International travel in 2025 is a tricky business. That’s because there’s so much to worry about. Booked your tickets? Now, got to check whether the layover flight you booked requires a transit visa from the connecting country. Applied for the visa for the destination? Need to check if immigration is open 24/7, or you’ll be stuck at the airport at night for hours. The list doesn’t stop. And every time, I forget something, which often means my travel experiences involve running frantically through the airport. Another thing that has caused a lot of headaches is connectivity. Everyone needs a taxi from the airport to the hotel, and for that, you need data. Unfortunately, at most airports, I’ve only seen long queues to get a new SIM, which can sometimes take hours. Beyond that, buying a SIM at the airport is generally more expensive, making the overall experience less than ideal.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this headache, and that’s eSIM. As you may already know, eSIMs are just regular SIMs without the physical card. They function exactly the same and can be used in different countries. With an upcoming Vietnam trip, I decided to finally give eSIMs a go and chose Holafly for this test. These guys offer unlimited data plans in over 200 destinations, with no hidden charges or fuss.
Options
As mentioned, Holafly covers over 200 destinations spanning across North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and even the Caribbean. For all these places, the company provides unlimited data, without a phone number. This means you can browse the web, watch content, and even make calls using apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.
In addition, if you’re planning to visit multiple countries, Holafly also offers regional eSIMs and a global option that provides connectivity in 110+ countries and starts at $9.90 per day. The cost per day decreases with a longer plan. And if you use my code FOSSBYTES, you get a 5% on your eSIM.
Beyond that, if your work requires you to travel to various countries each week, Holafly recently introduced a subscription, called Holafly Plans, with coverage in 160+ destinations. The 25GB plan costs $49.90, the unlimited data plan costs $ 64.90 monthly, and you can cancel the service at any time. It is important to note that this is an introductory price offer, and you can get 10% off for 12 months using the coupon FOSSBYTES.
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Holafly’s eSIMs are not transferable, and, like every other eSIM, your phone must be unlocked to use the service. The eSIM does not work with carrier-locked phones, so be sure to check the compatibility before buying. Also, older phones might not have eSIM technology, so check Holafly’s website or app to see if your mobile is compatible. Fortunately, if you do end up purchasing an eSIM and it’s not compatible, Holafly offers a generous 6-month return policy, which also applies if you cancelled your travel plans. Plus, for any help, you can contact the company’s 24/7 multilingual customer support team, with real people, who’d be happy to assist you.
The Setup
To have a pleasant travel experience, I needed to set up the eSIM before the actual flight date. After all, nobody wants to be stuck using the airport wifi to install the eSIM. Fortunately, Holafly’s setup is actually simple. I headed to the Holafly website, searched for Vietnam, and bought a 15-day plan for a total of $50,90. However, you can configure it from 1 to 90 days if you wish.
From there, it was another straightforward journey to install it on my Android device, and there are multiple ways to do so. You can either set up manually, using the QR code or the Holafly app for a one-button install, available for iPhone users with iOS 17.4 or above. I went with the QR code route, and it took just a few minutes.
The Experience
Everything was set up a day before flying, and for the test, I was using my daily driver, the vivo X300 Pro. As soon as my plane touched down at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC, I was instantly connected to the service, with mobile data running. Naturally, the first order of business was to inform my parents since this was my first solo international trip, and they were obviously worried. I sent them a text, and it went pretty smoothly.
Once I got out of the plane, the next item on the list was immigration. If you aren’t already aware, immigration in Vietnam can take hours. However, there’s a fast-track paid service that helps you get past all this nonsense. Since my Vietnamese speaking skills are basically non-existent, I used ChatGPT as my translator, which, thanks to the connection, worked super fine.
After reaching the hotel, it was time to push Holafly’s connection to the limit. For that, I first started downloading the new episodes of Squid Game Season 3. They were done in just a few minutes, and I was also able to track my data usage using the Holafly app. I then ran a series of speed tests. On average, download speeds ranged from 45.6 Mbps to 56 Mbps, while upload speeds reached 39 Mbps. These speeds are pretty fine for just about anyone, since I could do everything from streaming content to playing PUBG with my friends. However, some streaming services like Netflix did not play well with the eSIM, thanks to the weird “this content is not available at your location” error, which I faced a couple of times. I also faced a couple of errors with the Holafly app, which crashed when tracking my data usage.
