from the death-knell dept

There’s enshittification, and then there’s enshittification. Allow me to give you an example of each. For what we’ll call enshittification classic, there’s Xbox’s Game Pass service. A mere two years ago, Microsoft made all kinds of changes to Game Pass to coincide with a serious slowdown of subscriber adoption. Those changes included doing away with previous service tiers, introducing new tiers that came in at higher prices, the removal of day-1 access to first party titles for some of the tiers and some hardware even at those higher prices. So, Microsoft shifted the offering for Game Pass in a way that made it cost significantly more, while providing less value.

But for the next tier of enshittification, there’s… Xbox’s Game Pass service. If you thought the devaluing of the service the last go around was shitty, wait until you get a load of Microsoft’s plan to slap an hours limit for its cloud gaming onto those same subscriptions.

Microsoft has announced big changes to Xbox cloud gaming, including a switch to monthly hour limits. From November, Game Pass plans will include a set number of cloud gaming hours each month:

• Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours
• Game Pass Premium: 10 hours
• Game Pass Essential: 5 hours

Now, if confronted, Microsoft has a couple of things to say about all of this and why you shouldn’t worry about it. First, anyone that exhausts their subscription hours can, you guessed it, simply buy more. Want to engage in as much cloud gaming as you did before? No problem! Fork over even more money than the already raised tier prices and you can go right ahead.

Second, and this is where I’ll engage in some blatant speculation, Microsoft said these changes will barely effect anyone at all.

The change means those who use cloud gaming most via Game Pass will end up having to pay more, although Microsoft said this impacts 4% of Game Pass subscribers.

See? It’s only 4% of subscribers that will run out of these tiered hours. Where does my speculation come in? Oh, simple: I think Microsoft is full of shit on that number. What informs that speculation? Oh, simple: Microsoft also says more people are engaging in cloud gaming and playing it for longer periods of time.

In a blog post, Microsoft said it was making the changes because the cost of providing cloud gaming has grown as more people use it and play for longer. The monthly limits, Microsoft continued, will mean it can invest in reliability and performance.

So, to summarize, Microsoft had to put in these hours limits because more and more people are gaming in the cloud for longer and longer amounts of time… but those limits are no big deal because very few people game long enough to exhaust those hours? I’m no mathematician, but I don’t think those two statements can exist in the same reality.

What’s really driving all of this is a combination of the predictable enshittification process tech offerings like this tend to travel down and the explosion in cost of the hardware needed to run the backend of it all, thanks to the adoption of A.I. platforms. And, hey, those rising additional costs to Microsoft are very real.

But so is the reduction in value of Game Pass as a result of all of this. Cloud gaming is likely the future of gaming. But I’m no longer sure Game Pass is going to be a player in that future.

Filed Under: cloud gaming, enshittification, gamepass, streaming games, subscription, tiers, video games, xbox

Companies: microsoft

PART 1 Xfce is one of the oldest and smallest desktops, but it’s also one of the most malleable: it can look and work like multiple other OSes. Best of all, an optional extra Xfce tool automates away most of the configuration.

Xfce has been around for 30 years, undergoing several facelifts while remaining one of the most configurable and lightweight Linux desktops. It started off looking like CDE, then it evolved into something more like Windows 95 before developing its own identity.

The good news, though, is that you don’t have to spend hours right-clicking and twiddling options to give it a whole new look. It has its own tool for this, called Panel Profiles. It’s an optional extra that does the same job as Zorin OS’s Appearance tool: it lets you flip between predefined desktop layouts in two clicks. It works on the fly, without even requiring you to log out, and you can also define and save your own custom layouts. With Panel Profiles, you can make Xfce resemble various versions of Windows, Xubuntu, Xfce itself, MATE (or GNOME 2, if you’re nostalgic), Mac OS X, or Ubuntu Unity.

In Part 1 of this two-part workshop, we’ll show you how to install Panel Profiles and the extra components that let it really flex Xfce’s muscles. To get the most out of some of the more unconventional layouts, you do need to do a little under-the-hood reconfiguration, and in part 2 we’ll cover how to do that: it involves adding a few lines to plain-text files and doing a little manual point-and-click panel tweaking.

