On the surface, Cricket and tech are two fields wide apart. One is played with a bat and ball, while the other is creating the newest thing that could change the world. That said, Krish Ramineni, CEO of Fireflies AI, thinks differently. He believes the next billion-dollar startup mindset may not emerge from another software company. It could come from cricket.

When Krish Ramineni announced he was joining Rotterdam Dockers as a founding investor ahead of the inaugural European T20 Premier League (ETPL), it looked like another tech sponsorship. But Ramineni says this isn’t a marketing exercise. For him, investing in cricket is like building an early-stage startup: the product is still taking shape, the audience is growing, and success depends on constantly learning from users.

Why Europe reminds him of an early-stage startup

Cricket is one of the world’s biggest sports by audience, but its commercial value has always been concentrated in certain markets like India, Australia, and England. Europe has long loved football, but millions of South Asian fans already live across the continent.

That’s exactly what attracted Ramineni,

Cricket has billions of fans, but compared to other major sports, I think we’ve barely scratched the surface of what can be built around it. What made this moment interesting to me is access. Historically, the teams and leagues worth owning were already owned. You could be a fan, a sponsor or maybe an investor, but you rarely got the chance to help build something from day one.

According to him, ETPL’s launch is like joining a startup before product-market fit. Rather than buying into an established franchise worth hundreds of millions of dollars, founders can help shape the league’s identity from day one. Six franchises spread across three European countries create what he describes as a rare moment where ownership feels accessible again.

The founder mentality may change sports ownership

Before Fireflies became one of the most recognizable AI productivity companies, the startup pivoted seven different times. That experience fundamentally changed how he approaches new businesses.

You build something, put it in front of people, see what they actually do instead of what you hoped they would do, and then change it. Sports organizations historically haven’t always had to operate that way. For me, the first season of the Dockers is basically version one. Some things will work. Some things won’t. Fans will tell us what they care about through their behavior. Then we make version two dramatically better. 

He believes traditional sports organizations haven’t always operated with that same level of experimentation. Instead of assuming the perfect fan experience already exists, he views Rotterdam Dockers’ inaugural season as version one of the product.

That philosophy extends well beyond the pitch. Match-day experiences, digital content, merchandise, community engagement, and even the franchise’s personality should evolve based on fan behavior rather than executive assumptions.

His relationship with cricket began long before Fireflies

Despite leading an AI company in Silicon Valley, Ramineni’s connection to cricket has little to do with business. Growing up, he became obsessed with the sport during the MS Dhoni era. His parents weren’t particularly enthusiastic about him pursuing cricket seriously, so he quietly began sneaking out on weekends to play adult league matches.

If Fireflies never existed, I’d probably be watching the Dockers from the stands instead of sitting in the ownership group. But I’d definitely still be watching. The funny part is that as a kid, I used to sneak out of the house just to play cricket. Now I own part of a cricket team. I don’t think 12-year-old me would believe that.

For Ramineni, cricket also represents something more personal than entrepreneurship. Living thousands of miles away from India, it’s the sport that consistently reconnects him with home, regardless of geography or career.

AI in Cricket?

We’ve seen AI in almost every aspect of our lives, and Ramineni says he started using artificial intelligence in cricket before he built Fireflies into an AI company. While captaining his club cricket side, he relied on AI tools to analyze opponents before matches. As a batsman, he studied recurring bowling patterns and dismissal tendencies. As captain, he examined scoring areas, player weaknesses, and tactical matchups to prepare game plans. And this experience eventually influenced how he thinks about both industries.

Every ball tells you something about a player, an opponent or the game. The scoreboard tells you what happened. AI can help you understand why.

AI’s impact could be far more far-reaching. For example, it can help with scouting, injury prevention, fan engagement, broadcast production, personalized highlights, and even how franchises understand their communities.