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After spending a few days in Ho Chi Minh City, the next destination on my travel list was Tuy Hoa. I’m the kind of person who likes to stay away from the touristy places, and it seemed like the best of the bunch. I took a train from Saigon to the region. Since Vietnamese trains don’t have Wi-Fi on board, I was relying on the Holafly connection, which, barring a few desolate forest regions, worked really well. There was decent coverage for about 90% of my journey. Even in the super quiet town of Tuy Hoa, the speeds were the same as in the big city, and I had no problems on my few excursions out of the city and into the wild as well.
Verdict
Holafly’s eSIM service is really good for just about anyone, simply because you get unlimited data. Throughout my Vietnam trip, I never worried about finishing my daily data quota, and that’s a very reassuring feeling. Beyond that, you get really solid coverage across almost the entire globe, a simple setup with various options, a global eSIM for frequent travellers, excellent customer support, and a generous 6-month refund policy. Sure, the app can be a bit buggy at times, and some streaming services can freak out, but Holafly is still a fantastic travel companion. If you have a trip coming up, be sure to give it a try, and don’t forget to save some money using my code FOSSBYTES.
Claude and Topaz platforms will be integrated to create AI agents for enterprise customers.
Indian conglomerate Infosys will team up with AI giant Anthropic to pool their collective resources for agentic AI enterprise solutions in telecoms, financial services, software development and manufacturing.
The integration of Anthropic’s Claude platform with Infosys’s own AI offering, Topaz, will help customers to automate complex workflows while adhering to high standards of governance and transparency, the company said today (17 February).
In a statement on the partnership, Infosys also said that its goal is to help clients build custom AI agents that can work persistently across long, complex processes rather than one-off interactions, while helping organisations to modernise legacy systems by combining Topaz and Claude.
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Salil Parekh, the CEO of Infosys, said: “AI is not just transforming business – it is redefining the way industries operate and innovate. Our collaboration with Anthropic marks a strategic leap toward advancing enterprise AI, enabling organizations to unlock value and become more intelligent, resilient, and responsible.”
India is this week hosting a major AI summit as it attempts to show the world that it can compete with the US and China in the constantly evolving global AI race. World leaders, tech moguls, AI founders and investors will attend the New Delhi conference.
Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei said of the new partnership: “There’s a big gap between an AI model that works in a demo and one that works in a regulated industry – and if you want to close that gap, you need domain expertise.
“Infosys has exactly that kind of expertise across important industries: telecom, financial services and manufacturing. Their developers are already using Claude Code to accelerate their work and to create AI agents for industries that demand precision, compliance and deep domain knowledge.”
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This week, Anthropic also announced partnerships with Air India and Cognizant around internal deployment of Claude.
Infosys, based in Bengaluru, has operated for more than 40 years and employs more than 300,000 people working with clients in around 60 countries. Anthropic was recently valued at around $380bn after a Series G funding round.
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Styx: Blades of Greed isn’t an Assassin’s Creedgame. It’s not a Sniper Elite, aHitman, or part of any of the other popular stealth action franchises that have received new entries in the last couple of years. This is a proper, old-fashioned stealth game – the kind that you really don’t see much of anymore.
Review info
Platform reviewed: PC Available on: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S Release date: February 19, 2026
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The focus is entirely on the act of sneaking, surreptitiously sticking to shadows, and creeping around environments in order to avoid detection entirely, rather than trying to blend in or silently take out enemies from afar.
As the titular green goblin Styx, you’re certainly not a fighter, and detection means an almost certain demise. Sure, you can fend for yourself against one or even two low-level enemies in a pinch, but your health pool is extremely limited, and open combat quickly spirals out of control as more guards are alerted by the sound of the fray.
You can hardly break out of a crouch when you’re moving around maps, as your footsteps alone are enough to trigger a chain reaction that inevitably ends with you getting skewered by an army of heavily armed goons. It sounds frustrating, and believe me, it sometimes is, but I simply wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Nothing beats the satisfaction of pulling off the perfect heist, and some smart quality-of-life features stop the experience from ever becoming too exasperating.
Styx and stones
(Image credit: Nacon)
Its big innovation is a clever, quick save system. You might see the phrase ‘save scumming’ (the practice of frequently reloading saves made before your mistakes) tossed around as a derogatory term in discussions about other titles, but in Styx: Blades of Greed, it’s not only necessary for success, but actively encouraged.