Before the Qt advocates start shouting at us, it’s true that KDE Plasma can do most of this too. The difference is that, as far as we’ve been able to find, KDE has no automatic layout-switching tool, while Xfce’s Panel Profiles does most of the grunt work for you. In KDE, you’ll have to DIY (“Do It Yourself,” for non-Brits) and learn to navigate KDE’s hundreds of settings in dozens of dialog boxes. With Panel Profiles, Xfce makes it much easier – and as our Ubuntu flavor comparison showed, Xfce does it in less code, using less RAM and less disk space.

In the vain hope of forestalling questions, we thought we’d explain why we want it. This vulture still uses Ubuntu Unity on several laptops. We really liked the Unity desktop in 2011 and we still do. It’s space-efficient on a small screen, but also makes effective use of multiple large screens. Having the Dock app launcher and switcher at the side of the screen is space-efficient, and for fullscreen or tiled apps, it should be on the opposite edge from scrollbars: NeXT put the Dock on the right, but then NeXT put scrollbars on the left. Scrollbars are on the right in all modern GUIs, so the Dock-analog should be on the left edge. The other great thing about Unity is that you can navigate it almost entirely with Windows keystrokes. However, Canonical no longer maintains Unity as Ubuntu’s default desktop, and it is not widely packaged outside Ubuntu, while Xfce runs on Linux distributions and BSDs alike.

Early this year we tried the Desktop Classic System, a clever Debian remix that uses a customized MATE desktop to provide a spatial desktop: icons and windows remember their locations, stay where they’re put, and reappear in the same position when you re-open them. This was one of the most useful but little-appreciated features of classic Mac OS, before it was replaced by Mac OS X (later rebranded just “OS X” and now “macOS” with a small “m”).

We liked DCS, but it does have some drawbacks, and for us the big one is that there’s no global menu bar. For us, this is also one of the main drawbacks of Elementary OS, which is one of the best-looking desktop distros. Without a menu bar, both have a yawning, empty panel stretching right across the screen with 95 percent of its space wasted. The same is true of GNOME, and although you can fix that with extensions, the result is fragile and it can’t do anything about windows conventional title bars, with their standard control buttons, and many of GNOME’s other eccentricities.

The spatial desktop of the original MacOS was great and we miss it – but these days, a quarter of a century after its replacement arrived, we like tiled windows more. However, for us, a global menu bar is even more useful. Putting the dock’s functionality on a separate panel works too: on a smaller screen, you can set it to auto-hide, and switch apps with Alt+Tab. Yes, we know, KDE can do this too, but getting there requires delving deep into KDE’s thousands of config settings. Xfce makes it easy, and it is smaller, simpler, and has a relatively slow release cadence. We find Xfce faster, more responsive, and beautifully clean.

For the demo, we used plain Debian 13, but the same methods work with MX Linux, Xubuntu, and Alpine Linux, and should also work on openSUSE, Fedora, and other distributions that offer Xfce.

When installing Debian, we chose the “desktop” option, cleared the GNOME option, and selected Xfce instead. If you are more used to using sudo than logging in as root for admin tasks, a top tip: when the installation program asks for a password for the root account, just leave it blank. In the next step, when you create a user account, the installer will automatically enable sudo and leave the root account disabled.

Step 1 – automating the basics

To try Xfce’s Tleilaxu face-dancing powers, you need Panel Profiles – but most distros don’t install it by default. On Debian, it’s as simple as sudo apt install -y xfce4-panel-profiles.

On Debian 13, that’s it. In the past, we have seen it fail on other distros due to a missing dependency: Panel Profiles also needs the Python psutil module. On Debian-like distros, just run apt install python-psutil.

Once you’ve got Panel Profiles, you can choose among multiple predefined layouts. We suspect their names were chosen not to infringe on any trademarks, but we find them fairly self-explanatory:

• Cupertino – named after Apple’s hometown, this is a somewhat macOS-like config.

• GNOME 2 – although these days MATE might be more appropriate: a layout with two full-width panels at top and bottom; the top one has app launcher menus and a system tray, and the bottom has window and virtual-desktop switchers.

• openSUSE Leap 15.x – a Windows 95-style layout, with some Linux improvements: a single panel at the bottom, the more capable Whisker menu first, then a “show desktop” button and a virtual desktop switcher at the right.

