectivity to generate most of the combined revenue – about £130 million ($176 million) – with IT and cybersecurity services providing the remainder.

Megabuyte said the immediate priority would be integrating the businesses and finding opportunities to sell their services across the combined customer base.

“One can see why the deal is being sold in terms of cross-sell, with relatively little overlap in terms of customers and products. TalkTalk Business has a large base of small business customers who should be receptive to ARO’s mobile and Microsoft offerings, as well as other IT and cyber services,” says chief analyst Philip Carse.

TalkTalk Business completed its separation from the wider TalkTalk Group earlier this year as it sought to expand as an independent managed network provider. It recently acquired Planet IT, a service desk biz selling IT support and professional services.

Telecoms and IT services: the magic combination?

Vodafone Business and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have teamed up in another example of a UK communications firm joining forces with a managed services provider.

In this case, the arrangement is a partnership combining Voda’s connectivity, cybersecurity, cloud, and digital services with TCS’s technology, consulting, AI, and systems integration capabilities.

“UK businesses are looking for partners who understand their market, their customers and the pressure to modernise quickly,” said VodafoneThree business director Nick Gliddon.

The pair say they will work together on cloud transformation and migration, AI and automation, cybersecurity, network modernization, and digital infrastructure.

ARO provides cloud, cybersecurity, and datacenter services and is a Microsoft Solutions Partner.

The two firms describe their operations as highly complementary.

The deal remains subject to approval under the UK’s National Security and Investment Act (NSIA), apparently because ARO supplies some government customers, and is expected to close by the end of the summer.

Initially, both businesses will retain their existing brands and offices while the companies develop their integration plans.

The implication there is that there could be a shake-out of duplicate products and staff roles coming later, as often happens with corporate mergers.

We asked what the combined business would be called and who would lead it, but the companies declined to answer.

“This is a defining moment for both ARO and TalkTalk Business,” claimed ARO chief Ciaran Rafferty.

“By bringing together our complementary strengths, we are creating a stronger partner with broader capabilities, deeper expertise and greater capacity to invest in innovation, service delivery and long-term customer success.”

TalkTalk Business CEO Ruth Kennedy said it represents a key step in the firm’s ambitions to become a leading managed services provider.

“The market is evolving rapidly, with organizations increasingly seeking technology partners that can combine strategic expertise, operational excellence and broad service capabilities at scale,” she commented. ®

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Philips Expands Roku Ambilight TV Lineup With New QLED Models

Published

1 hour ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Following the 2025 launch of its 7875 Series LED/LCD TVs with Roku and Ambilight, Philips is expanding the lineup for 2026 with the new 7985 Series. The latest models retain Roku’s smart TV platform and Philips’ signature Ambilight technology, but add Quantum Dot technology for the first time in the series, moving the range into the increasingly competitive QLED TV category.

Philips Ambilight Extends the Picture Beyond the Screen

Ambilight is a lighting technology available on select Philips TVs that projects colored light beyond the borders of the screen, creating a more immersive viewing experience. Small LEDs on the back of the TV cast light onto the wall behind it, matching the colors and action on-screen in real time.

Big game-winning goal? Your living room glows green. Concert blasting through your speakers? The lights pulse with the beat. Romantic movie sunset? The wall behind your TV adds more drama than the plot.

Ambilight effectively takes the TV from “just a screen” to the main attraction in the room by extending the visual experience beyond the display itself and making the wall behind it part of the presentation.

What Is QLED?

A QLED TV is an LCD-based TV that has an LED backlight, and images are still viewed on an LCD display panel. However, it adds another component, a sheet of Quantum Dots (that is where the “Q” comes from). The Quantum Dot sheet is placed between the LED backlight and LCD panel to improve color. Quantum Dots are nano (microscopic) particles that emit color when hit with a light source. For a complete rundown on how the technology works, refer to our companion article.

QLED and Ambilight Create a More Immersive Viewing Experience

The 2026 Philips 7985 Ambilight QLED TV Series uses Quantum Dot technology to expand the available color range, improve color accuracy, and deliver a brighter image compared with conventional LED/LCD displays.

“Ambilight TV has always been about creating a more immersive way to experience television,” said Fangfang Li, CEO, SKYWORTH USA. “With our new QLED Ambilight TV series, we’re expanding that experience with advanced QLED technology that delivers richer colors, enhanced picture quality, and a more immersive way to watch, stream, and play.”

Pro Tip: In 2025, SKYWORTH entered into a trademark licensing agreement (TMLA) that allows it to offer Philips-branded televisions to the North American market.

