In just 10 days over the summer of 1854, 500 people died of cholera in the Soho neighborhood of London. The city’s population had more than doubled to 2.3 million people in the first half of the 1800s, and its sewage system could not keep up. But the streams of human waste flowing into the street and seeping into the water supply were considered unconnected to the cholera crisis. The prevailing theory of the day was that bad air — miasma — caused illness.
Tech
We don’t know how the Ebola outbreak started. That’s a problem.
The English physician John Snow thought differently. Five years before the outbreak he had suggested that the diarrheal disease was actually caused by a waterborne infection rather than miasma. He soon had a chance to test his theory, mapping the location of cholera-related deaths in Soho. Snow realized that the victims used one specific water pump on Broad Street, and he persuaded city officials to remove the pump’s handle to prevent anyone else from using it. With the source eliminated, the outbreak, which had already passed its peak, ended in days.
Though it took years for Snow’s theory to achieve widespread acceptance, his approach is central to modern epidemiology. Investigating the source of outbreaks can prevent new cases, but it also gives us a better understanding of diseases and helps manage public fear. Even when infections have stopped, outbreak investigations are useful to develop strategies for preventing — and, failing that, responding to — future outbreaks.
Two recent outbreaks have demonstrated the necessity — and the challenges — of such investigations, almost two centuries after Snow’s pioneering work. The first was the hantavirus outbreak that dominated headlines last month. Then, on May 17, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern, the highest level of global health alert, in response to an outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic disease Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which, as of June 2, had killed 62 people, with 363 confirmed cases. It’s the 17th Ebola outbreak in the DRC and one of the largest on record. It has spread to neighboring Uganda, where, as of June 4, there are 16 confirmed cases, one confirmed death, and one probable case and likely death.
The first confirmed case, a healthcare worker in Bunia, DRC, died on April 24, but the outbreak may have been spreading undetected since as early as January. Investigators haven’t identified patient zero — the index case — and still don’t know how this outbreak began. Abdou Sebushishe, a doctor working with the International Medical Corps in Goma, DRC, told CBS News that up to 20 percent of current patients are themselves healthcare workers. He estimated that it may be more than six months before the outbreak could be controlled, given that the disease is outpacing the current response.
Part of the challenge is that the current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which is relatively uncommon and has a genome about 30 percent different from the Ebola viruses that usually spark outbreaks. Testing for more common variants didn’t pick up the Bundibugyo virus right away, and ongoing conflict in the DRC contributed to the delay and continues to make contact tracing difficult. Unlike other strains, the Bundibugyo virus has no approved therapeutics or vaccines.
In the past, researchers have had some success identifying the index case of Ebola outbreaks. Investigators managed to identify the first patient of the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic — the largest and deadliest in history, with more than 15,000 confirmed cases and 11,000 deaths — as a toddler in the west African nation of Guinea. What’s harder to definitively determine is how the boy, who died in December 2013 before the outbreak had been identified, contracted it. It’s possible that he came into contact with an Ebola-infected fruit bat or its droppings while playing in a hollow tree, but scientists can’t say for sure.
Investigating outbreak origins is inherently fraught and can lead to the international fingerpointing that characterized much of the Covid-19 pandemic. But it’s not primarily about assigning blame. Instead, knowing where and how outbreaks began informs how we respond to them, halt transmission, communicate to the public, and prevent them from happening again. It can identify high-risk regions and influence how public health officials monitor a disease. As the recent Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks demonstrate, however, that effort is often complicated by a host of factors, and the resulting uncertainty makes it that much harder to manage public health concerns efficiently and well.
The curious case of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City
Our epidemiological tools have come a long way since John Snow used hand-drawn maps to identify the source of the Soho cholera outbreak. The value of these new tools lies in the information they generate — which is crucial to fighting outbreaks.
Take the case of New York City’s biggest — and deadliest — outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease (LD), a bacterial infection that causes a severe pneumonia and has a fatality rate of 10 percent. By the time public health investigators detected it in the summer of 2015, dozens had already been hospitalized. It was the second-largest LD outbreak in US history, infecting 138 people and killing 16.
The initial epidemiologic investigation started with contact tracing to find the source of the disease, but the results didn’t suggest any shared exposures. Cooling towers, which provide water for air conditioning systems in the form of an inhalable mist, had been involved in previous LD outbreaks, but officials didn’t know how many cooling towers there were in the city or how well-maintained they were.
Investigators ultimately located and tested 55 cooling towers in the South Bronx, where cases were clustered, for Legionella. They identified the source: a single cooling tower atop the Opera House Hotel. The hotel disinfected the tower, and New York’s City Council passed new regulations requiring every building in the city with a cooling tower to register it with the health department, test it every 90 days, and remediate it if Legionella was found.
Within a year, the health department inspected almost 80 percent of the city’s towers — detection and disinfection that would have never been conducted otherwise. No large LD outbreaks emerged — until inspections declined in 2025. “Regulations do not enforce themselves,” Jay Varma, a physician and epidemiologist who served as incident manager for the 2015 New York outbreak, wrote last year in Healthbeat. “The Covid pandemic has sparked a strong backlash against government authority, and austerity budgets are now starving public health agencies. Infections may be inevitable, but outbreaks are a choice.”