Sony has agreed to pay $7.85 million to settle allegations that it illegally locked PlayStation owners out of buying digital games anywhere but its own store. The lawsuit alleged Sony violated antitrust law by discontinuing game-specific vouchers that allowed digital game purchases through third-party retailers, effectively eliminating competition and leaving the PlayStation Store as the only viable option. Compensation is coming as PSN wallet credit rather than cash, with distribution expected after a final approval hearing in mid-October. US PlayStation customers who bought digital games during the eligible period can file a claim now.

The class-action lawsuit Caccuri v. Sony Interactive Entertainment alleged that Sony’s actions caused “consumers to pay more for certain digital games than they otherwise would have paid on the PlayStation Store.” It alleges that this action violates antitrust laws by forcing PlayStation customers to buy from a single storefront at an inflated price.

Put simply, the lawsuit claims that Sony limited the sale of digital games on other marketplaces, funneling customers into its own PlayStation Store. Some of these games include PlayStation exclusives such as The Last of Us, as well as third-party titles like the Mass Effect Trilogy and Resident Evil 4.

The lawsuit was initially settled in 2024, but the settlement was rejected twice during the approval process — most recently in July 2025, when the presiding judge said the proposed plan “[did] not provide an estimated recovery or a range of potential recovery for class members.” The approval process was reinitiated in April.

Sony denied any wrongdoing or that settlement class members were damaged by its actions, and the court has not decided if the company violated any laws. Despite this, the court has preliminarily approved the $7.85 million settlement payment, subject to the court’s final approval hearing.

The settlement website is live now. The hearing is scheduled for Oct. 15, and it’s meant to confirm the settlement amount, allocate up to 25% of the funds for attorneys’ fees and create a plan to distribute the remainder to eligible class members.

If you fit all of the criteria to be part of the Sony PlayStation game-voucher settlement, you’re automatically a class member in this lawsuit and will be able to collect a portion of the settlement money — added directly to your PlayStation Network account wallet — sometime after the final approval hearing.

Gamers who have deactivated their PlayStation Network accounts can apply for the settlement payment by sending qualifying purchase information to the email address info@PSNDigitalGamesSettlement.com. Customers with deactivated accounts will receive cash payments instead of PSN account accreditation.

The option to opt out of the settlement to retain your right to sue Sony separately in regard to its game-voucher sales practices closed on July 2. A written request to the court opting out of or objecting to the settlement had to be received by then; otherwise, you will remain part of the settlement class.

Who can be part of the Sony PlayStation settlement?

Not every PlayStation owner is automatically eligible. The money is reserved for those who purchased a digital game through the PlayStation Store after Sony ceased selling game-specific vouchers for alternative online storefronts.

In order to join, you must meet the following qualifications:

1. Be a living individual human being in the US or its territories.
2. Have purchased one of the eligible digital games (PDF) through the PlayStation Store between the period of April 1, 2019, and Dec. 31, 2023.

Affected individuals are automatically part of the settlement class and will receive their compensation through their PlayStation Network account wallet, subject to approval at the final hearing, the date and time of which could change. Any updates will be posted to the settlement website.

How much will the Sony PlayStation settlement pay?

It’s unclear how much each settlement class member will receive, though we know affected parties will automatically receive compensation in the form of PlayStation account funds.

Up to a quarter of the $7.85 million settlement will be used to pay attorneys’ fees, taxes and other administrative costs. The remaining settlement money will be administered equally to every settlement class member. Settlement class members will likely see a couple of dollars added to their PlayStation accounts once the funds are fully allocated.

Tyler is a writer for CNET covering laptops and video games. He’s previously covered mobile devices, home energy products and broadband. He came to CNET straight out of college, where he graduated from Seton Hall with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. When Tyler’s not asking questions or doing research for his next assignment, you can find him in his home state of New Jersey, kicking back with a bagel and watching an action flick or playing a new video game.

You can reach him at tgraham@cnet.com.

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Thousands of databases hosted by development platform Supabase are exposing people’s sensitive information to the public web, new security research by cybersecurity firm UpGuard has found.