It’s instant and bound to pressing down the left thumbstick on your controller, with a successful save signaled by a small on-screen notification that doesn’t break your immersion. Get slashed by a guard, fall off a ledge, or accidentally come into contact with water (goblins dissolve instantly like the Wicked Witch of the West, apparently), and you’re back to your save point after just a brief loading screen.
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It’s a little awkward at first, but after a few hours, saving every time you make any significant progress becomes second nature, and it’s absolutely liberating.
(Image credit: Nacon)
Rather than annoyingly setting you back, deaths become your signal to experiment. “What would happen if I tossed an acid trap on that carpet just as the guard saw me?” “Can I actually take out that worker without his mate seeing me?” “Would that falling chandelier really land on that armored patrol if I timed it just right?”
Best bit
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(Image credit: Nacon)
In this instalment Styx is more mobile than ever before, with an incredibly fast default move speed and rapid double jump. It makes scurrying across open rooftops or darting down empty corridors a joy, and really helps you feel like a devious little goblin.
The game’s three main levels are mammoth and filled with multiple avenues of approach that really reward trying new approaches. With endless ledges, chimneys, the undersides of tables, inside barrels or chests, and maintenance passages, you’re never short of places to hide, and making full use of every available spot in order to infiltrate somewhere flawlessly is satisfying.
Don’t be worried about the fact that there are ‘only’ three maps either. Side quests and collectibles incentivize you to scour them thoroughly, and an intelligent metroidvania-esque progression system sees you gradually acquire new traversal tools like grapple hooks or gliders that open up vast new zones in them to explore.
Each story chapter also ends in unique, more linear segments that are a refreshing change of pace after such openness and help you get acquainted with each new mechanic as they come.
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Carrot and Styx
(Image credit: Nacon)
Styx is a seasoned master of infiltration, so he has a wealth of abilities to play around with that are unlocked through a modest but impactful upgrade tree. The most interesting of these are tied to your acquisition of Quartz, the sinister new material that Styx and his rag-tag crew of allies are pursuing.
Mind control has you manually piloting adversaries that would otherwise be too powerful to defeat and commanding them to jump to their deaths, while slowing down time helps you escape otherwise impossible situations in a flash.
This is on top of some returning favorites from the past Styx games, like invisibility, throwable clones that latch on to the faces of foes, plus basic tools like throwable bottles, acid mines, and more. It’s perfectly possible to get through the game without using the majority of these, but fully engaging with every tool at your disposal invites exciting gameplay possibilities.
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It’s unfortunate that there are plenty of jagged edges here that might trip up those coming over from more casual stealth experiences. I really appreciate the commitment to make Styx: Blades of Greed a faithful sequel to both Master of Shadows and Shards of Darkness (not to mention a prequel to Of Orcs and Men), but it’s almost too faithful at times when the last instalment was almost ten years ago.
Without knowledge of the previous entries, the otherwise surprisingly decent story isn’t going to make a lick of sense, and many of its coolest moments, like returning to the ruins of an old map, simply won’t resonate.
(Image credit: Nacon)
Even true Styx heads like me might struggle to stay fully engaged with it, given the fairly dire voice acting, though. The performance for the protagonist is excellent, especially his many ironically charming one-liners, but the lines for side characters and NPCs are often amateurish. Cutscenes feel cheaply animated, with stilted motion and odd cuts that never seem to flow quite right.
There’s plenty of more general jankiness to get past, too, from frame rate stutters and typos in subtitles to bugs that see you fall through the floor, get seen through solid objects, or have the entire game crash without warning. Thanks to its strong foundations, the experience was never truly spoiled for me, but I do hope there are some patches in the works to make everything more stable.
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Should I play Styx: Blades of Greed?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
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Accessibility features
Styx: Blades of Greed has three difficulty levels, in addition to a modest accessibility menu. Aside from the option to disable controller vibration, all of the settings relate to color blindness.
There are three vision filters: deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia. Subtitles are enabled throughout the game by default.
How I reviewed Styx: Blades of Greed
I went full goblin and played more than 20 hours of Styx: Blades of Greed on PC over the course of a few days. During this time, I completed the entire game, thoroughly explored all of the levels, tested every single ability, and worked my way through many of the side quests.
I reviewed the game at full graphics settings on my system, which is a 5070 Ti-powered model from retailer Scan that features a compact Corsair 2000d RGB Airflow case, Asus ROG Strix B860-I Gaming Wifi motherboard, Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU, a 2TB WD Black SN770 SSD, 32GB of DDR5 Corsair Vengeance RAM, and an Nvidia 5070 Ti manufactured by Asus.
