Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Monday once again warned that AI frontier labs are too untrustworthy for enterprises.

The CEO, who famously studied philosophy and earned a PhD in social theory, implied in Palantir’s quarterly shareholder letter that these were the kinds of capitalists who gave rise to Marxist socialism.

“There are Marxist overtones and undertones to our business,” he wrote in a letter to shareholders about Palantir’s outstanding quarter. “Others, including many of those building large language models, intend, knowingly or otherwise, to capture the means of production of their purported partners.”

To be clear, AI labs have hardly cornered Palantir out of the market. Quite the opposite. The skyrocketing use of AI helped Palantir achieve record-breaking results. For its second quarter, the company reported $1.9 billion in revenue, up 93% over the year-ago quarter, and $1.1 billion in profit, “more profit in a single quarter than we did in total revenue in the same period the year before,” he wrote.

During the quarterly conference call with Wall Street analysts, he explained his analogy further, relying heavily on a sort of “tech bro patriot” jargon common among defense tech companies. (Palantir’s senior leadership is entirely male.)

He asked on the call if companies are going “to buy into a future” where your job helps your “adversaries win, and everybody who does win is a small, tiny group of people living in a tiny place that somehow believe because they eat vegetables and they don’t support war fighters that they deserve to have the total means of production of this country? And the rest of us should just sit back and absorb the cost of that revolution, which we’re paying for.”

Palantir, in contrast, serves model-agnostic AI and analysis software to governments and enterprises, and allows organizations to control their data as well as their AI “exhaust,” aka, their prompts, orchestration, and context.

“How are we paying for it? In the enterprise context, people sign up for token self-pleasurings… at real cost like other forms of self pleasure,” he said. “You are paying for the right for them to migrate your IP, your know-how, your expertise to their model, so that they can build a competitive business that doesn’t require your business or people. And why are they doing it? It’s actually being done for what they believe are moral reasons. They are superior to you. They deserve to colonize your enterprise.”

Jarring language aside, he is making an underlying point that is increasingly being repeated elsewhere, including from the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

This theory points to the significant list of companies that partnered or paid for Anthropic and OpenAI while the AI labs launched similar businesses ranging from design tools to healthcare operations, legal, even drug discovery.

The truth is, none of these companies are economic villains or heroes — anymore than other for-profit companies are. AI is growing so quickly, the market changing so rapidly, there is clearly room for all, Palantir’s results show.

Not long ago, I wrote a news brief announcing the Sony 1000X THE COLLEXION limited-edition headphones after attending a product briefing with Sony’s engineers. What stood out was not simply the promise of another premium wireless headphone, but the company’s determination to establish a new luxury standard for the 1000X series.

THE COLLEXION was designed to bring together everything Sony had learned during the first decade of the 1000X lineup and package it in something more distinctive, refined, and boutique. That was an ambitious goal, because Sony’s 1000X headphones have earned a permanent place on our best-of lists largely through excellent noise cancellation, strong sound quality, useful features, and outstanding battery life—not because anyone confused them with luxury goods.

Some of the earlier models looked better to my eye, but the series has generally favored practical polymer construction over visual drama. A few models have also raised durability concerns along the way, with designs that felt more plastic than premium.

Sony already knew how to build an excellent noise-cancelling headphone. The real question was whether it could finally build one that looked and felt every bit as expensive as the technology inside it.

There was just one problem: based on what I had seen up to that point, I didn’t think they looked all that good.

I had reviewed the press materials, and the Sony engineer I spoke with wore a pair of THE COLLEXION headphones during our briefing. In white, they looked a bit like the love child of the Sonos Ace or, dare I say it, the Apple AirPods Max and Sony’s own WH-1000XM5. They were clean and understated, but also rather nondescript for a flagship model and perhaps a little underwhelming for something positioned as a luxury product.

That could become a serious problem for Sony. The engineer had already acknowledged that the less expensive WH-1000XM6 offered slightly better active noise cancellation, which has historically been one of the biggest reasons consumers buy Sony’s 1000X headphones. If THE COLLEXION could not win on performance, it needed to make a convincing case through its materials, craftsmanship, comfort, and design.

I thanked Sony for the opportunity to audition the new model and quietly hoped my first impression was wrong. Otherwise, the review I was about to write was going to be considerably less comfortable than the headphones.

Related Reviews:

Sony Finally Looks the Part

Once I had THE COLLEXION in hand, most of those concerns disappeared. The headphones look and feel considerably more luxurious than my initial viewing had suggested.

The headband features a brushed stainless steel outer band with a memory foam underside covered in leather. The adjustment arms use a distinctive tuning fork design, with one arm concealed inside the headband and another extending along the outside.

Sony has paid close attention to the finishing here. The underside of the outer arm is polished to a mirror finish, while its face is bead blasted to match the brushed surface of the headband. The Sony name appears near the top of the matte section, although the light has to strike it at the right angle before the branding becomes visible.

The lower section of the fork, which connects the headband to the ear cups, is also made from polished steel. Its chrome like appearance adds some visual drama without turning THE COLLEXION into something gaudy. In person, the combination of brushed metal, polished steel, leather, and restrained branding feels far more convincing than it did in Sony’s press images.