UpGuard told TechCrunch that it found around 16,000 databases on which some degree of personal data was exposed while they were hosted by Supabase, which allows web and app developers to store and run their databases.

Supabase earlier this year reached a $10 billion valuation, thanks to a rise in developers hosting their vibe-coded apps on the platform. But the company has faced criticism for how it handles user security. There are widely documented cases of users misconfiguring or unknowingly exposing their databases to the broader internet, in some instances to the tune of millions of records each.

The findings highlight how vibe-coded apps and websites can spill or expose sensitive data through basic misconfigurations and improper security. While AI tools can be used to easily build websites and apps, the generated code can often contain security flaws, or apps might require specific configuration that the developer may be ignorant of.

Over the years, countless data breaches have been linked to improperly configured storage servers, databases and websites. Such cases have resulted in the leaks of sensitive military emails, immigration and visa applications, classified government files, hundreds of thousands of driver’s license scans, and children’s personal information.

Now, the boom in AI vibe-coding is helping fuel a new wave of data breaches, many of which are now being linked to Supabase as people increasingly use it for storing their data.

UpGuard says it sought to understand the scale of exposed data across the platform, and found publicly accessible names, addresses, phone numbers, and user passwords. The research surfaced a fewer number of passwords and authentication tokens.

The firm said the databases contained data linked to various projects, such as private conversations with sex workers on an Indian adult streaming site; thousands of license plates of a U.S. valet service; and the contact information of people who used an immigration and relocation service. One of the databases belonged to an African government’s consulate in France, said UpGuard, while another was used to intercept text messages by a virtual SIM farm for sending one-time passcodes to verify online accounts, typically for launching scams and phishing attacks.

While the majority of these exposed datasets appear to be located in the United States, UpGuard said this is a worldwide problem. The findings build on earlier research that also found a range of exposed databases hosted on Supabase, including those by Y Combinator startups and other popular apps.

Supabase has made changes to its platform over the years, including bolstering its platform and user access to databases.

When reached for comment, Supabase’s Chief Information Security Officer Bil Harmer said that while the company has not seen the research, its projects are “secure by default.” He described security as a shared responsibility between the company and its customers. “We provide secure defaults and tooling, and customers control how their own projects are configured,” and the company notifies affected customers when security issues are discovered, he said.

“Security at Supabase is never finished. We care deeply about getting it right, and we’ll keep making it easier for every developer to ship securely,” said Harmer.

UpGuard security researcher Greg Pollock said the company’s research was important for raising awareness about the issue of data exposures.

It’s almost time to enjoy the final Marvel TV show of 2026.

VisionQuest, starring Paul Bettany as the titular android, will make its Disney+ debut in mid-October — and to celebrate its impending release, I’ve put together a tricky quiz that covers the superhero’s story so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Marvel Television’s VisionQuest | Official Trailer – YouTube

Watch On

Photo credit: TU Delft
Forest monitoring usually means a small quadcopter hanging in place while its motors chew through a battery in a few dozen minutes. Noise follows the same schedule. A machine that can grab a branch and cut power would last far longer and bother far fewer animals, yet the last few inches of that landing have wrecked plenty of earlier designs.

Cameras work fine until the gripper enters the frame and the drone is left scrambling to grasp the exact branch it need. Leaves and trees, as well as an overgrown mass of branches, obstruct the view. Salua Hamaza is quite forthright about the issue. Vision brings you close, but when it really counts, your own grip gets in the way. Birds have already figured this out, for example, taking that final stretch with their feet, physically feeling their way along the wood as they gain traction. Hamaza believes that a flying robot would benefit greatly from the same closed loop of feedback.

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Hamaza, Anton Bredenbeck, and Anish Jadoenathmisier designed a lightweight hand for their quadrotor with three fingers in about human proportions. Each finger is made up of three parts: a 3D printed PLA spine and a soft silicone pad that can rub against a variety of surfaces, including bark, a wooden beam, a T junction of wood, and even an arm. The fingers spring shut on their own, so holding wood requires almost no extra effort once everything is in order. When the drone has to search, a single tendon opens each finger, and then there are the sensors, which are 9 copper electrodes down under each pad that provide a simple yes-or-no response if they make touch. The foil on the tips of the fingers even gives you a bump on both sides. An MPR121 controller converts the capacitance change into a yes/no signal that the flight computer may use right away.