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Fractal Scape review: one-minute review
The bar keeps being raised in gaming peripherals lately, and as such, there’s no room for overpriced or feature-bloated models whose specs don’t translate to a great user experience. Fractal Design clearly knows this very well as it enters the wireless gaming headset market with a $200 model that looks like something Apple would try to sell you for $500, and comes with a charging dock and feature set that you’ll be more accustomed to seeing from pricer Astro headsets.
The looks will be a big selling point for many, as you’d expect from Fractal and its reputation for understated, Scandi-style PC cases. Available in both black and white, it’s got a grown-up look quite apart from the gaming peripherals of yesteryear, and with a detachable mic and Bluetooth connectivity, you can quite comfortably leave the house wearing the Fractal Design Scape as your smartphone’s headset without broadcasting an overstated ‘gamer gear’ look to the world and its judging eyes.
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Also included is a wireless charging station, which will juice up the headset with up to 40 hours of use when RGB is disabled, and up to 24 when it’s enabled. Taking the headset out of the magnetic dock automatically powers it on, which feels like an incredibly decadent feature for this price.
While the materials and design generally lend themselves well to comfort – with a particular shout-out due to the high-grade memory foam earcup covers – this definitely favors a smaller head size, and I have concerns about the amount of padding on the headband itself. If you’ve got a larger head, you may start to feel the headband dig in during longer sessions.
It’s not perfect then, but that imperfection is effectively offset by how generous Fractal has been by adding not just a detachable boom mic but a built-in omnidirectional mic too. Not to mention fundamentally crisp and clear sound with some meaty bass response.
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(Image credit: Future)
Fractal Scape review: price & availability
List price:$199.99 / £169.99 (around AU$285)
Astro-like features for a far lower price
Priced competitively against Razer Blackshark V2 Pro and PlayStation Pulse Elite
The price point is a big win for Fractal out of the gates. How the manufacturer has managed to bundle a high-quality headset and charging station that look ready to sit in the window of an Apple store is anyone’s guess, but somehow that very thing has been achieved. The choice of two mics and strong construction materials and finish quality are further bonuses that make this a frontrunner in the $150-$200 market.
The competition? Probably still two members of the old guard. PlayStation’s official PS5 Pulse Elite headset features similarly elegant looks and hassle-free wireless operation, while Razer’s older Blackshark V2 is more of an all-rounder that features similar device compatibility to the Scape.
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(Image credit: Future)
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Fractal Scape review: Specs
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Row 0 – Cell 0
Fractal Design Scape
Price
$199.99 / £169.99 / around AU$285
Weight
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11.8.oz / 338g
Compatibility
PC, Mac, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, iOS/Android
Connection type
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2,4 GHz Wireless via USB-A dongle, Bluetooth 5.3, Wired via USB-C to USB-A cable
Fractal’s headset was never going to be an aggressive, overwrought affair. Its cases are recognizable for their elegant minimalism, and the same is very much true of this Scape. It’s reminiscent at first glance of Steelseries’ Arctis range, but has a ‘debadged’ look and the most minimal of RGB zones that carries through the Scandi operation’s less is more philosophy.
The dock features magnetic connections that keep the headset in place and carries through the understated look, guaranteed to bring some culture and sophistication to your desk, no matter how many Funko Pops it’s sharing the real estate with. A USB-A dongle is hidden on the underside of that dock so that you can plug the dongle into the dock and use the USB cable from the dock to your device’s USB port, keeping things nice and clean and giving you a bit more choice over where to position the dock.
In addition to the usual physical controls at the rear of each earcup (power, wireless/Bluetooth connection, and mic mute on the left, RGB on/off on the right), there’s a ‘control crown’ in the upper-left rear which controls volume and provides some multimedia controls for pausing music and skipping tracks. While every other control works well, feels sturdy, and is easy to find without having to take off the headset, I find the control crown a bit fiddly. It’s too small to make precise volume changes easily, and pressing and holding the crown to pause or skip feels awkward.
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With that said, it’s extremely impressive that the two mic options have bespoke mute mechanics. The boom arm is flip-to-mute, whereas the built-in omnidirectional is controlled with a button.