The ear cups and pads use the same leather found on the underside of the headband, while the buttons, USB port, and 3.5mm connection repeat the brushed metal finish used elsewhere. That consistency gives the design a more cohesive and deliberate appearance.

The buttons are not simply painted to resemble metal. They are made from brushed aluminum, as are the surrounds around both ports. Beyond looking better, those metal surrounds should provide additional reinforcement and improve durability over time.

Perhaps the most noticeable physical change is the shape of the ear cups. They are slightly smaller on the outside than those on the WH-1000XM6, but the pads have a larger internal opening and greater depth. That makes THE COLLEXION more comfortable for those of us whose ears were not designed with compact Japanese industrial design in mind.

Placed side by side, THE COLLEXION’s ear cups are approximately 3mm thinner and slightly narrower than those of the XM6, while their overall height remains nearly identical. The changes are subtle, but the additional space inside the pads makes a meaningful difference during longer listening sessions.

The only missed opportunity is the pad attachment system. Sony continues to use plastic tabs rather than magnetic mounts. Magnetic pads would have made replacement easier, elevated the overall experience, and helped distinguish THE COLLEXION further from the XM platform beneath it.

The case is another clear step up from previous Sony models, with a carry handle integrated into the body and magnetic closures that feel more appropriate for a premium product.

Sony understands that a luxury item should not arrive in the equivalent of a plain brown wrapper. The company has done a good job of turning what could have been a basic transport and storage container into an integral part of the overall package. It feels more substantial and thoughtfully designed than the cases supplied with the Apple AirPods Max and Sonos Ace.

The case is also slightly smaller than those included with previous 1000X models, which is a welcome improvement. Travelers are often forced to choose between protecting an expensive pair of headphones and reclaiming valuable space in a carry on bag.

THE COLLEXION largely eliminates that dilemma. The case is compact and well designed enough that bringing it along feels like the obvious choice rather than an inconvenience.

Sony Prioritizes Sound Over ANC

Sony has battled Bose for active noise cancellation supremacy for years, but THE COLLEXION takes a distinctly different approach.

Sony is unusually candid about that distinction. If you want the company’s best ANC performance, buy the WH-1000XM6. THE COLLEXION is aimed instead at becoming the best sounding wireless headphone in its price class.

Reaching that goal required far more than dressing up an existing 1000X model in leather and polished steel. Sony reworked nearly every part of the internal design, including thicker copper traces and lower internal impedance to improve signal integrity.

The new driver diaphragm uses linearly aligned carbon fibers to reduce weight and improve speed, while Sony’s V3 processor appears in a headphone for the first time. That additional processing power allows for the most advanced digital signal processing Sony has yet offered in one of its headphones.

THE COLLEXION may share its family name with the rest of the 1000X series, but internally it represents a much more ambitious rethink of what a Sony wireless headphone can be.

The 30mm drivers have a nominal impedance of 48 ohms and a stated frequency response of 4 Hz to 40 kHz when used with a wired connection. That range narrows to 20 Hz to 20 kHz over Bluetooth.

I listened both wired and wirelessly using LDAC and LC3. The wired connection produced noticeably more sub bass, suggesting that low frequency extension is limited somewhat by the codec being used during wireless playback.

One important detail is that THE COLLEXION must remain powered on even when connected by cable. As a result, the source device is not driving the 48 ohm transducer directly in the way it would with a conventional passive headphone. The internal amplification and signal processing remain part of the chain.

Bluetooth 6.0 is supported, along with SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3. That provides broad compatibility with current source devices and some protection against the next wave of wireless audio changes. Multipoint connectivity is also included, making it easy to remain connected to a phone and a laptop or digital audio player at the same time.

Noise cancellation may not be the primary focus, but Sony has hardly ignored it. THE COLLEXION uses a 12 microphone system combined with both the new V3 processor and Sony’s QN3 noise cancelling processor. It draws heavily from the company’s previous 1000X models, even if Sony is no longer claiming that ANC is the main reason to buy it.

The Battery Life Claim Holds Up

With wired and wireless operation, active noise cancellation, and several DSP effects available, battery life can vary considerably depending on how THE COLLEXION is configured.

With every feature enabled and the volume higher than it probably needed to be, I still managed more than 22 hours of playback. With a more realistic combination of listening levels and features, battery life exceeded 32 hours, which closely supports Sony’s claim.

Quick charging is also included, as it should be at this price. A five minute charge provides roughly 90 minutes of playback, while a full recharge from 20 percent to 100 percent took approximately two hours according to the Sony app.

Battery life is not the headline feature here, but THE COLLEXION lasts long enough that most users will spend far more time listening than looking for a charging cable.

Putting Sony’s V3 Processor and AI to Work

The new V3 processor was mentioned in the hardware section, but its benefits become much more obvious once you open the Sony app and explore the settings.

DSEE Extreme is one of the clearest examples. For those unfamiliar with it, DSEE stands for Digital Sound Enhancement Engine. In its original form, it was essentially Sony’s implementation of upsampling. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Extreme version adds artificial intelligence to the process. Yes, AI is the buzzword of the moment, and no, the headphones are not listening to your conversations or tracking your movements.