Even so, the drone starts by guessing with its cameras. But after that, it begins flying in a figure eight pattern, opening and shutting its hand at each end of the loop. The initial touch is all it requires. That’s because the machine already knows the geometry of its own fingers, so a single sensor reading corresponds to a point in space and a direction to move in. Bredenbeck explained it a little more simply: each sensor merely indicates that something is present, but if you know the form of the hand, you can determine where the branch is and how it is pitched. The drone continues to rotate and slide until all three fingers come into contact, at which point it turns off the motors completely. If everything goes wrong and it can’t get a grip, it just returns to a safe hover and tries again.

Simulation runs performed much better than expected, clearing more than 99% of landings even when the starting guess was significantly off, by 60 cm and 50 degrees. Despite the same shaky projections, hardware flights spanning 26 testing were also a success. Then they attempted a version without the tactile feedback loop, which you’d expect to be a disaster, but it actually kept getting closer even when the estimate was off by up to 10 cm. The diameter of the branch it could pick up increased from approximately 10 cm to a lot more respectable 15 cm, all because it could use its fingers to feel its way in. However, it is not perfect, as very thin sticks under 2 cm just glide through without making enough contact to be picked up. One of the cases they observed recognized the first bump at 15 seconds in and locked onto the branch about 35 seconds later. There is a catch if your fingertip becomes stuck on a branch toward the end.
[Source]

STP analysis is a marketing framework that helps firms select which client segments to target, which to prioritize and how the brand should be viewed by those customers. STP is an abbreviation of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Working through these steps in order helps to transform a large market into a targeted marketing approach.

This guide explains how to conduct an STP analysis and apply each stage in practice. For a simple analysis, a document or spreadsheet may be enough. When several customer groups need to be compared, a visual tool such as Wondershare EdrawMind can help organize the research and connect the three stages in one place.

What Is STP Analysis?

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) is a marketing framework that helps you to take a large market and transform it into a targeted plan. Segmentation is the process of dividing consumers into groups with comparable traits, requirements or habits.

Targeting reviews these categories and decides which the company should concentrate on, based on criteria such as customer wants, market potential and business fit. Positioning is thus a description of how the brand is to be presented to the target audience in relation to competing options.

These three steps work together to help firms develop more relevant marketing strategies rather than sending the same message to every consumer. Wondershare EdrawMind may help you organize and illustrate the links between customer segments, target audiences and positioning decisions in a single, clear mind map.

How to Conduct an STP Analysis with EdrawMind

EdrawMind allows you to do a STP analysis in six phases, beginning with defining the market and identifying customer groups and progressing to choosing a target audience and building a clear positioning plan.

1. Define the Market

Begin by deciding whatever product, service or market you wish to study. In EdrawMind, make it the major theme of a new mind map, then branch off into categories like consumers, rivals, goods and market circumstances. AI Mind Map Generation can also assist you in developing a basic structure from a prompt, which you can then enhance as you conduct further study.

2. Identify Customer Segments

Then, segment your market into relevant consumer groups based on demographics, geography, interests, requirements, purchase habits, etc. In EdrawMind, branches and sub-branches provide you the ability to arrange each section and add appropriate properties below it. You might also begin with an existing template and personalize it to your study.

3. Evaluate Each Segment

Once you have mapped your categories, assess them against factors such as market size, growth potential, competition, customer demands, profitability and business fit. EdrawMind’s Relationship, Boundary, Callout and Summary tools assist to arrange the supporting content and demonstrate relationships between distinct findings, making the comparison easier to understand.