Cholera and LD are waterborne, but Ebola and hantavirus, which first cross over to humans from animal reservoirs, present a different challenge.
The challenge of hantavirus and Ebola
“The end of the world, the beginning of everything” is the motto of Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city on the planet, where tourists flock to watch birds and embark on cruise ships. It’s the main gateway to Antarctica, making up 90 percent of all cruise departures to the continent.
It’s here that a Dutch couple may have contracted the Andes virus, the only strain of hantavirus known to spread from person to person, before sparking an outbreak on the MV Hondius. The Argentinian government’s prevailing theory is that the couple got infected while birdwatching at a landfill in Ushuaia before the cruise, coming into contact with the rodents that carry the Andes strain.
“The current theory of a couple birdwatching in southern Argentina may not be plausible, because the [long-tailed pygmy] rice rat that is responsible for spreading the Andes strain of the virus is usually found in northern Argentina or Chile, and we know the birdwatching at the landfill occurred in the southern part of Argentina,” Omer Awan, a physician and public health expert, told me over email. There have been no recorded cases of hantavirus in Tierra del Fuego province, where Ushuaia is located, before.
“Understanding the origins of the outbreak will be helpful in guiding interventions like rodent control, isolation protocols, and…how the rare Andes strain of Hantavirus is transmitted,” Awan said. “[And] identifying the source of the [2026] ebola outbreak can influence response strategy and how public health officials monitor the virus.”
Delayed detection and human movement — especially for illnesses like hantavirus and Ebola that can incubate over the course of weeks — make tracing the source of an outbreak difficult, even in the best of circumstances. We still don’t know the original source of the first Ebola outbreak in 1976, which occurred in two simultaneous waves. Debates still rage over whether Covid-19 emerged naturally through zoonotic spillover — the virus jumping from an animal host to humans — or if it potentially escaped from a lab in an accident. We know that the hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks are natural in origin, but there are still international efforts to shift the “blame” from Argentina to neighboring Chile, especially with economic interests on the line.
Such spillover events have only become more likely as humans destroy ecosystems and infringe on animal habitats. Climate change exacerbates existing infectious disease risk. “Because of our choices as a society, there’s a one-in-five chance that another pandemic will occur in the next decade that will kill at least 25 million people,” Neil Vora, the executive director of Preventing Pandemics at the Source coalition, wrote in Time Magazine.
Determining the source of outbreaks is even more difficult — and politically perilous — in the post-Covid era. The US and Argentina have pulled out of WHO. Global health funding cuts, on the part of the US as well as other countries, have weakened our biosurveillance architecture and ability to effectively respond to infectious disease.
Compared to Covid, the scale of the 2026 Bundibugyo and hantavirus outbreaks are small. It’s still proving hard to get answers. That’s going to be a serious problem whenever the next pandemic arrives — and it is a matter of when, not if.
An evolving threat landscape
Although we face escalating spillover risks from habitat destruction and climate change, we can’t count on the next global infectious disease threat being naturally occurring in origin when it does come.
“It’s very clear that artificial intelligence capabilities are advancing incredibly rapidly,” Jaime Yassif, senior advisor for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), told me. “[That could] make it easier for novice actors to engineer pathogens that we [already] know about or for sophisticated actors to engineer novel pathogens that are more dangerous than what’s found in nature.”
If there is an outbreak of uncertain origin — where it’s unclear if it’s natural, accidental, or deliberate — we lack robust international mechanisms that can investigate the source and quickly arrive at a conclusion. That would make it harder to address the source proactively, whether that means stopping future natural spillover events, preventing lab accidents, or holding bad actors to account.
Public health professionals would need to take additional precautions if there was a risk of a deliberate outbreak, as we saw with the 2001 anthrax attacks, where letters laced with Bacillus anthracis were sent in the mail, infecting 17 people and killing five. A naturally-occurring anthrax exposure would have required a different response, since a bioterrorism investigation has to contend with the additional challenge of determining criminal responsibility.
And as we’ve seen with the debates around Covid-19 origins, suspicion that something was caused by human activity can be incredibly corrosive to international trust, making necessary geopolitical cooperation in the face of outbreaks significantly harder.
NTI identified that preparedness gap and proposed a Joint Assessment Mechanism to identify the source of outbreaks of uncertain origin. It would be housed in the UN Secretary-General’s Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (UNSGM) in order to pull together different components of the UN system and bridge security and public health.
That project (which I supported and advocated when I worked at NTI from 2022 to 2024) is currently on pause. “We still think it’s a vital gap and really important, but we just couldn’t get the political will to move it forward in the system, notwithstanding the significant support for it internationally in various quarters,” Yassif said.