(Image credit: Future)
Fractal Scape review: Performance
Strong and precise sound
Great battery performance
Headband comfort can be an issue
Great care has clearly been taken to build a lot of comfort into these cans. That’s most evident when you give the earcup cushions a squeeze and find the most luxuriously squishy memory foam pads you ever squished. This is seriously high-grade material, equivalent to flagship Bose models.
And it’s a vital piece of the comfort puzzle, because the Scape offsets its middleweight heft (11.9oz / 338g is on the lighter side of average for wireless sets now) with a lot of clamping force. The idea is that the tighter the earcups clamp around your ears, the less weight hangs from the headband on top of your head. Plus, you get a nice bit of passive noise cancellation and a tight acoustic chamber for low-end frequencies to resonate in.
(Image credit: Future)
That works on two of three fronts. It’s great at blocking out noise, and the bass response sounds full-bodied. But personally, I still notice the weight of the headband during longer sessions, and when I examine its construction, I find considerably less padding and considerably lower-grade cushion material.
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It’s still absolutely possible to adjust the Scape so that it sits comfortably for marathon sessions, by extending the headband as big as possible and thereby placing more emphasis on the horizontal clamping force. But it’s something to keep in mind if your mind is kept within a larger skull.
The sound quality isn’t audiophile stuff, but with a standard-issue 20Hz-20KHz frequency response range, its drivers are more than capable of articulating power, detail, and nuance all at the same time in your game mix. Even with a Discord buddy shouting callouts with their 2011 headset mic.
The battery goes for just as long as the specs suggest, and during my real-world testing, I found more than 40 hours could transpire before I got the beeps. It’s so welcome to have an RGB off button on the headset rather than having to delve into Fractal’s (actually very decent, zero-footprint, web-only) software app, and similarly, I found that enabling the lighting didn’t quite reduce the charge life down to 24 hours. Perhaps I like to play at a lower volume than Fractal does.
Onto the choice of mics. It’s a double-edged sword, this feature, because although it’s incredible value to have two inputs on one headset, the noise cancellation on the unidirectional boom mic isn’t very strong, and external noises can leak into your voice chat. That’s even more true when using the omnidirectional mic, obviously. So: yes to dual mic design, no to the noise cancellation. This is the sort of thing that can be remedied in firmware updates, though, and I really hope it is because otherwise this is an exemplary package, and it’s priced low enough to have established brands like Razer, Logitech G, and Corsair worried.
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(Image credit: Future)
Should you buy the Fractal Scape?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
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Also consider…
Does this Fractal leave you in two minds? Consider these premium wireless alternatives.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Row 0 – Cell 0
Fractal Scape
Razer BlackShark V2 Pro
PlayStation Pulse Elite
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Price
$199.99 / £169.99 / around AU$285
$199 / £199 / AU$349
$149.99 / £129.99 / AU$239.95
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Weight
11.84oz / 338g
11.2oz / 320g
12.1oz / 347g
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Compatibility
PC, Mac, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, iOS/Android
PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch
PS5, PlayStation Portal, PC, Mac
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Connection type
2.4 GHz Wireless via USB-A dongle, Bluetooth 5.3, Wired via USB-C to USB-A cable
Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless (Hyperspeed dongle)
Wireless (PlayStation Link via dongle), Wired (3.5mm audio jack), Bluetooth
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Battery life
40 hours RGB off, 24 hours RGB on
70 hours
30 hours
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How I tested the Fractal Scape
Weeks of daily use on PC, PS5 and iPhone
All connection types tested
Tested in online games, Discord comms, and work calls
This being a wireless product with a ton of usability options, including an on/off RGB battery saving setting, it was important to stress-test the Scape’s stated battery capacity and wireless stability.
That meant tracking hours of use without charge, putting in some long mountaineering sessions in Cairn, and plenty of Discord walk-and-talks to test out the wireless range.
The DPC inquiry wants to find out whether X complied with GDPR.
Ireland’s data protection watchdog has launched a “large-scale” inquiry into X after reports found millions of non-consensually generated sexually explicit or suggestive content created using Grok AI. X’s European headquarters is situated in Dublin.
Users on X could prompt Grok to ‘nudify’ people after the platform outfitted the AI bot with the ability to edit images late last December. Prompts asking Grok to undress people generally affected women and children, analysis found.
The Data Protection Commission’s (DPC) inquiry wants to find out whether X Internet Unlimited Company (XIUC) complied with its GDPR obligations. Specifically, the lawfulness of data processing, and the legal requirements to carry out a data protection impact assessment with regard to EU data subjects.