4. Select the Target Audience

Once you have compared the segments, determine which audience offers the strongest opportunity for the business. Use icons, marks, boundaries, or formatting options in EdrawMind to highlight the selected segment and distinguish it from the others. Keeping the supporting research within the same map also makes the target selection easier to explain.

5. Develop the Positioning

Determine the target audience’s core demands and examine how the brand might solve them differently than rivals. Create branches in EdrawMind for customer wants, product benefits, rivals and areas of differentiation, then link similar ideas using Relationship Lines. Customizable themes and layouts might help to effectively communicate the positioning plan.

6. Review the STP Strategy

Finally, go over the entire map to ensure that the segmentation, target audience and placement are all related logically. EdrawMind’s real-time collaboration allows team members to examine and amend the analysis together and its presentation and export options make it simple to share the finished plan with stakeholders.

Examples of STP in Practice

Customers might be segmented by firm size and technological skill, according to a project management software provider. It could target mid-sized teams that still rely heavily on spreadsheets and position its product around simple setup and easier collaboration.

A skincare business could segment clients by skin issues, age and purchase habits. It might attract younger consumers searching for solutions for specific issues and could differentiate itself with science-backed formulae and ingredient transparency.

In both examples, the positioning is based on the needs of the selected audience. This connection between the three stages is what makes STP useful as a marketing strategy.

FAQ

Key Takeaways

STP analysis consists of three interrelated steps: understanding the market through segmentation, selecting the most appropriate audience through targeting and developing a clear position for that audience.

A successful plan relies on keeping these stages connected. When targeting and positioning are founded on genuine consumer demands and market research, marketing choices become more focused and easier for a team to discuss and implement.

from the dysfunction-junction dept

I’ve written a lot this year about how Republicans hijacked the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program (created by the 2021 infrastructure bill) and immediately set about weakening oversight standards, eliminating enforcement of stuff like broadband affordability, speed, and equitable deployment, and making it a priority to heavily subsidize Elon Musk for LEO satellite broadband networks he had already planned to deploy anyway.

All of the chaos and changes have resulted in endless delays, and a lot of promising providers backing out of the BEAD program entirely. That includes electric cooperatives, many of which have been pushing affordable fiber optics into their existing, very rural electrical footprints.

The Trump NTIA process has been so filled with cronyism, delays, changes, new pointless regulations and chaos, a third or more of U.S. cooperatives say they’ll no longer participate:

“63 electric cooperatives across 27 states received provisional BEAD awards to offer reliable high-speed broadband to some of the most challenging eligible locations in the country. But delayed implementation and shifting guidance have created a program defined by uncertainty and confusion. Instead of accelerating deployment, continual revisions to the program have discouraged participation,” said Matheson.

“To date, 20 of the 63 electric cooperatives originally slated to participate in BEAD have withdrawn from the program. Many others are considering withdrawal, citing concerns over the application of extra-statutory pole attachment requirements as a condition of participation,” he added.”

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Cooperatives are annoyed, in part, about new pole-attachment regulations the NTIA applied that make installations much more time-consuming and complex. The Communications Act explicitly exempted electric cooperatives and municipal utilities from federal pole regulation because such providers serve the public interest and are often the only ones willing to connect rural Americans.

Many incumbent telecoms control local poles, and make pole fiber attachment extra annoying to forestall competition. I’d suspect the new restrictions — from an administration that generally demonizes corporate oversight and regulation — are at the direct request of companies like AT&T, worried that popular cooperatives might gobble up market share in markets they theoretically could serve in the future.

It’s worth reminding you: Republicans spent the entirety of the last few years insisting that BEAD was a giant government boondoggle, and that once in office they’d fix it. This claim was routinely propped up by the likes of Ezra Klein at the New York Times, who hasn’t had a single solitary thing to say about U.S. broadband access policy in the two-years since Trumpism retook control of the program.

Congress originally set aside $42.5 billion to improve U.S. broadband. The Trump administration effectively tried to cut the program in half, insisting that Elon Musk’s expensive, congested satellite service would be “good enough” for a lot of these locations. The Trump administration then very clearly tried to wander off with the remaining money, and continues to be very murky about when states will receive it.

