Facepalm: Sandisk has unveiled a new line of SSDs designed to expand the PlayStation 5’s storage capacity. To no one’s surprise, the new drives are priced more like luxury hardware than an affordable storage upgrade for a mass-market home console.

The US memory manufacturer has launched the Optimus GX PRO 850P SSD lineup, which includes storage drives specifically designed for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. While high-capacity SSDs are already expensive, Sandisk’s PS5-branded drives push pricing to an entirely different level.

The Optimus GX PRO 850P lineup includes four NVMe SSDs with capacities ranging from 1TB to 8TB. The 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB models are priced at $380, $760, $1,500, and $2,960, respectively. Sandisk is also offering introductory discounts on the drives, suggesting their regular retail prices will be even higher once the promotion ends.

Sandisk said the Optimus GX PRO 850P SSDs are officially licensed by Sony and feature an exclusive heatsink design with a PS5 logo on top. The PCIe 4.0 drives have reportedly been optimized for the console’s internal M.2 expansion slot, although they are also compatible with any PC motherboard that supports the M.2 2280 form factor.

Additional specifications include support for the NVMe 1.4 protocol, sequential read speeds of up to 7,300 MB/s, and sequential write speeds ranging from 6,300 MB/s on the 1TB model to 6,600 MB/s on the 8TB version. Endurance ranges from 600 TBW for the 1TB drive to 4,800 TBW for the 8TB model, while every SSD is backed by a five-year limited warranty.

Sandisk describes the Optimus GX PRO 850P lineup as a “no-compromise” storage solution that can significantly expand the number of games stored on a PS5 at once. However, the company neglected to mention that the 8TB model now costs about as much as five PS5 consoles. Only the 1TB version is currently “cheaper” than the console itself, and even that comparison is based on the higher PS5 prices Sony introduced earlier this year.

Unlike the Xbox Series X and Series S, the PS5 uses a standard M.2 NVMe SSD for expandable storage. If Sandisk’s pricing is too steep, plenty of third-party alternatives can expand the console’s storage at a much lower cost.

The Optimus GX PRO 850P drives are the latest example of hardware affected by ongoing supply chain pressures in the memory industry. The retail SSD market is shrinking, while consumer electronics prices continue to climb because of rising memory costs. AI companies are buying up virtually every memory chip they can secure, even though many planned US data center projects for 2026 have yet to materialize.

After some fierce competition over the past few weeks, 16 teams have qualified for the BMPS Grand Finals happening in Jaipur. And this time, the event is more important than ever. Not only has the prize pool been doubled to ₹4 crore, but the champion of the BMPS Grand Finals gets a direct entry to the esports World Cup happening in Paris later this year. Here’s what the schedule will look like on day one.

BMPS 2026 Grand Finals Day 1 Schedule & Timing

The live broadcast will begin at 2:45 PM IST. Fans can catch the games like on Krafton’s YouTube channel in Hindi, English, and a few other regional languages. Or, if you want to support your team live, head over to the Jaipur Convention Center. Tickets are available on the District app. Maps for today will include:

• Match 1 — Rondo
• Match 2 — Erangel
• Match 3 — Erangel
• Match 4 — Erangel
• Match 5 — Miramar
• Match 6 — Miramar

A total of 18 matches will be played over the course of this weekend. And the format is pretty simple. Points are awarded for each finish, and also for how long a team survives. In the end, the team with the most total points (position + finish) will be the winners.

BMPS Grand Finals Qualified Teams

• Nebula Esports
• Myth Official
• iQOO Revenant XSpark
• iQOO Reckoning Esports
• Genesis Esports
• Gods Reign
• GodLike Esports
• iQOO 8Bit
• iQOO SouL
• Vasista Esports
• Divine Gaming
• iQOO Orangutan
• Victores Sumus
• Gods Esports
• Team Apex Gaming
• iQOO Team Tamilas

Physical home media has gone through a turbulent time the last few years. With the rise of streaming services, demand for physical media over the past few years has steadily declined, with people choosing the convenience of streaming over physical discs.