“The DPC has been engaging with XIUC since media reports first emerged a number of weeks ago concerning the alleged ability of X users to prompt the @Grok account on X to generate sexualised images of real people, including children,” said DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle.
“The DPC has commenced a large-scale inquiry which will examine XIUC’s compliance with some of their fundamental obligations under the GDPR in relation to the matters at hand”.
Ireland’s inquiry into X comes after the European Commission and the UK government launched a similar investigation into the Elon Musk-owned platform last month.
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Meanwhile, a year-long inquiry by French authorities has expanded to probe Grok’s possible role in disseminating Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes. California also launched a similar investigation into X and Grok’s parent company xAI last month.
Against this backdrop, however, where new legal troubles crop up for X once every while, Musk’s space-tech business SpaceX announced that it acquired xAI to create the world’s largest private company, estimated to be worth around $1.25trn.
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Sales of refurbished PCs are on the up amid shortages of key components, including memory chips, that are making brand new devices more expensive. From a report: Stats compiled by market watcher Context show sales of refurbished PCs via distribution climbed 7 percent in calendar Q4 across five of the biggest European markets — Italy, the UK, Germany, Spain, and France.
Affordability is the primary driver in the secondhand segment, the analyst says, with around 40 percent of sales driven by budget-conscious users shopping in the $235 to $355 price band for laptops. The $355 to $475 tier is also expanding — representing 23 percent of the refurbished market, up from 15 percent a year earlier — indicating some buyers are prepared to spend a bit more for improved specifications.
Photo credit: Volodymyr Lenard via Yanko Design Apple’s March 4th event is reportedly going to be a big one, as the company touts it as a “special Apple experience,” with in-person meetups in New York, London, and Shanghai at 9 a.m. ET, but there will be no keynote event from Cupertino. When the invites arrived, they were just a simple Apple logo broken up into yellow, green, and blue sections, a little detail that hints we should expect some new hardware to emerge from this.
People expect laptops to be the big event, and new MacBook Pros are on the way. They’ll include the M5 Pro and M5 Max CPUs, which offer a significant boost for applications like video editing and software development. You can guarantee that the 14-inch and 16-inch variants will receive an update following last year’s refresh.
WHY IPAD — The 11-inch iPad is now more capable than ever with the superfast A16 chip, a stunning Liquid Retina display, advanced cameras, fast…
PERFORMANCE AND STORAGE — The superfast A16 chip delivers a boost in performance for your favorite activities. And with all-day battery life, iPad…
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The MacBook Air will also be along for the voyage, most likely running the ordinary M5 CPU for everyday use, which should be quite speedy and efficient without the power consumption of the Pro variants. One intriguing speculation suggests that Apple may be producing an entry-level MacBook priced below the Air. This one will use an A-series CPU, possibly an A18 Pro from the current iPhones, and a screen just shy of 13 inches. Its aluminum construction makes it light, and they want to offer it in a variety of colors other than silver and space gray. Pricing appears to be geared squarely at students and novice Mac users, who may be unable to purchase the full amount elsewhere.
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Tablets are getting a look too, as the iPad Air is ready for an update and could include the M4 chip for a smoother experience and improved multitasking/creativity capabilities. The base iPad model is reportedly receiving an upgrade, probably up to an A18 processor, which should keep it running smoothly for surfing, streaming, and basic work functions. However, there will be little change in terms of design, as the emphasis will be on increasing power.
In terms of phones, there is one rumor that is looking very solid right now: the iPhone 17e. This one will be attempting to fill a gap in the lineup for a budget choice, with features like MagSafe charging and a decent display to boot, or at least compared to the 16e.
Founded in 2021, MEA deploys AI for insurance underwriting, claims, and finance-related needs.
UK-based AI-native insurance technology company MEA has announced a $50m minority growth equity investment from Scottish Equity Partners (SEP).
According to data provided by MEA, operating costs represent around $2trn in annual costs incurred by the insurance industry. MEA’s agentic AI products, in some cases, have reduced those costs by 60pc, the company said.
Founded in 2021, MEA deploys AI for insurance underwriting, claims, reinsurance and finance-related needs.
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According to the company, its platform increases broker productivity and margins by 30pc and increases the average underwriting capacity by 40pc. Its products are pre-trained in the language and specificity of insurance requirements, easing customer deployment and integration.