Fixing U.S. broadband requires a coordinated array of solutions. Some communities are helped by municipally-owned broadband. Some are helped by the local electrical cooperative getting into fiber and expanding cheap fiber access to rural communities. Others are best served by public-private partnerships between local governments and private providers.

The Trump administration’s BEAD changes have worked tirelessly to redirect a lot of money away from these popular, highly localized solutions, and funnel as much money as possible into the back pocket of incumbent monopolies like AT&T and Comcast, or billionaires like Elon Musk.

Other smaller and mid-sized providers are increasingly backing away from participating in the program entirely, either because of new restrictions and delays, or because the cost of deployment is skyrocketing due to wars, tariffs, and other Trump bumbling. As more BEAD bidders back away from participation or existing awards, more and more money will be funneled to Musk for substandard service so Trump Republicans can pretend the problem of U.S. broadband access has been “fixed.”

In states like California, Trump officials are insisting that California won’t receive any of its already-scheduled $1.86 billion BEAD grant award if they do literally anything telecom monopolies don’t like, whether that’s holding big telecom affordable for high prices, or enforcing the state’s net neutrality law.

It’s a cronyistic mess that’s starting to see growing bipartisan anger even in states like Texas, and it’s poised to get much, much louder as the long-delayed money to states truly begins to flow next year. Right now, a lot of people in state broadband policy are hesitant to publicly comment because they’re worried the Trump administration will sever their grant awards entirely.

Filed Under: bead, broadband, cronyism, delays, elon musk, fiber, high speed internet, ntia, telecom

Sony’s new ULT range of speakers stretches from the relatively manageable $450 ULT Tower 5 to the frankly ridiculous $1,200 ULT Tower Max. Sitting between them is the ULT Tower 7, with excellent sound, an ample selection of inputs, a combined 420 watts of output, and a 30-hour battery. Be warned, though, while it’s smaller than the Tower Max, it is still absolutely enormous and weighs 50.3 pounds.

Most party speakers will accept music from a DJ controller, but Sony goes further with RCA and balanced XLR inputs, plus an XLR output for expanding a wired setup. Auracast-based Party Chain can also connect up to 100 compatible speakers, so you can go head-to-head with Madison Square Garden on volume.

Inside is an 11-inch woofer, two 4.7-inch midrange drivers, and four tweeters, including a rear-facing pair that spread audio around the room. Bass is deep and effective, and at close quarters with the volume cranked, I could really feel it. It’s not quite bone-shaking at the club levels, but it’s still impressive.

The 360-degree driver configuration helps sound spread out and avoid sounding too boxed in, and while the bass is still quite directional, I really enjoyed the scale and ease with which this speaker filled the room.

If you have the budget and space, and you want to play loud all night, the Sony delivers, but I do wish it had a retractable handle. The built-in corner handles are OK-, but you need to angle it sharply at an odd angle to engage the wheels, and trust me, you don’t want to carry this speaker by hand very far.

Best Compact Party Speaker

Nscale, a British neocloud, has secured $3.36 billion in financing ahead of its IPO later this year, the company announced on Friday. Structured as a convertible note, the massive funding round underscores the staggering capital required to build out AI data centers.

Led by hedge fund Third Point, the new investment includes $2.36 billion available to the company immediately and an additional $1 billion coming from existing investor Nvidia, which Nscale will receive in mid-November. The notes will convert into equity shares once the IPO is completed.

Nscale, which filed its IPO paperwork last week, is expected to be valued at $35 billion on the NYSE, Financial Times reported, and is seeking to raise $3 billion in the offering, according to Bloomberg.

Since it was spun out of Australian cryptocurrency mining company Arkon Energy two years ago, Nscale has amassed over $103 billion worth of contracts, according to its IPO filing.

The company is currently developing several large data center campuses, including in Norway and West Virginia.