What the processor is doing is analyzing the music and determining how best to create the additional samples required during upsampling. The extra processing power allows Sony to use more sophisticated algorithms, reduce artifacts, and improve clarity with compressed or lower resolution recordings.

The results vary depending on the track, but DSEE Extreme can produce a meaningful improvement with some material. Sony’s claim that it restores lost detail is a little generous, since information removed during compression cannot simply be recovered. What it can do is make a more intelligent estimate of what is missing and rebuild the signal in a cleaner and more convincing way.

In addition to improving upsampling, the extra processing power gives Sony considerably more flexibility with sound tuning.

The app includes six preset EQ profiles, along with a 10 band equalizer that allows listeners to shape the sound to their liking. Two custom profiles can be saved for later use, making it easy to create separate settings for different genres, sources, or listening environments.

Sony also includes five distinct Listening Modes. Standard and Background provide two channel presentations, while Music, Cinema, and Game use spatial processing to create a more immersive three dimensional soundstage. Each mode emphasizes a different range of frequencies and spatial cues based on what listeners are likely to expect from that type of content.

The adaptive listening controls are even more useful. THE COLLEXION can automatically change settings based on your location or activity. Arrive at the gym, for example, and the headphones can switch to a saved Custom 2 profile with more bass to help keep the workout moving.

Sit down in the office, and they can automatically engage Background mode once they recognize that you are stationary and working. It is the kind of automation that could easily feel like a gimmick, but once configured properly, it removes the need to keep opening the app every time your surroundings change.

The app is well organized, with quick access to the features most listeners will use regularly. A single comprehensive menu also provides direct access to every available setting.

There is a lot to explore, and the number of options can feel slightly overwhelming at first. Most of them are intuitive and genuinely useful, however, so it is worth spending some time learning how the app works and configuring THE COLLEXION to suit your habits.

The touch controls on the ear cups are also better than most. They respond to taps and swipes with minimal delay, allowing users to play or pause music, skip tracks, and adjust the volume with simple gestures.

That means routine commands can be handled directly from the headphones rather than forcing you to reach for your phone and rummage through the app every few minutes.

Listening

Sony’s representatives made it clear that THE COLLEXION would sound different from a typical 1000X model, and that departure is obvious from the first listen. The presentation is warmer, fuller, and occasionally a little dark.

Bass is mildly elevated, with most of the emphasis concentrated in the sub bass before the response moves closer to neutral around 150 Hz. That character is present with both wired and wireless connections, although the wired connection delivers greater depth and extension at the bottom.

Bass has good weight, impact, and fullness without becoming excessive in the way it can with some competitors, including the AirPods Max. It adds authority without overwhelming the rest of the mix.

The mid bass is also tighter than it is on the WH-1000XM6, and the transition into the lower midrange is cleaner. That improves clarity and prevents bass notes from bleeding into vocals and instruments.

I hope this part of the tuning carries forward into future generations of the 1000X series. It is a meaningful improvement and one of the clearest signs that Sony was aiming for more than a dressed up XM6.

The midrange is where THE COLLEXION takes its biggest step forward over previous 1000X models. Timbre is more convincing, instruments sound more natural, and there is noticeably more energy through the middle of the frequency range.

These headphones are equally comfortable with growling guitars and snarling vocals or jazz recordings built around trombone and saxophone. Strings have life and texture, while piano sounds realistic across most of its range, even if the upper registers could use slightly more energy.

That softer presentation appears intentional. Sony keeps the upper midrange and lower treble firmly under control, and THE COLLEXION consistently favors smoothness over aggression. Even recordings with obvious sibilance struggle to become unpleasant through these headphones.

There is a slight dip around 1 kHz that helps create a broader sense of space, although it can occasionally make lower vocals sound a little more distant than they should.

Treble is smooth and laid back, with almost no tendency toward fatigue. That makes THE COLLEXION an excellent choice for long listening sessions, although the tradeoff is a modest reduction in air and sparkle at the top.

I generally prefer a little more brightness, but Sony has done a good job of preserving enough detail and energy to prevent the presentation from feeling closed in. The information is still there, although listeners may occasionally have to work a little harder to hear it.

The soundstage is moderately sized, but better proportioned than that of any previous 1000X model. Both width and depth are more expansive than they are on the WH-1000XM6, at least to my ears.

Imaging is also quite good. Sounds moving across the stage are easy to follow, and individual effects can be placed with convincing precision.

THE COLLEXION is not marketed as a gaming headphone, but its spatial presentation makes it a strong option for listeners who want one headphone capable of handling music, movies, and gaming without feeling compromised in any of those roles.

ANC: Less Aggressive, More Transparent 

Active noise cancellation is always a balancing act, and Sony is quick to point out that THE COLLEXION strikes a different balance than the WH-1000XM6. Listeners who want the absolute maximum level of noise removal will still be better served by the XM6.

THE COLLEXION instead takes a more careful approach: remove as much outside noise as possible without compromising the music. Sony succeeds surprisingly well. Switching ANC on and off in the middle of a track produces far less change in tonal balance and overall presentation than many experienced ANC users will expect.

Low, steady noises are removed with ease, as expected. Higher pitched sounds and sudden bursts are less effectively suppressed, but they are still reduced enough to become considerably less intrusive.