MEA has four offices across Bermuda, India, the UK and the US, and has clients across 21 countries with more than $400bn in gross written premium processed through the platform. Its clientele includes AXIS, CAN, Accenture and ServiceNow.
The company is in its fourth consecutive year of profitable growth, MEA said. SEP’s investment will support the company as it accelerates product development and customer engagement as it continues its expansion plans announced last October.
“We saw significant inbound interest from potential investors and chose SEP for their long-term perspective, collaborative style, and the strategic support they will provide as we enter our next phase of growth,” said MEA founder and CEO Martin Henley. Henley was previously the chief information officer at AXA.
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“As the industry moves from AI experimentation to production, customers increasingly recognise the value of domain-specific technology that delivers results immediately.”
Angus Conroy, a managing partner at SEP added: “MEA has built a highly differentiated, production-grade platform with clear return on investment for global insurance groups.
“Strong customer adoption, growth, and capital efficiency reflect both the quality of the technology and the team’s deep insurance expertise.”
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Autonomous robotic vacuums are the kind of gadget that has a huge gulf in performance between the entry level and the high end. Casual users might be OK with something cheap, but there’s an astronomical difference in performance between a $200 robot vac and a $1,000 combination vacuum and mop with a base station.
To that end, YEEDI has made some of our favorite automated cleaning robots in the last couple of years, and they’re typically outfitted with industry-leading technology implemented via thoughtful engineering. While YEEDI offers a wide variety across all price ranges, the best ones aren’t cheap — except for right now. Equipped with flagship features like a remarkable 18,000Pa of suction and the impressively effective Ozmo roller mop (which cleans itself, by the way), the YEEDI S14 Plus is now a whopping $700 off.
The robot’s outfitted with precisely tuned cleaning technology including the brand’s ZeroTangle 2.0 brushes that clean corners without getting lint or pet hair knotted up, and TruEdge 3D Sensor navigation that leverages a dtoF sensor, a visual camera, and dual structured light projection for impressive intelligent guidance. Plus, the multifunctional base station means you rarely even need to perform any maintenance or cleaning yourself. The robot does the vacuuming and mops up spills with a continuously self-cleaning spinning roller mop — it even constantly introduces clean mop water, as opposed to common rotating pads that just smear messes around. The YEEDI S14 Plus conveniently empties itself and gets a hot-water wash-up back at the base station, to the tune of 167°F.
From a usability standpoint, YEEDI S14 Plus has had plenty of time to refine. The app is straightforward and supports a range of useful mapping and exclusion zone functions, which makes it perfect for getting the most out of the exceptional 4+ hour battery life. It’s easy to set timed schedules, plan routines for cleaning different rooms on a rotating basis, and monitor battery life and device health in real time. It’s also compatible with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and is newly Matter compatible, so you can easily call on it to spot-clean messes as soon as they happen or integrate it seamlessly into your broader smart home setup. If you’re in the market for a robot vacuum, it’s an awfully hard deal to pass up at $700 off.
For many of us, our vehicles rank among our most expensive and valuable possessions. It’s not only a big investment, but also a necessity for daily life. It takes us to work, gets our kids to school, and carries our groceries. It’s something we take care of, from rotating the tires to those vital oil changes that help keep the engine healthy. Typically, a maintenance issue that drivers face once or twice a year, or about every 7,000 to 10,000 miles, regular oil changes keep your engine well-lubricated, clean out debris, and protect engine parts from wear and tear.
You can often get your oil changed at the dealership where you bought your car or a mechanic, but many drivers instead choose fast-service locations where you simply drive in and wait, like Jiffy Lube or Valvoline. These locations typically offer faster service than your dealership, don’t require an appointment, and are sometimes less expensive. A Florida woman, however, will likely make a different choice the next time she needs an oil change — once her car is up and running again, that is.
Local ABC affiliate WFTV Channel 9 reported on Shannon Gerdauskas, who took her Mercedes to a Take 5 Oil Change in Deland in October 2025. Instead of changing her oil, an employee accidentally drained her transmission fluid instead, and she drove away without that fluid being replenished. She experienced issues almost immediately and returned to the shop, where the mistake was discovered. The estimated cost of repairs was more than $18,000, and Gerdauskas was almost on the hook for it.