• Redmond – a very minimal Windows 95 layout, meaning the basic Applications menu with no search, no virtual desktops, no app launchers, and no show-desktop button.

• Redmond 7 – more like Windows 7: searchable Whisker menu, big icon buttons for windows instead of rectangular buttons with text labels, and a show-desktop button at the end of the panel.

• Unity – similar to the Unity desktop layout, with a full-height application-launcher panel on the left and a panel with a menu bar and status indicators at the top.

There are several more, including multiple historical versions of both Xfce’s own default layouts, and those of several older versions of Xubuntu. For our purposes, though, we’re mainly interested in the “Cupertino” and “Unity” profiles. These are quite similar: both have a top panel with an application menu on the left, status icons on the right, and a global menu bar between them, plus a dock-like second panel.

The main differences are that Cupertino centers the dock at the bottom, while Unity has it spanning the whole left edge. Cupertino puts an app launcher at the start of the top panel, while Unity makes it the first entry in the dock. That’s about it. Naturally, this being Xfce and configurable, you can move either of these elements if you prefer them somewhere else.

But first, a warning: don’t try to choose these profiles yet! To get even basic versions of either profile working, you must install some extra components… and to witness the full power of this fully configurable and operational Unix desktop, you’ll need to do a little extra legwork, as we’ll get to in Episode Two.

Manually satisfying Panel Profiles’ needs

There is one significant stumbling block: installing Panel Profiles does not install the Xfce components its layouts require. You must install them yourself before trying a given profile. If you don’t, the tool will quit, leaving you with no panels at all. This is less than ideal, but if it happens, don’t panic: right-click the desktop and you can log out. When you log in again, most of the desktop should work.

For the global menu bar in “Cupertino” and “Unity,” you must install a package called xfce4-appmenu-plugin. This uses the Vala panel global menu, and installing the Xfce plugin should automatically pull the relevant dependencies, including vala-panel-appmenu-common, appmenu-registrar, appmenu-gtk3-module, and appmenu-gtk-module-common.

The “Unity” profile also needs another plugin, which moves window-control buttons into the top panel. If it’s missing, Panel Profiles complains that it can’t find wckbuttons. To avoid that, install xfce4-windowck-plugin.

The Xubuntu profiles require another plugin for indicators; to get them working, install xfce4-indicator-plugin. The Xubuntu profiles also want another plugin, but the error message only tells us that (null) is missing, so we haven’t been able to work out exactly what it is. As a workaround, we simply installed all the optional packages starting with xfce4- – it’s the crude sledgehammer approach, but doesn’t use much space. (We suggest excluding xfce4-dev-tools, unless you want to recompile Xfce for yourself – this metapackage pulls in a large number of compilers and other development tools.)

Once you’ve installed all the dependencies, all the Panel Profiles layouts should work. The Cupertino layout pins the app menu to the start of the top panel, where it acts a little like the Apple Menu on a Mac. The Unity layout replaces this with the Whisker menu, configured as a full-screen application launcher and placed as the first button on the panel down the left-hand side.

You can hop between layouts on the fly using the Panel Profiles tool. Xfce remembers the last layout selected by each user account and reloads it at the next login. You can explore how they are constructed by examining each panel’s controls, then repositioning them or adding your own controls and applications.

However, we’re not totally happy with either of them. Further customization can improve the experience, and we’ll explain how in Part 2. ®

Windows admins report that the September 2026 cumulative updates are causing Remote Desktop Services (RDS) failures on Windows Server 2019, 2022, and 2025 systems, preventing users from connecting and, in some cases, requiring a hard reset to restore functionality.

The problems appear after installing this month’s Microsoft September 2026 Patch Tuesday cumulative updates, with many admins reporting on Reddit [1, 2, 3] that RDS servers work normally for a few hours before connections start failing.

Once a server starts failing, existing Remote Desktop sessions may not be able to disconnect or log off properly. New connection attempts can also hang during the connection process and eventually fail.

BleepingComputer has also received reports from readers who say their Terminal Servers began experiencing similar problems after installing the September updates.

“All terminal servers in our environment are failing (sessions dropping, no new connections possible, only solution is a hard reset) within a day,” one reader posted to our Patch Tuesday article.

Another reader said Remote Desktop Services initially worked normally after installing the September update but began failing after users logged out.

