The Sony Bravia 5 is a mini-LED TV with crisp images, strong contrast and great gaming features. It occupies that level in Sony’s TV range where the brand has historically struggled to maintain its high standards. The Bravia 5, though, bucks this trend in pretty spectacular fashion.

The Sony Bravia 5 retains both mini-LED lighting and local dimming, for starters, as well as an 120Hz panel to keep gamers happy. Sony says the Bravia 5 LCD panels are still made to the brand’s Master Backlight Drive standard too, and they’re equipped with a full up-to-date version of the Google TV smart system.

PUBLIC SECTOR

DoD controls on mobile ad identifiers haven’t stopped military location data turning up for sale

The US military’s effort to prevent troops from being tracked by adversaries through purchased location data hasn’t worked as well as anticipated, and lawmakers want to know why.

US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC) on Friday asked for an investigation by the Defense Department Inspector General into policies that have only partially stanched the flow of location data that allows military personnel to be tracked and targeted.

In May, Wyden, Harrigan, and a bipartisan group of 12 other members of Congress released details about how commercially purchased location data – often captured by mobile apps and advertising SDKs – can be used to identify where US military personnel gather and to target those locations. They noted that the DoD has been aware of this threat since at least 2016.

The lawmakers urged Defense Department CIO Kirsten A. Davies to take steps to mitigate this risk, including turning off advertising identifiers on DoD smartphones and issuing a policy requiring the disabling of advertising identifiers on all personal devices brought into DoD facilities or overseas.

Since then, various military branches have blocked advertising identifiers on government-issued devices. According to the letter, “several DoD components – the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command – confirm that they now disable advertising IDs on government-issued devices to protect their personnel from such threats.”

But that hasn’t entirely eliminated the availability of location data tied to US military personnel. Citing ongoing reports, Wyden and Harrigan want to know why location data pinpointing the movement of troops continues to be available.

“We commend these service branches for implementing this cybersecurity defensive best practice on government devices,” they said in their letter [PDF] to the DoD IG. “However, recent reports regarding the continued availability of commercial location data originating from DoD facilities raise troubling questions.”

The two lawmakers speculate about the reason DoD policies have fallen short. One possibility, they say, is that some parts of the DoD turned off their advertising identifiers only as recently as July. Another, they say, is that disabling ad identifiers may no longer be sufficient to limit the availability of location data. And the third is that the location data is coming entirely from the personal devices of DoD personnel and contractors.

Zach Edwards, staff threat researcher at Infoblox, told The Register in an email that it’s good to hear all the military branches have disabled advertising IDs on their phones because it will make members of the military and their families safer, especially those serving in combat zones overseas.

“This change will essentially ensure that military device location data isn’t being included in bulk data sales being done by numerous vendors,” he said. “It’s truly unfortunate that Google and Apple have not effectively reformed their mobile advertising IDs, even after it’s been well documented that it’s the primary piece of data being used by data brokers to connect up people’s mobile phone location data for bulk sales.”

Mobile advertising identifiers (MAIDs), Edwards explained, serve as join keys for tracking people – they can link different datasets.

“So one core benefit is that military data won’t be available for sale via data brokers, who will sell to literally anyone with a pulse and a credit card,” said Edwards. “But the other slightly less obvious benefit is that this MAID was also being broadcast to all ad systems participating in the auctions.”

Edwards said that while states like California, Vermont, Texas, and Oregon have data broker registries, he’s unaware of any Russian or Chinese ad tech vendors who have registered. And those companies, he said, partner with Western publishers and mobile apps to collect data anyway.

“I think it’s important to appreciate that these ad tech companies in Russia and China have also likely been getting MAID data from the programmatic ad tech auctions from members of the military, and companies in those countries have an obligation to share it with the state without any ability to appeal or provide any external notice,” he said. ®

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Most smartwatches get glued shut, live a short life, and then sit in a drawer. Google’s Pixel Watch 5 still refuses that fate. iFixit’s teardown team opened the 45 mm model and handed it a provisional 9 out of 10 on the smartwatch repairability scale, the same mark last year’s Pixel Watch 4 earned, with a few small changes that make the job even clearer once you are inside.

Opening the case feels more like servicing a dive watch than taking apart a little phone. Interior latches are released with two Torx screws, the rear sensor glass is removed, and reusable O-ring gaskets replace a smear of adhesive for water resistance. IP68 and 5 ATM certifications remain in place since the seals provide the function that glue typically accomplishes. You don’t need a heat gun to get started. You’ll need a driver, some patience, and the knowledge not to lose a screw on the carpet.

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The most common type of repair is battery replacement, and Google has simplified that process. After the latches are removed, a few green screws guide you toward the vibration motor and ultimately the cell itself. The color coding is new to this generation. The 45 mm watch has a 465 mAh battery, which is 2.2 percent higher than last year’s 455 mAh unit, and the printed face of the battery even directs you to Google’s repair hub if you stumble in without a plan. Pull the connector, lift the cell, and the exhausted battery work is complete. iFixit has already produced a guide specifically for this exchange.