THE COLLEXION may trail the XM6 slightly in absolute noise cancellation, but the difference is smaller than Sony’s own messaging might suggest. Some of that gap may also come from the ear cups providing slightly less passive isolation in exchange for significantly better comfort, at least for me.

In practice, ANC performance is remarkably close to both the Bose QuietComfort Ultra and Sony WH-1000XM6. THE COLLEXION may not win the contest for complete silence, but it does a better job of preserving the sound quality that made you put the headphones on in the first place.

Sony 1000X THE COLLEXION Specifications

• Model: WH-1000XX / 1000X THE COLLEXION
• Driver: 30mm carbon fiber diaphragm
• Frequency Response: 4 Hz – 40 kHz wired; 20 Hz – 20 kHz via Bluetooth
• Nominal Impedance: 48 ohms
• Bluetooth: Version 6.0
• Codecs: SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3
• Processors: Sony V3 and QN3
• Microphones: 12 microphone ANC system
• Battery Life: Up to approximately 32 hours, depending on settings
• Quick Charging: 5 minutes for approximately 90 minutes of playback
• Weight: Approximately 11.29 ounces (320 grams)
• Connections: USB and 3.5mm analog
• Features: Multipoint, DSEE Extreme, 10-band EQ, Spatial Listening Modes, Adaptive controls

The Bottom Line

Sony often takes a beating for being the GM of the audio world. It produces a vast number of consumer products for the mass market, many of them aimed squarely at buyers looking for value rather than exclusivity.

THE COLLEXION is a reminder that Sony can still build a world beater when it decides to. Much like the Corvette ZR1X, it delivers much of the performance, engineering, and refinement associated with boutique competitors without requiring an Italian exotic price tag.

What makes THE COLLEXION unique is not class leading noise cancellation. Sony already sells the WH-1000XM6 for listeners who care most about removing every last trace of outside noise. Instead, this model combines the best sound Sony has produced from a 1000X headphone with improved comfort, stronger materials, better midrange timbre, tighter bass, and a level of design refinement that previous models never quite achieved.

It is not perfect. The treble may be too relaxed for listeners who prefer more sparkle and air, the ear pads still rely on plastic attachment tabs rather than magnetic mounts, and the headphones must remain powered on during wired use. ANC is excellent, but it is not the absolute best Sony offers.

At $649, THE COLLEXION (model WH-1000XX) represents a substantial leap over the WH-1000XM6. It is aimed at listeners who want Sony’s most comfortable and best sounding wireless headphone and are willing to pay more for improved materials and a more luxurious ownership experience.

For those buyers, it is a leap worth taking.

Pros:

• Sony’s best sounding 1000X headphone to date
• Warm, natural midrange with tighter, better controlled bass
• Premium materials and noticeably improved build quality
• Excellent comfort with deeper, more spacious ear pads
• Strong battery life and extensive app customization

Cons:

• Treble may be too relaxed for listeners who prefer more sparkle
• ANC falls slightly short of the WH-1000XM6
• Must be powered on for wired listening
• Ear pads still use plastic tabs rather than magnetic attachments
• $649 price is a substantial jump over the XM6

Our Ratings:

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Build Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Comfort

★★★★★★★★★★ Usability

★★★★★★★★★★ ANC

★★★★★★★★★★ Value

Where to buy:

Related Reading:

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc’s Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

from the can-they-all-lose? dept

Last week we wrote about how Elon Musk’s xAI had filed a lawsuit to attempt to block Minnesota’s anti-nudify app law. As we tried to explain, even if you (reasonably, understandably) dislike both Elon and “nudify” apps, there were real problems with the Minnesota law. In particular, it was not narrowly tailored to just target truly harmful image edits. Indeed, it wasn’t even limited to the non-consensual use of the tech. The state’s Supreme Court had already handed the Minnesota legislature a clear roadmap for drafting a law like this that would pass strict scrutiny. The legislature ignored it.

However, the lawsuit was filed just days before the law was set to go into effect, which was called out by Minnesota’s Attorney General in arguing against a temporary restraining order:

First, X.AI’s lack of diligence confirms that a TRO is unnecessary. The company waited until the last minute to sue…

And that seemed to influence Judge Donovan Frank, who denied the motion for the TRO mainly because Elon waited until the last minute to file.

The Court respectfully denies the request for a temporary restraining order before tomorrow. xAI filed the motion on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect. Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate.

And, sure, it was kind of silly for Musk to wait right up until the law was set to go into effect, but that’s not all that rare with challenges to these kinds of laws. I also find the court’s suggestion that the harm isn’t immediate a bit odd, given that (as xAI had rightly pointed out) the potential liability under this law is massive: $500,000 per “access, download, or use.” That means any single use of Grok to edit an image that violates this law (which, as we discussed, goes way beyond nonconsensual sexual imagery, and could even cover someone editing a photo of themselves in a way they endorse) could lead to a huge bill for the company. And it’s now in effect, meaning in theory Minnesota’s AG, Keith Ellison, could already seek fines against the company — though there’s no indication that his office has done so yet. And while it may be politically appealing to try to enforce immediately, that may play badly before the court when there are hearings coming up in a few weeks on a preliminary injunction.