Philips 7985 Ambilight QLED TV Series Key Features

Ambilight: Ambilight extends on-screen colors onto the surrounding walls, creating a wider and more immersive viewing experience.
Follow Audio Mode: This dedicated audio-reactive mode uses Ambilight effects that pulse and move with the beat of the music, adding another visual element to parties and music playback.
Gaming Excitement: Ambilight reacts to gameplay in real time, providing dynamic lighting effects that complement fast-paced action on the screen.
Roku Backdrops and Ambient Lighting: Roku Backdrops can display artwork or personal photos, while Ambilight can provide ambient lighting when the TV is not being used for conventional viewing, adding more versatility to the room.
Eye Comfort: Ambilight can soften the perceived contrast between a bright TV image and a darker surrounding room, potentially making extended viewing more comfortable.
Seamless Streaming: Built-in Roku OS provides access to thousands of movies and TV shows, Roku Originals, more than 500 live TV channels, and a wide selection of streaming apps.
HDR Support: Philips 7985 Ambilight QLED models support HDR10, Dolby Vision, and HLG, providing compatibility with major HDR formats for enhanced contrast, color, and highlight detail.
Dolby Atmos Support: Dolby Atmos compatibility provides support for immersive, multidimensional audio when used with compatible content and audio equipment.
Roku Smart Picture: Roku Smart Picture automatically adjusts picture settings based on the type of content being displayed to optimize the viewing experience.
Wireless Connectivity: The TVs support wireless connections with compatible Roku speakers, soundbars, and subwoofers, providing additional options for building an integrated home theater system.
Apple AirPlay: Apple AirPlay support allows users to stream music, videos, photos, and other compatible content directly from Apple devices to the TV.
Roku Ecosystem: Integration with the Roku mobile app provides access to voice controls, remote-control functions, and Roku Smart Home notifications for broader system connectivity.

Philips QLED Amblight TVs with Roku OS Specs

Philips Model	50PUL7985/F7	55PUL7985/F7	65PUL7985/F7
Product Type	QLED TV with Ambilight	QLED TV with Ambilight	QLED TV with Ambilight
Price	$319.99	$369.99	$469.99
Screen Size (Diagonal)	50-inches	55-inches	65-inches
Display Panel	LCD	LCD	LCD
TV OS	Roku	Roku	Roku
Aspect ratio	16:9	16:9	16:9
Contrast ratio (typical)	4000:1	4000:1	4000:1
Dynamic Contrast	Yes	Yes	Yes
Response time (typical)	8 ms	8 ms	8 ms
Backlight	Edge Lit LED	Edge Lit LED	Edge Lit LED
Panel resolution	4K UHD (3840x2160p)	4K UHD (3840x2160p)	4K UHD (3840x2160p)
Motion Processing	120 PMR (Perfect Motion Rate)	120 PMR (Perfect Motion Rate)	120 PMR (Perfect Motion Rate)
HDR Support	Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG	Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG	Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG
Viewing angle	178º (H) / 178º (V	178º (H) / 178º (V	178º (H) / 178º (V
Sound System	Dolby Atmos, Stereo, SAP	Dolby Atmos, Stereo, SAP	Dolby Atmos, Stereo, SAP
Built-in speakers	2	2	2
Child Protection	Yes	Yes	Yes
Parental Control	Yes	Yes	Yes
Remote Control	Yes	Yes	Yes
Guided setup	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multimedia	USB media browser	USB media browser	USB media browser
Multimedia connections	USB storage device	USB storage device	USB storage device
TV system	ATSC 1.0 NTSC	ATSC 1.0 NTSC	ATSC 1.0 NTSC
Video Playback	ATSC 1.0 NTSC	ATSC 1.0 NTSC	ATSC 1.0 NTSC
HDMI Connections	4	4	4
Wireless connection	WiFi	WiFi	WiFi
Other connections	CVBS+Audio L/R in F-Type (75 ohm) Ethernet Headphone out Digital audio out (optical) Advertisement	CVBS+Audio L/R in F-Type (75 ohm) Ethernet Headphone out Advertisement Digital audio out (optical)	CVBS+Audio L/R in F-Type (75 ohm) Ethernet Advertisement Headphone out Digital audio out (optical)
HDMI features	eARC/ARC (HDMI 1) EasyLink (HDMI-CEC) Advertisement System standby One Touch Play Routing Control System info (menu language) Advertisement System audio control Power status	eARC/ARC (HDMI 1) EasyLink (HDMI-CEC) Advertisement System standby One Touch Play Routing Control System info (menu language) Advertisement System audio control Power status	eARC/ARC (HDMI 1) EasyLink (HDMI-CEC) Advertisement System standby One Touch Play Routing Control System info (menu language) Advertisement System audio control Power status
USB 2.0 inputs	1	1	1
Audio Output	Digital Optical	Digital Optical	Digital Optical
Dimensions (WHD without stand)	43.7 x 25.6 x 3.5 inches	48.3 x 28.1 x 3.5 inches	56.9 x 32.9 x 3.5 inches
Dimensions (WHD with stand)	43.7 x 28.3 x 11.0 inches	48.3 x 30.7 x 10.1 inches	56.9 x 35.3 x 11.8 inches
Weight (without stand)	17.5 lbs	22.2 lbs	31.3 lbs
Weight (with stand)	18.2 lbs	22.9 lbs	33.5 lbs
Wall Mount Compatibility	200 x 100 mm	200 x 100 mm	400 x 300 mm
Included accessories	Batteries for a remote control Remote Control Advertisement Stand Feet x 2 Screws Quick install guide Quick start guide Advertisement	Batteries for a remote control Remote Control Stand Feet x 2 Screws Advertisement Quick install guide Quick start guide	Batteries for a remote control Remote Control Advertisement Stand Feet x 2 Screws Quick install guide Quick start guide Advertisement