“We’ve had issues with Remote Desktop Services post September update. It works initially, but after the first log out, services crash and no further users can sign in,” a Windows admin posted.

For them, restarting the server did not resolve the problem. However, rolling back the September update resolved the issues they were having.

Another administrator investigating Server 2022 reported on Reddit that the RDP service becomes unresponsive when users begin logging out and said debugging showed what appeared to be a deadlock between Remote Desktop and the Local Session Manager.

“The service hangs at RDPSERVERBASE!WDLIB_Close, there seems to be no timeout set here. This results in a deadlock between RDP and LSM,” reads the post.

However, Microsoft has not confirmed this as the cause of the failures.

The reports are affecting all Windows Server releases, with administrators reporting similar problems on Server 2019 (KB5122876), Server 2022 (KB5122882), and Server 2025 (KB5122871) systems.

Admins who have rolled back the September updates say doing so restores Remote Desktop functionality. However, removing the updates also removes the security fixes included in this month’s Patch Tuesday release.

Microsoft told BleepingComputer that it is aware of the reports and is investigating, and will share guidance as it becomes available.

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

Save your seat

• ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson has offered a deep dive into Guild Wars 3’s momentum system
• The feature offers “fluid” transitions between movement and combat, which Johanson says is a “first” for the MMORPG genre
• Players can build momentum as they move around the world and in combat to deliver powerful attacks

ArenaNet has revealed more about Guild Wars 3‘s newly introduced momentum system, a mechanic that blends all actions and combat abilities to ensure constant “fluid” movement.

During an exclusive presentation TechRadar Gaming attended at Gamescom, ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson showcased the studio’s action-adventure MMORPG and offered a deep dive into the game’s story and open world, the combat system, multiplayer design, and more.

One of China’s most prominent AI labs, Moonshot AI, believes it can turn its popular open-weight model into serious sales growth. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that the lab is targeting $2 billion in annualized revenue by the end of the year, double the company’s reported revenue run rate for August. It’s an aggressive goal that reflects the success of the company’s K3 model since its release this summer.

While K3’s usage figures have declined slightly in recent months, OpenRouter data currently shows as many as 300 billion tokens being generated each day by K3 models on the system.

Moonshot’s projected revenue is still dwarfed by that of OpenAI and Anthropic, which recent reports put at $40 billion and $65 billion, respectively. Because Moonshot’s model weights are freely available, the company has far lower margins than its closed-weight competitors. The rising projections show there’s still money to be made from open-weight AI models, even if they’re not as lucrative as closed-weight frontier models.

Still, Moonshot’s model development practices remain controversial — if not downright illegal. Earlier this week, Anthropic accused the company of a long-running model distillation campaign that routed nearly 300,000 requests from Kimi directly to Claude Opus, effectively serving Opus in place of Kimi’s own models. In total, more than 23 million responses were collected from Anthropic models for use in Moonshot’s training, the company alleged.

I purchased the Triangle Borea BR03 in 2020 to replace a pair of ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2s in our living room. This was partly about upgrading the sound quality and mostly about the way the BR03 looked. Fortunately, they sounded great, too. I was immediately surprised and delighted by how much livelier and more detailed the BR03 sounded compared with the ELACs they replaced. Six years, multiple apartments, and two daring and adventurous cats later, that same pair of BR03s remains the centerpiece of our home theater setup.

That history meant I had a pretty good idea of what to expect when Triangle sent over the new, larger Borea BR04 for review. On paper, it seemed like a straightforward proposition: take what worked about the BR03, extend the frequency response, increase its sense of scale, and create a more capable version of essentially the same speaker.

The BR04 is clearly the more capable loudspeaker. It is more dynamic, extends lower in the bass and higher in the treble, creates a larger and more immersive soundstage, and does a substantially better job of separating individual elements within a dense mix. It also disappears into the room in a way the BR03 never quite manages.

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The Case for the BR03

And yet… after six years of living with the BR03, I’m not ready to call the BR04 the better speaker without qualification. The BR03 sounds smaller, more colored, and less technically accomplished by comparison. But some of those same characteristics are also part of what made it such an easy speaker to live with in as many different arrangements as we have.

What I expected to be a simple question of how much Triangle had improved the BR03 became a more interesting one: Is the BR04 really an upgrade to one of my favorite affordable bookshelf speakers, or is it a different beast entirely?