It’s also unclear if xAI actually changed anything on its end. In its filing, the company said that if the law went into effect, it would need to restrict access to certain features:

Confronted with $500,000-per-image strict liability and no safe harbor, xAI has no practical choice but to restrict Grok Imagine’s image-editing features in various ways when the statute takes effect on August 1, 2026

But the law has gone into effect, and as far as I can tell, there’s been no announcement of any changes. It’s possible such changes have been made already and just not announced. But it does come off as a bit weak to file a lawsuit on Monday saying that “if this law isn’t fixed by Saturday we’ll make big changes” and then have the law go into effect… and those changes are not publicly announced anywhere.

This ruling may not mean very much at all. The court has ordered both sides to brief a preliminary injunction over the next couple weeks, with a hearing on August 19th that can get into the actual First Amendment problems with the law. That also means xAI will likely have to explain, in those filings, whatever restrictions it has or hasn’t added to its systems.

xAI’s initial filing was not bad, but I hope they lean more heavily on the case I discussed in my last post, in which Minnesota’s Supreme Court spelled out exactly what the state’s non-consensual intimate imagery law needed to survive strict scrutiny. Because that case walks through, in great detail, the steps a (somewhat similar) law had to take to pass strict scrutiny and survive the First Amendment — even as the court acknowledged the law was punishing a form of protected speech.

There remain some oddities around this law, starting with the fact that the ACLU of Minnesota backed it in the first place — a surprising stance for the ACLU — before reversing course once Musk sued:

xAI’s criticism of the law is drawing support from some free-speech advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, which supported passage of the law in an earlier form in February but has since turned against it.

“While we believe that creating the technology to alter or ‘nudify’ photos of identifiable people is protected by the First Amendment, we also recognize that the non-consensual creation and dissemination of such material can inflict damage on people appearing in those images,” the ACLU of Minnesota said in a statement Friday.

“In engaging with lawmakers on this issue, we hoped to strike an appropriate balance between First Amendment rights and the ability of people harmed to seek remedial measures, not unlike the remedies available to people harmed by defamation. The final version of the bill does not strike that balance,” the organization said.

Seems like the sort of thing you should have worked out before supporting the law, but fine.

Also, I had mentioned in my last article that some believe the law was written so badly on purpose, to convince Musk to sue in order for Democrats to use it as a political tool and… they are certainly making political hay of it on X, where they seem to be overjoyed that they can mock Elon.

And, sure, mocking Elon is fun. But if you’re going to mock him, it should be over the things he’s actually doing that are problematic.

The issue with this law isn’t that it’s trying to deal with the issue of nudify apps. Or that it’s trying to stop Elon from doing terrible things. It’s that it did so in such a ham-fisted, damaging, obviously unconstitutional manner that bans way more than it claims, is not narrowly targeted, and pretty clearly cannot survive strict scrutiny. Minnesota had the roadmap to pass a legitimate version of this law. It chose not to do so. That Musk didn’t receive the immediate TRO due to the late filing doesn’t make the law a good law. The proper thing for Minnesota’s legislature to do would be to write a law that actually abides by the First Amendment, but perhaps that wouldn’t get them the kinds of headlines they’re getting now.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, amy klobuchar, elon musk, keith ellison, minnesota, nudify, preliminary injunction, tim walz, tro

Companies: spacex, x, xai

ISA Matters: Valve developers have been working hard to finalize the software stack for the upcoming Steam Frame. Despite using an Arm-based processor, the VR headset is expected to support both PC and Android games thanks to a complex compatibility layer.

Valve recently updated the Steam pages for Lepton and FEX, two tools designed to improve compatibility between the popular PC gaming platform and Arm-based devices. The tools are expected to play a major role in turning the upcoming Steam Frame into a “real” gaming headset from the get-go.

Lepton and FEX still lack public store pages on Steam, but their update histories can be viewed through SteamDB’s archive. The first hints about Lepton appeared online in 2025, suggesting that Valve was embarking on yet another major compatibility project. Just as Proton acts as a compatibility layer for Windows games on Linux using Wine, Lepton is expected to leverage the container-based Waydroid system to run Android apps on a full Linux distribution.

– Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) August 1, 2026

Meanwhile, FEX is an emulator designed to translate API calls and recompile code from x86 applications into native implementations for the Arm64 instruction set architecture (ISA). The emulator is designed to reduce emulation overhead and improve performance, and it can already offer “broad” compatibility with both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 binary applications – i.e., games.

FEX was previously advertised as a compatibility tool that could be used alongside Wine/Proton to play Windows games on Arm devices. With Valve taking part in the project, the emulator could quickly gain traction, just as Proton has become a major player and software product in the Linux gaming market.

Lepton, Proton, and FEX are expected to handle game compatibility within the Steam Frame ecosystem. The upcoming VR headset is based on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Arm64 SoC and a SteamOS build based on the Arch Linux distribution. Valve is also known for providing financial support to the Arch project.

Steam Frame’s compatibility setup should work something like this: Lepton will handle Android games in its container-based system, while FEX will translate x86-64 native code to Arm. Finally, Proton will run Windows-based software on the Arm architecture.