Screen work takes longer, but you still have a removable display and a gasket that can be replaced while the casing is open, which is important because those rings wear. Before the panel can be removed, you must first remove several screws of various lengths, a bracket, and a press connector. According to iFixit, that procedure is the only spot where a future Pixel Watch may become simpler. The site already has guides for the screen, back sensor glass, battery, and vibration motor, so you won’t have to guess based on a paused video.

The mainboard is mounted within the chassis using a single screw and a press connector on the reverse side. LTE variants feature a small antenna pogo pin on the edge. Drop that pin, and you’ll be on your knees for the rest of the afternoon. The hardware around that board has been upgraded: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 Accelerated platform, 64 GB of storage, and 3 GB of memory. Google claims a 20% speed increase over Pixel Watch 4. None of the additional silicon comes in the way of disassembling the watch.
[Source]

Holiday gift lists fill quickly with licensed toys, yet few manage to serve both the parent who still quotes the clock tower scene and the kid who just learned what 88 miles per hour means. LEGO Speed Champions 77256 Time Machine from Back to the Future does that job in 357 pieces for $22.49 (was $28), aimed at ages 9 and up. Finished size stays compact at just over 6.5 inches long, 4 inches high and 2.5 inches wide, so it fits a shelf, a desk or a mix of other 8-wide Speed Champions cars without dominating the space.

Builders start with a single shared chassis and then choose a movie. The first configuration makes use of the rear lightning rod and California OUTATIME plate from 1985. A few extra pieces transform it into the 1989 flying look, with Mr. Fusion attached at the back, an orange plate, and wheels flipped sideways. Both variants retain the rear air vents, a cockpit for two minifigures, a printed flux capacitor, and the time calculator. Conversion remains simple enough that switching between modes after the initial construction takes only a few minutes.

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The majority of the visual load falls on printed elements. Flux coils, clock circuits, headlights, and other body panels are already decorated, requiring only seven stickers. On a much smaller scale, new slope pieces help recreate the DeLorean’s wedge contour and stainless-steel appearance. The roof lifts off cleanly, providing access to the interior without damaging the bodywork. Construction goes through five numbered bags and normally takes about an hour, with the LEGO Builder app accessible for 3D rotation if paper instructions become too cramped.

Marty McFly and Doc Brown both get updated prints. Marty wears a real puffer vest initially seen in another theme, and the separate piece rests over his torso, matching the 1985 suit more than a flat print ever could. Doc Brown gets a detailed radiation-suit body, a clock around his neck, and a two-sided skull. Both figures fit within the cockpit together, which is unusual for a single Speed Champions vehicle. The legs remain unprinted, a frequent sacrifice at this pricing, but the torsos and Marty’s vest make the pair clearly recognized.

AI chatbots have a well-documented habit of hallucinating information and sometimes agreeing with users even when they are wrong. A new study suggests that simply refusing to take no for an answer can make the problem worse.

Researchers from the University of Arizona tested seven AI models, including GPT-3.5, GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini 1.5 Pro, Llama 3 70B, and DeepSeek-R1. Instead of judging them from a single response, researchers kept conversations going while repeatedly feeding the models information they knew was false.

The study used 100 false statements covering everything from obvious nonsense to much more obscure information. Researchers then repeated the misinformation as many as 50 times during the same conversation to see whether the chatbot would eventually give in and agree.

Keep repeating a lie, and AI may eventually agree

None of the seven models was completely immune. ChatGPT 3.5 proved the most vulnerable to repeated misinformation, affirming false statements in 12.3% of interactions. Claude 3.5 Sonnet sat at the other end at just 0.08%, while GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini remained below 1%.

ChatGPT 3.5 initially rejected 96 out of 100 false claims. After the same claims were repeated 50 times, however, it ended up agreeing with 18 of them. Researchers also noticed some models switching back and forth between agreeing and disagreeing with the exact same misinformation, a behavior they call “reverberation.”

The AI was also more vulnerable when the subject was obscure and had relatively little information available online. The researchers found a statistically significant connection between informational obscurity and misinformation acceptance during the repetition tests.

Arguing with AI produced some strange results

Researchers also tried pushing the chatbots with increasingly argumentative responses. Most models actually held up fairly well, but DeepSeek-R1 was a major exception. Its misinformation affirmation rate jumped from 1% during simple repetition to 22.2% under argumentative pressure. Its frequent use of sarcasm and satire also made some responses difficult for the researchers to reliably classify.

There was some good news when the models were given a fresh chance to reconsider their own mistakes. GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini, Gemini 1.5 Pro, and DeepSeek corrected all of their previous errors, while GPT-3.5 corrected only 32%. Claude 3.5 Sonnet made very few errors in the first place, but failed to correct the four mistakes it did make, although the researchers caution that the sample is too small to draw strong conclusions.