The Bottom Line

The addition of Quantum Dot technology gives the 2026 Philips 7985 Series a meaningful step up from the earlier 7875 Ambilight Roku TVs, with the potential for a wider color gamut and better overall color performance. But the real differentiator remains Ambilight. The combination of QLED, Roku OS, and Philips’ rear-mounted dynamic lighting system gives the 7985 Series something that most similarly priced TVs simply do not offer.

There are compromises. Philips does not specify full-array local dimming or Mini-LED backlighting, and the company has not provided peak brightness figures, making it difficult to judge how effectively the 7985 Series will reproduce demanding HDR content. Dolby Vision support is welcome, but HDR format compatibility does not guarantee high-impact HDR performance; substantially brighter premium QLED and Mini-LED TVs can deliver considerably more highlight intensity and contrast.

Gaming support also appears fairly basic, with no indication of more advanced features such as 120Hz or 144Hz high-refresh-rate playback or VRR. Dolby Atmos is supported, but the TV’s built-in two-channel speaker system will inevitably limit the immersive effect, making a soundbar or home theater system the better option for movies and television.

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For buyers on a tighter budget, however, the equation is more interesting. The 50-, 55-, and 65-inch Philips 7985 models combine QLED color, Dolby Vision, Roku streaming, over-the-air television support, four HDMI inputs, and Ambilight in an affordable package. If you want the strongest HDR performance or a serious gaming display, there are better-equipped options. If you want an inexpensive primary or second-room TV with an easy-to-use Roku interface and a visual feature that genuinely stands apart from the competition, Ambilight remains the reason to look at Philips.

Price & Availability

The Philips 7985 Series Ambilight QLED TVs are available in 50″, 55″, and 65″ screen sizes on Amazon and BJ’s Wholesale Club.

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Disney’s Millennium Falcon Ride Activates Fortnite In-Game Rewards

Published

1 hour ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

The next Fortnite tie-in is here, and it’s connected with a real-world experience: jump on the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride at either Disneyland or Disney World starting from Sunday, Aug. 16, and you’ll earn exclusive in-game extras.

Unveiled by Disney and Epic Games during the annual D23 convention in Anaheim on Saturday night, you’ll be able to use the official Disneyland apps to accept a special mission on the interactive ride to collect crates for your Fortnite account. You can use the crates to earn rewards on a new custom Star Wars island in the game called Smugglers Gambit.

“Smugglers Gambit, built in-house by an incredibly talented team, is an immersive, high-quality game,” said Sean Shoptaw, EVP of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment. “These experiences reflect our ambition to connect stories and worlds across formats into one converged entertainment ecosystem.”

On Smugglers Gambit, you can play as a smuggler from the Outer Rim (the location represented by Galaxy’s Edge at the Disney Parks). You’ll be able to explore the new Star Wars locations of Ord Ryla and Mersa Veta Station on the new island.

It’ll have co-op missions, quests, class choices, leveling up and new gear available to unlock. You’ll be battling pirates, as well as “Imperial remnants and dangerous wildlife.”

The Millennium Falcon ride opened at Disneyland and Disney World with the launch of the Star Wars-themed areas in 2019. It allows six people to ride inside a cockpit replica of Han Solo’s famous spaceship, with two people serving as pilots, two as gunners and two as engineers to steer the ship, blast enemies away and repair any damage received to the ship during the flight, respectively.