Earlier this year, Valve announced that the headset’s final release date had been delayed due to the memory shortage crisis caused by AI data center overprovisioning. Now that two major pieces of the device’s software stack are finally showing their “faces” in public, the actual launch date for Steam Frame should not be too far away.

A new Russian loader-as-a-service named DOUBLECUP uses ClickFix attacks to hide malicious code in PNG images cached by victims’ browsers, ultimately delivering CountLoader to Windows and macOS devices and a new remote access trojan named DeviceManager to Windows systems.

SOCRadar’s Threat Research Unit says DOUBLECUP has operated since early June 2026, providing customers with licenses and a Go-based Windows tool for creating malicious campaigns and generating the code operators add to their websites.

The service handles much of the infrastructure required to conduct the attacks, including hosting the steganographic PNG images, managing session and signal endpoints, providing encryption keys, and automatically rebuilding payloads.

DOUBLECUP customers are responsible for creating and hosting the websites used to display the ClickFix prompts, adding the generated frontend code, and implementing any additional obfuscation or anti-analysis measures.

SOCRadar discovered DOUBLECUP while investigating an open directory at 213[.]139.77[.]109:9090 that contained test files. The same IP address was later identified as hosting the service’s licensing panel.

To launch an attack, a DOUBLECUP customer uses the Go-based Windows application to configure the campaign’s domain, URL path, steganography method, embed type, execution action, and payload locations.

This generates an API configuration endpoint that returns the steganographic image URL and file size, session endpoint, and commands customized for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave, and Opera.

Operators then add DOUBLECUP’s code to their ClickFix sites, which retrieves the configuration, preloads the steganographic image into the victim’s browser cache, registers the session, selects the command matching the victim’s browser, and copies it to the clipboard when the page is opened.

Malware hidden in the browser cache

In a new report, SOCRadar says it observed DOUBLECUP ClickFix campaigns using fake CAPTCHA prompts on login pages impersonating NetSuite, Odoo, HubSpot, and Salesforce, with the malicious code loaded through embedded iframes.

When a victim visits one of these sites, DOUBLECUP registers the session, determines the victim’s public IP address, and forces the browser to download and cache a malicious PNG image.

The page then displays fake CAPTCHA-style instructions that attempt to convince visitors to paste and run a command automatically copied to their clipboard.

Once executed, the command searches the browser cache for the PNG based on its exact file size and uses the findstr or certutil commands to recover and execute the hidden first-stage payload inside the image.

The first payload launches a fileless second-stage dropper, which retrieves the victim’s public IPv4 address and uses it to create a decryption key for the final encrypted payload.

After verifying the decrypted payload against a hardcoded SHA-256 hash, the dropper executes it in memory. SOCRadar says the final payloads are CountLoader and a new DeviceManager RAT.

2 malware payloads

SOCRadar identified two malware families delivered through DOUBLECUP, which are an updated version of CountLoader that targets Windows and macOS and what is believed to be a previously undocumented DeviceManager RAT.

CountLoader is used to harvest information about infected systems, checks for cryptocurrency wallet applications and browser extensions, determines whether Signal Desktop is installed, and establishes persistence through scheduled tasks.

CountLoader can also download and execute files, including MSI packages, PowerShell modules, and DLLs.

SOCRadar also recovered a macOS version compiled for Intel and Apple Silicon devices, which installs a LaunchAgent for persistence and uses built-in utilities such as curl, sw_vers, system_profiler, and ioreg to communicate with attacker-controlled servers.

DOUBLECUP was also seen delivering the DeviceManager malware, a modular Python-based Windows RAT that uses blockchain smart contracts to determine the IP address of its command-and-control server.

In countries not part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), DeviceManager collects the machine GUID, disk identifier, user SID, hostname, username, operating system version, architecture, installed antivirus software, and domain information.

The malware uses a technique known as EtherHiding to retrieve its current C2 address from an Ethereum or Polygon smart contract, which makes it more resistant to disruption attempts.

The RAT uses DNS A and TXT records to steal system information, retrieve commands to execute, download payloads, and send command output back to the attackers.

This is not the first time ClickFix attacks have used steganography, as Huntress previously documented campaigns that concealed LummaC2 and Rhadamanthys payloads within the pixel data of PNG images.

Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.

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AirPods could soon add a new way to help Siri understand what’s happening around you, and it may arrive sooner than expected. According to a report published Sunday by Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple could release camera-equipped AirPods later this year. That’s earlier than previous reports of a 2027 launch.

The prediction is based on code found in the iOS 27 beta releases, which are early test versions of the software, that reference a device called B790. This device is reportedly a version of another camera-equipped AirPods device code-named B798, and B790 is supposedly further along in development than its counterpart.

Since it’s already August, that means we could see camera-equipped AirPods in the next few months.

An Apple representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bloomberg reported in June that camera-equipped AirPods are meant to be Apple’s first AI-focused wearable product. Rather than capturing photos or videos, the cameras would function as visual sensors, giving Siri more context about what’s happening around the user. The AirPod cameras would analyze images and provide you with context based on what they see.

There are still plenty of unanswered questions about the device.

AirPods have long been prized for their compact, lightweight design, so adding cameras could make the earbuds noticeably bulkier. If they become too large, will they stay secure during activities like running or workouts?