There’s still a dedicated fanbase of physical media collectors, though, and more recently streaming price rises and splintering means people have more interest just owning the stuff they want to watch. I’ve been writing about my hope for the resurgence of 4K Blu-ray, and physical media in general, since 2023. Now in 2026, I’m actually more hopeful than ever. It couldn’t come at a better time either, with the 20th anniversary of Blu-ray’s debut on June 20th, 2026.

from the bad-copyright-ideas dept

In a voice vote last week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6028, the “Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act.” The legislation is presented as a technical reorganization of some government agencies, but it’s much more than that. 

H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office, and not in a good way. The bill removes the Library of Congress’ current supervisory role over the Copyright Office, transfers several powers directly to the Register of Copyrights, and makes the Register a presidential appointee, confirmed by the Senate. 

These changes would make an office that’s already hugely influential in copyright and tech policy much more political. EFF first explained why that’s a terrible idea when it came up nearly a decade ago. This bill, like the older one, weakens the few public-interest checks and balances that do exist.  We hope the Senate promptly rejects this bill. 

The Copyright Office Doesn’t Need More Politics—Or More Power

The Copyright Office’s main responsibilities are administrative and advisory. It registers copyrights, maintains records, grows the Library of Congress’s collections, and provides expertise to Congress on copyright law. But over the past two decades, the Office has also become increasingly influential in copyright policy debates that affect free expression, libraries, educators, competition—and everyday internet users. Unfortunately, it has not been a neutral advocate. The office’s recent report on the role of AI severely bungled the issue of fair use, prioritizing private licensing market “solutions” over user rights. 

Going further back, the Copyright Office supported one of the most infamous anti-internet proposals of all time—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a disastrous internet censorship proposal that sparked one of the largest online protests in history. The Office has repeatedly advanced positions that favored large entertainment-industry interests over the public interest.

The Office also plays a major role in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 1201 rulemaking process, which determines when the public may lawfully bypass digital locks for activities such as security research, repair, preservation, or accessibility. EFF has used this process repeatedly to mitigate some of the worst harms of the DMCA. H.R. 6028 would move rulemaking authority over 1201 from the Librarian of Congress to the Register of Copyrights, further consolidating power within the Copyright Office itself.

The bill also makes the Register of Copyrights a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate. Each administration will be pressured to pick nominees aligned with their own policy preferences, and the powerful copyright owning industries will invest even more heavily in lobbying to get their way, and influence the selection. This position should be focused on administrative ability and actual expertise, not lobbying and politics. 

The Copyright Office Should Stay Connected To The Library of Congress

H.R. 6028 would do more than change who appoints the Register of Copyrights. It would sever the Copyright Office from Library of Congress supervision and transfer many Librarian powers directly to the Register. 

The supervisory relationship exists for good reason, as the nation’s libraries have pointed out for years. The Library, while far from perfect, at least has the mission of preserving and providing access to knowledge. That should be an important public-interest counterweight in copyright debates. Congress has not explained how weakening the ties between the Library and the Copyright Office would serve the public better, or even seriously inquired about it. 

This Bill Was Rushed Through

Back in March, EFF joined Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy and Technology, library organizations and tech groups, urging Congress not to fast-track this legislation. We told them changes to the Copyright Office will have major consequences for the “speech rights, educational opportunities, and creative freedoms of all Americans.” 

Yet Congress moved forward without any hearings on the bill, and without meaningful examination. H.R. 6028 creates a years-long separation of the Copyright Office from the Library of Congress, transfers significant legal authority, and restructures the appointment process for the nation’s top copyright official. Changes like that deserve hearings, debate, and public scrutiny. H.R. 6028 got none of that. 

The Senate Should Stop This Bill

Copyright law exists to serve the public and “promote the progress” of science and learning. The institutions that administer copyright law should do the same. 