It’s a flight simulator, so you watch a screen take you through one of several scenarios (the latest Mandalorian-themed missions just launched to tie in with the release of The Mandalorian and Grogu in cinemas in May) while the ride vehicle moves in tandem, and you use physical controls to interact with and affect the flight.

The cockpit technology was built on Unreal Engine 5 and developed by Walt Disney Imagineering together with Industrial Light & Magic, the famed visual effects studio founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas in the 1970s.

Smugglers Gambit was similarly built with Imagineering, Lucasfilm and Disney Games, expanding the story of Hondo Ohnaka, the pirate, smuggler and eventual Resistance ally based at the Black Spire Outpost on Batuu. Ohnaka first appeared in the Clone Wars TV show, but is best known as a shady ally of the protagonists in the follow-up cartoon series, Rebels.

“Building on Epic’s technology, Disney’s Imagineers are shaping the future of interactive entertainment, where an experience goes from the physical world into Fortnite,” said Epic Games President Adam Sussman.

Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run | Fortnite costs nothing, other than your pricey theme park entry, and only requires you to accept the special mission via the Disneyland app or My Disney Experience app while you’re waiting in line for the ride. You then need to link your MyDisney account with your Epic Games account to claim your rewards in Fortnite, or use a code to transfer them from the ride to the game.

“The seamless link between Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Smugglers Gambit … (is) a groundbreaking example of how stories can flow across screens, theme park rides and games,” said James Waugh, Senior Vice President, Franchise Story & Creative Strategy, Lucasfilm.

The ride tie-in follows the Star Wars IP Toolkit’s launch in Fortnite in May — which Disney says drew in 8 million players in the first 72 hours — an expansion that allows players to build their own Star Wars-themed games and islands in Fortnite. The game also famously hosted an event back in Dec. 2019 that heralded the return of Emperor Palpatine a week ahead of his appearance in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Theme parks have been leaning increasingly into more immersive experiences, with Universal Studios Orlando last year opening Epic Universe, which, among other experiences, lets you use your Super Nintendo World Power-Up bands as Amiibo on your Nintendo Switch. The Smugglers Run Fortnite experience looks to be the first one that gives you in-game rewards back home, depending on how well you play a theme park game.

Corinne Reichert

Senior Editor

Corinne Reichert (she/her) grew up in Sydney, Australia and moved to California in 2019. She holds degrees in law and communications, and currently writes news, analysis and features for CNET across the topics of electric vehicles, broadband networks, mobile devices, big tech, artificial intelligence, home technology and entertainment. In her spare time, she watches soccer games and F1 races, and goes to Disneyland as often as possible.

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Kingdom Hearts 4 Fans Are Well Fed After 2 Days of Great Trailers

Published

2 hours ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Kingdom Hearts fans made their joy known during D23’s Entertainment Showcase when a 90 second trailer popped up amid the parade of film and TV announcements, revealing some new details about the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 4 game. But the good news wasn’t limited to the big showcase. During the 25th Anniversary panel for Kingdom Hearts at D23 the game’s Director, Tetsuya Nomura, revealed the original trailer was actually 4 minutes long.

He then showed everyone the trailer, and the crowd went truly wild.

There’s a lot going on in this trailer, and it reveals quite a bit about the way Kingdom Hearts 4 is going to work. A promised, this longer trailer has all of the same pieces from the night before but with quite a bit more depth. Here are a few things I found, supported by commentary from the game’s creators.