There’s also the question of how the cameras will work in practice. Will users need to point their heads in a specific direction for the cameras to capture what Siri needs to see, or will Apple use wide-angle or panoramic cameras that can recognize a user’s surroundings regardless of head position? The latter would likely provide a much smoother experience, while the former could make the feature feel awkward and unintuitive.

If the cameras aren’t panoramic, will users be able to view what the AirPods see on another device, such as an iPhone? The feature also raises questions about whether a companion device with a display will be necessary. Without a screen, it may be difficult for wearers to confirm exactly what the cameras are seeing.

Privacy is another question Apple will likely have to address. Wearable devices with built-in cameras, including Meta’s smart glasses, have drawn criticism over concerns that people could be photographed or recorded without their knowledge or consent. While camera-equipped AirPods would differ from smart glasses, they could face similar scrutiny because they also place cameras on a device that’s worn throughout the day. How Apple plans to address those privacy concerns remains unclear.

Price is another unanswered question. The AirPods 4, Apple’s compact wireless earbuds, start at $129, while the AirPods Max, the company’s over-ear headphones, sell for $549. Depending on how much the camera hardware changes the AirPods design, a new camera-equipped model could end up costing as much as — or even more than — the AirPods Max.

If Apple does release camera-equipped AirPods later this year, a September launch would be the most likely scenario. The company has historically used its fall iPhone events to introduce major AirPods updates, including the AirPods 4 in 2024 and AirPods Pro updates in 2025. However, Apple has also announced audio products outside its September events, so a different launch window remains possible.

For more Apple news, here’s what to know about iOS 27 and everything announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Zachary McAuliffe

Senior writer

Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him hanging out with his wife, son and dog in their home.

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from the after-further-review,-it-was-the-government-at-fault dept

Hail to the Chief. Our country is being run by paranoid conspiracy theorist megalomaniac who openly wishes to kick-start America’s first autocracy. Nothing that goes wrong is ever the president’s fault. It’s always the fault of officials with insufficient loyalty or the criminal acts of people out to get him.

Trump decided the Lincoln Reflecting Pool needed a makeover. Not because it had several long-term issues that had been inadequately addressed over the years but because Trump wanted to make it look more Trump-y. That meant draining the entire thing to apply a layer of “American flag blue,” a hue Trump made up on the spot to demonstrate he was more American than any American who had come before him.

Rather than turn this over to the people best qualified to do the job via a bidding/vetting process, Trump handed out a no-bid contract to an entity that called Mar-a-Lago home and whose owner had thrown some money Trump’s way in the past. The company hired to do this is headed by a long-term Trump donor and sports a name that would become eerily prescient once it was through botching the job: Greenwater Solutions.

Shortly after the refurb, the water in the pool turned a bright shade of green, due to the wholly expected explosion of algae, thanks to the conditions created by the pool shutdown/startup and vastly encouraged by the “American flag blue” now coating the bottom of the reflecting pool.

Shortly after that, the pool sealant began floating to the surface, prompting curious visitors to grab chunks of the “American flag blue” material that bubbled up as Interior Department personnel tried to beat science at its own game by flooding the “Greenwater Green” pool with hydrogen peroxide.

Trump then claimed — without facts in evidence — that the green tint and floating sealant were the actions of vandals, presumably related to the antifa or whatever. In the space of a single press conference, Trump turned a 150-foot flaw in the sealant into a 350-foot “gash” that could only have been created by anti-Trump vandals.

Then the arrests began. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro promised to punish anyone caught “vandalizing” the pool to the full effect of the law. Department of Interior boss Doug Burgum mindlessly repeated Trump’s wild speculation, claiming he too was in possession of “evidence” of criminal pool fuckery. Trump continued to do what Trump always does: engage in stream-of-consciousness responses when asked to provide proof of his accusations.

Former US Olympics team member David Hearn was the first to be officially indicted for daring to touch pieces of the broken pool. That case fell apart almost immediately. First, the government’s own witness testified during the grand jury proceedings that anything Hearn grabbed from the pool was the result of defective workmanship, rather than evidence of malicious vandalism.

This prompted Hearn’s legal team to demand transcripts of the grand jury proceedings. After all, if the unnamed government employee had testified that the pool would have been falling apart with or without Hearn’s brief interaction, the resulting indictment meant government prosecutors seemingly ignored the fact that it takes at least $1,000 of damage to support a federal vandalism charge.

Well, it’s all over now, at least in terms of prosecution. (The government will likely be contending with a civil rights lawsuit in the near future.) None other than lead prosecutor Jeanine Pirro has admitted there’s no basis for the criminal charges against Hearn.

Not only that, but the DOJ’s dismissal [PDF] specifically calls out the botched pool repair job performed by another one of Trump’s no-bid buddies (Greenwater Solutions did the filtration/drainage, while Atlantic Industrial Coatings redid the pool surface). It does this as it seeks to purge itself of any blame for pursuing yet another transparently vindictive prosecution to appease the president.

[I]t was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026. It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI. Indeed, USAO DC could only rely (on the information provided by DOI that the damage was entirely caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn…

This is US Attorney Jeanine Pirro throwing the Interior Department under the bus in hopes of saving her job. That’s not going to work.