H.R. 6028 would move the Copyright Office further away from that goal. Congress should be strengthening public-interest oversight of copyright policymaking, not looking for ways to concentrate more authority in a single presidentially appointed official. 

The Senate should reject H.R. 6028. The Copyright Office should serve the public—not presidential administrations, and not industry lobbyists. 

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright office, copyright policy, library of congress

WTF?! According to Kaspersky, cybercriminals have been targeting Steam users with a sustained malware campaign since 2025, distributing malicious software disguised as desktop wallpapers. The attack hijacked the accounts of gamers using Steam’s live wallpaper application Wallpaper Engine, which ranks among the platform’s most popular non-game downloads.

The attack reportedly abused Wallpaper Engine’s “Application Wallpaper” executable, which runs as a standalone Windows program and can include community-developed games, planners, calendars, system monitors, and other widgets. However, because the app allows unverified third-party code to run on users’ systems, it can be abused by threat actors to target unsuspecting users.

The researchers found that the attackers used two primary methods to distribute malware. The first involved archives containing the executable wallpaper alongside a malicious payload, typically including compromised .exe files, DLLs, or scripts. The malware was also frequently concealed within password-protected archives and executed automatically when the wallpaper was applied.

Once applied, the infected executables stole users’ account credentials, hijacked live sessions, and transmitted the stolen data to servers controlled by the attackers. The researchers discovered dozens of malicious application wallpapers on Steam Workshop, some of which were downloaded tens of thousands of times.

To test the attackers’ modus operandi, the researchers launched a wallpaper containing a malicious game called NTRaholic, which ran “flawlessly.” The gameplay and controls worked as advertised, raising no suspicion at first glance. However, unbeknownst to the user, the wallpaper dropped a backdoor called Synaptics.exe, part of the notorious DarkKomet malware family.

The executable that launched the game was named ._cache_GAME1.exe, but it also installed a system library called AggregatorHost.dll, which contained a malicious payload designed to steal user data and transmit it to the attackers’ command-and-control server. Once the attackers gained control of the active session, they used the compromised account to upload additional malicious wallpapers to Steam Workshop.

The campaign primarily targeted gamers in China, who accounted for 89% of the compromised downloads. Users in Germany, Canada, Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and India were also affected, though in much smaller numbers. Steam has since removed all of the malicious wallpapers, but Kaspersky is still urging users to run antivirus scans before applying wallpapers that include built-in executables.

Benz’s electric “Grand Limousine” might just make minivans cool.

Don’t call it a Caravan

The media experience

Creature comforts

Behind the wheel

Wrap-up

Compilation Matters: Despite the meteoric rise of generative AI services, traditional image editing tools like Photoshop still dominate the creative industry. So much so that Microsoft – now largely focused on cloud services and AI models – is working hard to find new ways to make Windows-based applications run faster.

Thanks to a close collaboration with Adobe, Microsoft engineers have significantly improved performance in certain Photoshop operations. Photoshop is a large, native desktop application written in C++ and compiled with Microsoft’s Visual C++ compiler on Windows, which is why Microsoft focused on MSVC in an effort to extract additional performance from one of the world’s most widely used image editing applications.

Microsoft explained that the collaboration targeted real-world customer scenarios involving CPU-intensive operations. Many complex image processing workloads are now handled – or in some cases “accelerated” – by the GPU. However, some latency-sensitive tasks, such as brush responsiveness, stroke input, and file-opening operations, still depend heavily on a CPU’s raw performance.

The engineers explored new practical ways to improve Photoshop’s performance at compile time. First, they enabled MSVC’s “peak-performance” compilation mode, which is designed to produce highly optimized binaries on Windows.

They then experimented with profile-guided optimization to further optimize the executables. PGO uses data collected from test runs of .exe and .dll binaries to better reflect real-world usage patterns and improve performance. However, the engineers found that PGO was not an ideal fit for Photoshop’s development workflow, as it adds complexity to the build process.