What I wasn’t expecting was how difficult it would be to declare the BR04 the better speaker without qualification. The BR04 is clearly the more capable loudspeaker. It is more dynamic, extends lower in the bass and higher in the treble, creates a larger and more immersive soundstage, and does a substantially better job of separating individual elements within a dense mix. It also disappears into the room in a way the BR03 never quite manages.

The BR03 sounds smaller and more contained by comparison. Its presentation is more rolled off at both ends, its frequency response sounds less even, and it fails to render the same degree of resolution or spatial definition.

But I don’t necessarily prefer the BR04 for everything.

In my listening space, and without any equalization applied, the BR03’s relatively elevated lower midrange and upper bass give it a fuller, arguably more cohesive presentation, while its less prominent upper midrange makes it considerably more forgiving. The BR04 can occasionally become a little jarring with dense, loud mixes that have a lot of energy around 2 kHz. The BR03 smooths over some of that information, but this coloration can work in its favor.

Bigger Cabinet, Same Basic Formula

The BR03 and BR04 share the same basic two-way design, with Triangle’s 25mm EFS silk-dome tweeter and a 16cm cellulose midrange/bass driver, but the BR04 is physically larger. The BR03 measures 8.1 x 15.0 x 12.4 inches, while the BR04 grows to 8.7 x 16.7 x 12.4 inches. The extra height and width give the BR04 a larger cabinet volume without increasing depth, which helps explain some of the added scale and low-frequency extension I heard.

Triangle rates both speakers at 90dB sensitivity with a nominal 8-ohm impedance, so the BR04 is not easier to drive. The BR03 is rated down to 46Hz, while the BR04 reaches 44Hz and also uses a revised 16cm driver, redesigned front port, and a lower 3.2kHz crossover point compared with 3.6kHz for the BR03. The BR04 also adds dual binding posts for bi-wiring or bi-amping.

The BR03 is offered in Light Oak, Black Ash, Walnut, and White. The BR04 expands the palette to Light Oak, Black Ash, White, Chestnut, Green, and Blue. It is still recognizably a Borea, but it looks and feels like the more substantial loudspeaker before you even turn it on.

Specifications: BR03 vs. BR04

Listening

For this review, I put together a Reference Playlist featuring the tracks I used to evaluate the Triangle Borea BR03 and BR04, so you can enjoy the music that helped shape my listening impressions.

Caroline Polachek’s “I Give Up” makes the BR04’s technical advantages easily apparent. The BR04 is simply much better at disappearing within the room. Instead of hearing the speaker reproducing the recording, I feel closer to listening directly to the mix.

The BR03 doesn’t sound bad in comparison, but it does sound decidedly more colored and contained.

When the chorus enters at 2:20, the difference becomes particularly obvious. The BR03 takes on an almost lo-fi quality compared with the BR04, which keeps the individual elements of the production tighter and more distinct while allowing the overall presentation of the song to expand beyond the physical boundaries of the speakers.

This ability to scale with a recording is one of the BR04’s biggest improvements over the BR03. The tradeoff is that its additional upper-midrange presence can occasionally work against it. With recordings that are particularly dense, or even aggressive, in that region, I sometimes want the BR04 to settle down to the point where it’s worth breaking out the parametric EQ.

There’s a lot happening in Madison Cunningham and Remi Wolf’s “Hospital (One Man Down),” and it provides an even better demonstration of the BR04’s improved separation capabilities.

Multiple layers of vocals and distorted harmonies compete with an intricate, plodding rhythm section and baritone guitar that sometimes doubles the vocal melody an octave beneath it. The BR04 does a far better job of keeping all of these elements present and distinct.

Through the BR03, the same mix becomes noticeably more congested and less defined due to unevenness in the frequency response and the resulting audio masking.

But there’s an important distinction between congestion and unpleasantness.

The BR03 mushes these elements together somewhat, but it does so over a relatively full lower-midrange foundation that results in a balanced and listenable rendition of the song. The BR03 offers up less access to the intricacies of the mix, but the vibe and spirit of the production still come through in a way that feels satisfying.

That, and the speaker’s retro-futurist MCM aesthetic, continue to make the BR03 an astounding value for the money.