First of all, even after this filing Trump still insists the damage was due to vandalism, despite all evidence on the record showing otherwise.

That’s Donald Trump “truthing” the untruth:

I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT

Nothing to see here, just the President of the United States insisting that his made up fantasy, that no one ever believed was true, is true in the face of a filing from his own hand-picked attorneys at the Justice Department. One would think that the president accusing a US Attorney of lying to a federal court would be a big deal, except everyone let’s it pass because they know he’s full of shit.

The same goes for Doug Burgum, the current Interior Secretary, who similarly insists this is vandalism despite evidence to the contrary, much of it produced by his own agency.

That’s Burgum tweeting:

The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool. Some of these acts were even caught on camera. We also provided the U.S. Attorney’s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool.

The Reflecting Pool is part of the Lincoln Memorial and dates back to 1922.

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@POTUS cares deeply about protecting our sacred national monuments and his leadership has led the restoration of our Nation’s Capital by Making D.C. Safe and Beautiful Again.

Intentional damage done to the Reflecting Pool is no different than defacing any one of our other national monuments.

We won’t back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments.

So the US Attorney is saying that the Interior Department provided the DOJ with evidence that it was the shoddy workmanship of Trump’s hand-picked contractors. And the Secretary of the Interior makes a public statement saying that’s false?

This administration can’t get its story straight, and that’s going to come back to haunt them in court.

Finally, Pirro’s still likely to face some bench-slapping over this case because she can’t pretend to have just heard of it now when her office definitely heard the damage was due to a “botched installation” from a government witness and yet still charged ahead with securing an indictment against David Hearn.

The DOJ says it’s wrong. But it won’t dismiss the charges against Hearn with prejudice, which means it can still take another swing at this if Trump makes it clear that needs to happen. But what’s admitted here means it will most likely need to abandon any pending criminal cases against alleged vandals if it expects the court to grant it any form of good faith going forward.

Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.

That’s the DOJ’s own admission, which is now on the public record. If it continues to pursue criminal charges, it can’t possibly expect any subsequent indictments to survive a cursory review in court. Pirro’s office needs to cut and run ASAP. And Pirro should know that it’s too late to save her job. She fucked up when she decided to tell the court the truth. And that’s something Trump will see as unforgivable.

But now any American who actually wants to know the truth about the Reflecting Pool debacle can read for themselves what the administration itself has to say about the matter when it came time to actually reveal to the court what they knew. If they’d rather believe Trump and Burgum, they can. But they can’t pretend the only evidence on the record shows the Reflecting Pool fell apart because Trump handed millions of tax dollars to donors and personal friends, rather than actually try to get the job done right the first time.

Filed Under: asshats, david hearn, dc, department of interior, doj, donald trump, jeanine pirro, reflecting pool, trump administration

Companies: atlantic industrial coatings, greenwater solutions

Rubin Observatory just released its first major science image from the LSST Camera, and the frame is dense with distant light. Astronomers stacked hundreds of separate exposures of the COSMOS field and ended up with more than half a million galaxies plus more than 50,000 stars in a single deep view.

COSMOS is located in the constellation Sextans, a patch of sky chosen years ago because it looks almost straight out of the plane of the Milky Way. This orientation keeps us relatively free of nearby stars and dust, allowing us to see galaxies whose light has been traveling light-years for billions of years, and it is this light that we wish to investigate. Hubble ended up looking at the same point of sky in 2003. However, since then, a cascade of telescopes across the electromagnetic spectrum have examined COSMOS, establishing it as the standard reference field in space. Rubin’s new composite provides more reach, depth, and the possibility of multiple trips over the next ten years.

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The 3.2-gigapixel LSST camera, which is the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy, captured the light we’re gazing at. It sits atop the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope and consists of 189 individual sensors arranged on a focal plane the size of a small vehicle. It can capture a large area of sky in one image, and by layering hundreds of separate shots taken between April 2025 and January 2026, what appeared invisible at first began to emerge.

The final image shows spiral galaxies with thin, winding arms, with all the delicate detail visible, smooth ellipticals, pairs of galaxies caught in the middle of a collision, and a smattering of very red galaxies that are so far away that the light we’re seeing has been on its way since the universe was young. There are a few bright foreground stars from our galaxy visible here and there, as well as soft wisps of interstellar dust known as galactic cirrus.

This is the second release, with the first catalogue and image based on LSST Camera observations. The whole set covers approximately 3,000 square degrees, or nearly one-sixth of what we can see in the southern sky from the Chilean mountain site where it is located. COSMOS is one of the sites Rubin will return to more than usual. They should be able to gain even more depth by making additional visits, exposing fainter galaxies and better detail, as well as perhaps catching things like supernovae as they happen, which are all temporary.

Bob Blum, director of Rubin Observatory at NSF NOIRLab, noted that the deep image is only the start for this field. Repeated observations over the next several years are expected to deliver large numbers of transient and variable objects for the community to study. Phil Marshall, deputy director at SLAC, emphasized that the long history of prior data on COSMOS makes the field an especially useful testing ground as scientists prepare to work with the full survey stream.