After trying – and failing – with PGO, the engineers turned to Sample-based Profile Guided Optimizations as a potential alternative. Unlike traditional PGO, SPGO replaces data collected from “representative” workloads with hardware performance samples gathered from actual release binaries. SPGO is also more flexible in terms of data collection, enabling analysis across a diverse set of test and production machines, and can deliver typical performance gains of around 5% to 15%.

Microsoft said SPGO proved to be a better fit for the Photoshop collaboration. Instead of relying on manual tuning, engineers could use compiler feedback – collected with negligible runtime overhead – to improve the code generated during MSVC’s final build process.

SPGO also proved to be more compatible with Adobe’s engineering environment. By combining MSVC’s peak-performance mode with SPGO, the teams were able to improve Photoshop performance by 20% on x64 Windows systems and by 13% on Arm.

As noted by Adobe senior software developer John Fitzgerald, the optimized builds delivered better responsiveness in drawing and stroke operations, file-opening times, and filter processing. “These are among the most frequently used and latency-sensitive interactions in a professional creative workflow, where responsiveness directly affects a user’s ability to work fluidly and iteratively,” Fitzgerald said.

Microsoft said the collaboration with Adobe provides a meaningful foundation for improving performance in software designed for Windows. The company is now highlighting MSVC’s capabilities as a way to improve performance and user experience across its broader software ecosystem.

Like other popular services like Netflix and Max, Hulu is a streaming service that has exclusive series, current-season episodes, hit movies, Hulu Originals, kids shows, and more. There’s also a Hulu plan for nearly every kind of watcher, including streaming content with ads for a service on the cheap, or bundles for additional platforms like Disney+ and ESPN+ to get even more content at reduced prices. I have a Hulu plan to watch some of my favorite shows like critically-acclaimed Atlanta or my current fave wholesome comedy, Abbott Elementary. We at WIRED stay glued to our devices and round up the best movies and the best TV shows currently being streamed on Hulu. Right now, we have outlined various ways to save while streaming on Hulu, including the chance to pay just $1.99 per month with the Hulu student discount.

Get this Hulu Student Discount: $2 Per Month

Students can stream a bevy of shows and movies with Hulu for just $2 per month. This deal saves you 80% off the original monthly subscription price, and is valid for new and existing Hulu subscribers enrolled in an accredited college or university who meet verification qualifications. All you need to do to get Hulu for less than two bucks is verify your student status through SheerID to save.

Enjoy a Hulu TV + Live TV Free Trial

I love my Hulu account, but with half-a-dozen other streaming services, it’s been hard to keep them all, or even know which is worth the money at the end of every month. I’m trying to decide which to keep, and the Hulu TV free trial is an excellent way to test the plan and see if it fits my TV watching needs. There is a free 3-day trial to test it out, and the plan has a $0 Broadcast TV fee, $0 Regional Sports fee, $0 Set-top box or related rental fees, and a $0 administrative fee. The Hulu live TV plan is essentially the best of both worlds—your favorite streaming-only series, along with cable-only content like sports and news programming, including over 95 live TV channels like ABC and ESPN.

Watch the Latest Hulu TV Shows for Less

One of the things I love most about Hulu is that they are constantly adding both new original shows and old favorites. They truly have something for every type of watcher and mood. As a true crime lover (I know it’s problematic, I’m sorry), I’ve been excited to see the Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.

Here’s what I’m also excited to watch this season. Classic crime drama The Rookie stars perennial heartthrob Nathan Fillion centers on a small-town man becoming the oldest rookie in the LAPD. I always look forward to the feel-good comedy Abbott Elementary, which focuses on a quirky cast of misfits in the public education system in Philadelphia. In R.J. Decker, the titular character is a conman and disgraced newspaper photographer who begins entering the dark underworld of private investigating in South Florida.

Plus, there’s something for everyone, from trash reality TV like The Bachelorette, to intriguing Paradise, to quirky comedy High Potential, to the classic boy cartoon-comedy Family Guy.