The differences become considerably less pronounced with a more sparsely arranged recording. On Ethan Gruska’s “Reoccurring Dream,” the BR04 still creates a clearer distinction between the vocal and the double-tracked acoustic guitars, but the BR03 doesn’t sound especially lacking in detail. In fact, its more subdued upper midrange can make the presentation feel a bit smoother.

It’s when the arrangement begins expanding that the BR04 pulls ahead again.

At around 2:00, as the twinkly guitars and deeper, reedier instrument enter, the BR04 seems to grow along with the arrangement. The soundstage stretches out wider, taller, and deeper as the additional elements occupy their own spaces.

The BR03 doesn’t have the same ability to expand. Its presentation remains comparatively fixed between the speakers even as the recording itself gets larger.

The string build around 2:00 in Andy Shauf’s “Early to the Party” might be my favorite demonstration of that difference. Played back at approximately the same level, the crescendo feels considerably more dynamic through the BR04. The arrangement progressively grows wider, taller, and deeper before giving way to Shauf’s characteristically dry vocal, which feels all the more intimate because of the contrast conveyed.

Through the BR03, the build largely feels like it is taking place between the speakers from start to finish. Through the BR04, it begins between the speakers but gradually expands to take over the room, making the crescendo feel considerably more exciting and impactful.

That distinction gets at what I think the BR04 does best. It isn’t simply providing more detail; it is preserving and reproducing more of the scale and dynamic structure of the mix.

Listening With WiiM RoomFit

Running WiiM RoomFit on both pairs of speakers improved their overall tonal balance, but it didn’t erase their fundamental differences. With correction engaged, the BR04 still sounds considerably more refined and immersive. Its stronger separation, larger soundstage, and greater sense of depth remain intact, suggesting that the differences between these speakers extend beyond simple variations in raw frequency response.

Room correction makes the BR03 sound like a better-balanced BR03. It doesn’t turn it into a BR04.

Fabric Speaker Grilles & Bass Extension

One thing I would avoid with the BR04 is its included magnetic fabric grille. To my ears, the speaker sounds noticeably more rolled off with the grille attached — enough that I preferred listening with it removed. It also negates the MCM look of the speakers that I love.

Neither speaker eliminates the need for a subwoofer if you’re looking for convincing reproduction of sustained sub-bass frequencies. The BR04 digs noticeably deeper than the BR03, but there are still limits to what either bookshelf speaker can reproduce in the bottom octave.

The Bottom Line

For music playback, the BR04 is not a subtle upgrade. It offers stronger dynamics, deeper bass extension, greater treble extension, better separation, and a much larger spatial presentation. Most importantly, it creates a clearer window into a mix with considerably less masking. On dense arrangements, that difference is often dramatic.

But the BR03 remains unusually easy to recommend. Its presentation is more colored, less extended, and less technically impressive, but its relatively relaxed upper midrange makes it an extremely versatile loudspeaker. It’s a bit more forgiving of mediocre recordings and mixes, which makes it well-suited for general-purpose living-room duty, and it’s every bit as attractive as the more expensive BR04.

If I were primarily building a system for critical music listening, I would want the BR04. If I wanted an affordable pair of attractive speakers for casual music, television, and movies, the BR03 continues to make an awfully strong case for itself.

The BR04 shows just how much more Triangle can extract from the Borea platform. The more surprising takeaway might be how little that diminishes what made the BR03 such an exceptional value in the first place.

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There aren’t many differences between what you’d need for a good office chair versus a good gaming chair, but for some reason, they’re often marketed differently. And that’s usually what separates them: marketing. When Branch released variations of the WIRED-favorite Ergonomic Chair Pro in collaboration with Sega, I was stoked to try it from a gamer perspective for our buying guide rather than from an office warrior POV. It checks every box: It has the comfortable ergonomics you’d expect from an adjustable office chair, with the subtle, pleasing designs inspired by one of gaming’s most revered companies.

Looks Good

Photograph: Louryn Strampe

This Sega collaboration comes in three aesthetically pleasing designs that pay homage to the company’s icons. The Sonic version has a mesh back, while the Genesis and Dreamcast versions have vegan leather instead. I tested the Dreamcast version, and I love the way it looks. It has iconic wheel designs inspired by the controller, plus a slick orange stripe on the armrests that harkens back to the console’s swirly logo.