King Mickey as a playable character: While the good King has always been a part of Kingdom Hearts, he’s usually off trying to solve a different part of the puzzle on his own while his friends help Sora with the rest. This time around, you will be able to play as King Mickey while he tries to solve a series of puzzles within a magical book. This gameplay won’t be as combat focused as playing with Sora, opting instead for a series of origami-style puzzles to solve as the mystery unravels. It’s not immediately clear how much of the game as a whole will be played as Mickey.
Maleficent will be a significant villain in this game: There’s never just one villain in a Kingdom Hearts game, and Maleficent has been a thorn in the side of Keyblade wielders from the beginning, but Tetsuya Nomura made it clear she will be a significant character in this game. Maybe she sees Sora’s appearance in Quadratum as a window to spread darkness to even more worlds?
Quadratum will be one of the biggest regions of the game: While it’s been said in earlier trailers the real world-looking area we see Sora in is called Quadratum and is based on artists and developers roaming Tokyo for inspiration, it was revealed at D23 that Quadratum will be one of the biggest parts of the game to travel in. To help with this, Sora will have new movement abilities, in addition to the rail gliding and lamp post launches seen in previous games. The goal is for it to be big because the fights there will be against very big Heartless, as seen in the trailer.
Toon Town heavily influenced the hub region for this game: Much like Traverse Town, Twilight Town and other hub-style areas from previous Kingdom Hearts games, this new title will have Disney Town. The area will be filled with bright, colorful activities based partly on the kid-focused Toon Town in Disneyland. Additionally, you can expect a minigame focused on sweet treats inspired by Disneyland, just like sea salt ice cream and other treats from previous games.
Something that wound up on the cutting floor of a previous game will be in Kingdom Hearts 4: During the D23 panel, Tetsuya Nomura shared there was something big the team wanted to include in Kingdom Hearts 3 that wound up being cut because it wasn’t able to do well by the time the game needed to ship. Whatever that cut part of the game was, Nomura has made it a part of Kingdom Hearts 4. All we need now is any actual details about what this is.
Kingdom Hearts 4 will ship in 2027: It was made very clear during this panel that Kingdom Hearts 4 will not experience any delays at this point that will cause this game to ship any later than 2027. There’s no commitment to when in 2027 just yet, and Kingdom Hearts 2 shipped on December 22, 2005 so it really could be any point next year.

Other than the above, the Kingdom Hearts team repeatedly shared this game will follow the same general format of its predecessors. Each world will be its own environmental challenges, include popular characters from across all Disney IP regardless of how old or new, encourage a diversity of gameplay styles and will be unapologetically Disney. All we need now is a way to preorder.

Russell Holly is a Managing Editor on the Commerce team at CNET. He works with all of CNET to assemble top recommendations as well as helping everyone find the best way to buy anything at the best price. When not writing for CNET you can find him riding a bike, running around in Jedi robes, or contributing to WOSU public radio’s Tech Tuesday segment.

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X Open Sources Its Ranking and Filtering Algorithms

Published

2 hours ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch:

X is significantly expanding its open source codebase, which includes the app’s “For You” algorithm and its core ranking engine, and adding a feature that will let users see if their account or posts have been impacted by any of its ranking systems, the social network said on Thursday. The company is making the source code for the “For You” timeline, the default feed you see when you open the app, available on GitHub under the Apache v2 license. It’s also expanding its previous efforts to open source parts of its codebase to add more detail, including the model configuration, filter, and core ranking system details. That means it includes the parameters used to weight different signals — key to understanding which posts are actually displayed. This also makes the codebase roughly 10 to 15 times larger than it was before.

“You’ll get the core ranking code that pulls posts and ranks them for any given user and assembles the feed,” X’s VP of Product Keith Coleman told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the announcement. “You can see the systems that filter out potentially problematic, rule-violating content…And some of those systems, like the ranker and the score, you can even run yourself outside the company.”
“This is the kind of thing that I think people will be fairly shocked that we are releasing,” he added.

In addition to the repository, X is providing tools that will let users see for themselves if and how X’s ranking systems have impacted their account or posts. A new transparency tool is rolling out to an “Under the Hood” page in the app’s settings, which will let users who have posted 10 or more times over the past month download their aggregate stats as a JSON file. The file will show if any labels have been applied to their account or posts over the past calendar month.

X’s VP of Product told TechCrunch that X engineers will consider pull requests. “That would be amazing to have people submitting code that improves the algorithm…I mean, how cool would it be for the X algorithm to be not just visible to the public, but also, like, by the public?”

Tech

SpaceX officially closes its Cursor acquisition

Published

2 hours ago

16 August 2026

NewsAdmin

AI coding startup Cursor is now officially a part of SpaceX, according to an announcement on the Cursor blog.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX — which also acquired Musk’s xAI earlier this year — announced a deal in April for the companies to develop technology together; the deal also gave SpaceX the option to acquire Cursor for $60 billion. Two months later, as SpaceX became a public company, the companies said they were moving forward with the acquisition.

In its announcement that the deal has closed, Cursor repeatedly referenced SpaceX’s computing infrastructure, which the company has been renting out to customers including Anthropic and Google. (SpaceX also faces a lawsuit over the pollution created by its data center gas turbines.)

Cursor said that by becoming part of SpaceX, it will have “access to the largest fleet of GPUs in the world.”

“SpaceX is building the computing capacity needed to scale intelligence far beyond what exists today,” the company added. “Cursor will be one place where that intelligence becomes useful.”

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