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If you’re asking yourself, why was the customer almost responsible for the damages when they were caused by Take 5 Oil Change, Gerdauskas persistently asked the same thing. She did everything right but Take 5 uses another company to handle damage claims. That company, Fleet Response, approved a transmission flush but not the transmission replacement that her dealership says her vehicle required, denying her claim. It was only after WFTV got involved that Take 5 agreed to cover the repair costs and issued a statement to the new station: “While situations like this are rare, we strive to resolve matters fairly and transparently.”
These incidents may not happen often, but Gerdauskas is far from alone in her story. In February 2025, Baton Rouge CBS affiliate WAFB reported on a woman who took her 2018 Hyundai to Walmart for an oil change, only to discover the following day that they failed to put the oil drain plug back in. It caused almost $10,000 in damages, and Walmart agreed to cover only $6,000. And in late 2025, Motor1.com shared a story of a man who found an oil-soaked rag in his brake system after he experienced problems following an oil change at a Texas Take 5 location, posing a “serious safety hazard.”
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Of course, don’t allow horror stories to prevent you from regularly changing your vehicle’s oil! We recommend that you take your vehicle to a trusted location that is clean and well-maintained, check reviews from other patrons, and look for locations with certified technicians that don’t pressure you to add extra services.
Not long ago, Peter Steinberger was experimenting with a side project that quickly caught fire across the developer world. His open-source AI assistant, OpenClaw, wasn’t just another chatbot; it could act on your behalf, from managing emails to integrating with calendars and messaging platforms.
Today, that project has a new chapter: Steinberger is joining OpenAI to help build the next generation of personal AI agents.
This move isn’t just about talent acquisition. It marks a switch in how the AI industry thinks about assistants: from reactive systems you talk to, toward agents that take initiative and perform tasks autonomously, with potential implications for productivity, workflows, and personal automation.
OpenClaw first emerged in late 2025 under names like Clawdbot and Moltbot. What distinguished it was not fancy visuals or marketing, but its practical ambition: give users an AI that connects to their tools and executes workflows, booking flights, sorting messages, scheduling meetings, in ways that feel closer to agency than assistant.
It quickly went viral on GitHub, drawing more than 100,000 stars and millions of visits to its project page within weeks.
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Rather than turning OpenClaw into a standalone company, Steinberger chose to partner with OpenAI, a decision he explained in a blog post as driven by a simple goal: bring intelligent agents to a broader audience as quickly as possible.
According to him, OpenAI’s infrastructure, research resources, and product ecosystem offered the best path to scale such an ambitious idea.
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman welcomed Steinberger’s move as strategic, underscoring that the company expects personal agents, systems capable of initiating, coordinating, and completing tasks across apps, to be an important part of future AI products.
Altman’s public post noted that OpenClaw will continue to exist as an open-source project under a new foundation supported by OpenAI, preserving its accessibility and community roots.
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The notion of AI that does things has been bubbling under the surface of tech discourse, but OpenClaw’s popularity crystallised it. Users interact with their agents through familiar interfaces like messaging platforms, but behind the scenes, these agents orchestrate API calls, automate scripts, handle notifications, and adapt to changing schedules, all without explicit commands after initial setup.
This trajectory, from an experimental open-source project to a central piece of a major AI lab’s strategy, speaks to broader trends in the industry. Competitors from Anthropic to Google DeepMind have also indicated interest in multi-agent systems and autonomous workflows, but OpenAI’s move signals how seriously the category is now being taken.
It suggests a future where AI isn’t just conversational, but proactive and tightly integrated into everyday tooling.
At the same time, this evolution raises fresh questions about governance and safety. OpenClaw’s open-source nature meant that developers could experiment freely, but that freedom also exposed potential attack surfaces; misconfigured agents with access to sensitive accounts or automation processes could be exploited if not properly safeguarded.
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That is one reason why maintaining an open foundation with careful oversight matters as these tools scale.
For OpenAI, Steinberger’s arrival embeds this agent-first thinking into its product roadmap at a critical moment. The company is already exploring “multi-agent” architectures, where specialised AIs coordinate with each other and with users to handle complex tasks more effectively than monolithic models alone. Steinberger brings an experimental sensibility and real-world experience that could accelerate those efforts.
This could mean future versions of ChatGPT or other OpenAI products will be able to carry out tasks you define, rather than waiting for you to prompt them. That shift, from conversational replies to autonomous action, is the next frontier in how AI will fit into daily digital life.
And with OpenClaw’s creator now inside one of the most influential AI labs in the world, that future feels closer than ever.