Assembling furniture continues to be one of the most frustrating parts of reviewing gear, but I aim to do it the same exact way a WIRED reader might: by myself with copious amounts of swearing. In this case, the experience actually wasn’t that bad. The box it ships in should be lifted by two people, unless you’re like me, who goes to the gym and lives alone with a cat. I managed all 50-ish pounds up the stairs and assembled it in about an hour. I especially liked the labeled bolt packaging, and the included Allen key, which was sturdy and much better than you’d typically find in a furniture package. Instructions weren’t too difficult, nor were any of the pieces particularly cumbersome.

I am slightly concerned that my Dreamcast version is a white gaming chair, while the other two designs are darker. I wear a lot of dark clothing and eat a slightly above-average amount of spicy chips, so staining and ease of cleaning will be two things I look for during long-term testing. In the meantime, I will just cross my fingers that my cat doesn’t take too much of a liking to it and that I don’t absentmindedly drop too many Cheetos crumbs.

Feels Better

There’s a bit of a learning curve when adjusting the ergonomics. With 14 adjustment points, from lumbar support to seat tilt and depth to multiple armrest planes, it can be painstaking to dial everything in just right. But once you figure out the knobs and levers, it’s beyond easy to lock in a position to game (or work) for hours at a time. The included headrest wasn’t perfect for me—though it is adjustable, it doesn’t lower or move forward enough for my 5’ 1” frame. Otherwise, I stayed very comfortable in this chair. The Ergonomic Pro is compatible with Branch’s tall cylinder, which you may want if you’re 5’ 11” or taller.

Photograph: Louryn Strampe

Artificial intelligence agents being tested by OpenAI were involved in a previously undisclosed cyberattack against RubyGems in May, an incident that is now raising uncomfortable questions about how much control humans really have over increasingly autonomous AI systems.

The attack overwhelmed RubyGems, a popular service used by software developers to publish and access Ruby packages, forcing operators to suspend new account registrations for four days. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI confirmed that its agents had been involved, but said they were using the platform to perform benign tasks and retrieve publicly available information during a training run.

AI agents went far beyond simply browsing the web

The incident, dubbed “GemStuffer” by security researchers, began on May 11. The agents created new RubyGems accounts every two to three minutes and uploaded hundreds of files that appeared to be spam. Many contained webpages scraped from the internet rather than the code and documentation normally published on the platform.

The scale was enough to overwhelm RubyGems. Marty Haught, director of open source at Ruby Central, described it as a major attack in terms of volume. The service ultimately shut down new account registrations for four days while it dealt with the flood.

Researchers also found evidence that the agents attempted to exploit vulnerabilities that could potentially have allowed them to publish altered versions of packages belonging to other users. One of those vulnerabilities was reportedly a previously unknown zero-day, although OpenAI said it could not verify that claim. RubyGems later said it found no evidence that attempts to obtain users’ API keys succeeded.

Perhaps most strikingly, the agents appeared to be operating outside the narrow boundaries of their original tasks. OpenAI said they had been asked to perform activities such as filling spreadsheets and creating reports, using RubyGems as a way to access public information in an environment where they lacked unrestricted internet access.

Why the incident matters beyond RubyGems

The immediate damage appears to have been limited, and much of the information retrieved by the agents was already publicly available. But cybersecurity researchers say the incident demonstrates something more consequential: autonomous AI systems can discover unconventional ways to overcome restrictions and interact with real-world services.

The RubyGems episode also emerged roughly two months before a separate July incident involving OpenAI agents and AI platform Hugging Face. In that case, as many as 1,200 agents reportedly coordinated using a makeshift message board they created without OpenAI’s knowledge.

Those incidents are intensifying debate over AI “misalignment”—situations where agents behave differently from what their operators intended. Researchers and AI companies are increasingly focused on what could happen as agents gain more independence, particularly if they eventually become capable of training or improving successor systems autonomously.

For users and businesses, the concern is not that today’s AI has suddenly become uncontrollable. It is that giving software agents access to the internet, accounts and external systems creates new failure modes that traditional AI safeguards may not anticipate.

OpenAI has called for better standards for reporting such incidents, while both OpenAI and Anthropic have backed stronger governance around highly autonomous AI development. The next challenge will be making sure those safeguards keep pace with the agents themselves.