We are simply unprepared domestically and internationally to prevent, detect, and respond to global infectious disease threats. Emerging infectious disease outbreaks threaten us all, and we are nowhere near where we should be in order to protect vulnerable populations and countries around the world. While the current Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks are very unlikely to become pandemics on the scale of Covid-19, they’re still dangerous and deadly. Unless we can determine where and how they began, we’ll be ill-equipped to stop them from recurring. And next time, things could be far worse.
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Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop: 30-second review
The Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop is an innovative multi monitor design that essentially enables you to take the office with you. The four monitor set, stand and backpack is available as a complete system.
The build quality matches that of the TriScreen Pro side panels that I recently reviewed..
The set also comes with a stand which considering it’s robust construction is surprisingly lightweight, and offers decent stability for the monitors through the test.
The monitors themselves are linked with the Transformer connectors, the same as those used on the TriScreen Pro, and as I found with that monitor setup the same is true here, careful alignment, then a firm press and a wiggle and click to ensure that everything is locked into place.
Once connected, the panels form a solid visual array with a decent of articulation once you discover that theres’s additional flex in the connectors once you pull the two ends apart, once you get that shift in angle you can position them around or above your laptop screen.
For most of the test, I used the screens with my MacBook Pro M1 Max, and, as with the TriScreen, you need the USBDisplay app to get everything working; without it on the Mac at least, you’ll just see four blank monitors.
The installation process for USBDisplay does require a series of special permissions to be granted under Privacy and Security. Once done, the app lets you change the orientation of the screens via a menu accessible by clicking the icon at the top of your screen.
If you want to rotate a panel from horizontal (landscape) to vertical (portrait), you do it physically by unclipping the monitor and then clipping it back in your intended orientation, and then you can access the app to correct the orientation.
The screen arrangement is, as ever, configured through the main display settings for the OS, whether Windows or macOS.
In use, having four 16-inch panels arranged around my MacBook Pro was genuinely useful and offered a great way to organise my workspace, allocating an application to each screen. I found that I essentially had five displays: the main MacBook display, then the four mounted above.
While all the displays are identical in size, I used one as the main display, and the others for all other windows and content. The main Laptop screen I left empty for use with any color-critical apps I needed.
The display quality as covered by the benchmarking was good, although the results and specifications highlight the limited resolution, color accuracy and refresh rate; however, in a work environment and for pure productivity, the system, with the solid stand, absolutely makes sense and works exceptionally well.
Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop: Price and availability
- How much does it cost? From approximately $1059
- When is it out? Available now
- Where can you get it? Directly from Lepow official store
The Lepow TriScreen Pro is available now direct from Lepow’s website here, where you can select between triple and quad display systems. At time of review, it’s priced at $769 (down from $819).
You can order the system with a US, UK, AU, JP, EU, and KR plug, depending on where in the world you’re based.
The system includes four 16-inch panels with proprietary connectors, an HDMI cable, a USB-C cable, a power supply, and a carry case.
Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop: Specs
Screens: 4 × 16-inch IPS matte anti-glare
Resolution: 1920 × 1200
Aspect ratio: 16:10
Brightness: 400 nits
Contrast: 1500:1
Color gamut: 100% sRGB
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Connector: Proprietary Transformer magnetic connector
Host connection: USB-C (data) + USB-A or USB-C (power)
Driver: One-time installation required
Dimensions: 420 × 360 × 30mm per panel
Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop: Design
Each of the four 16-inch panels in the Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop are identical, with a thin, lightweight construction that enables them to pack into the supplied backpack and makes everything ultra portable.
When it comes to the size and weight of each, the monitors weigh 1050g per unit and measure 420 × 360 × 30mm. When the kit arrives, everything is nicely boxed, but it’s worth assembling before use just to check on the construction. I noted that the central monitor really needs to be screwed into the stand using the VESA mounting holes. Otherwise, once the other monitors are attached, it can feel unstable; attaching the monitor fixes this.
That said if you need to transport it in the back pack the monitor really needs to be detached from the stand to avoid it getting damaged, so I found securing it with two of the four screws saved time when disasembling, this is definately something in the design that needs reworking.
Each display is otherwise identical, with a matte IPS panel, a slim profile, and a finish that gives them a premium look, which is reflected in the price. Unlike the large 27-inch display from Lepow that I looked at recently, these are lightweight with a polymer composite build rather than metal, which makes each panel relatively light, which is handy due to their intended portability. The actual construction feels robust, the panels are rigid, and there is no flex when handling them, which is relevant when attaching the Transformer connectors.
The Transformer connectors are a real innovation and allow each monitor to connect seamlessly, and then there are just two cables that are needed to connect to the laptop and power. Each monitor has two USB-C ports: one for the display and the other for power, and it’s up to you which you use to connect to the system.
The Transformer connectors then carry the data to each of the other monitors without the need for additional cables.
Each monitor in the review kit is identical, and these can be mounted on the lightweight CNC’d aluminium stand. This is incredibly lightweight, a perfect design for a portable system like this, and provides a good, solid base to support the weight of the monitors.
Once the first monitor is placed in the stand, the others can be clipped on, and, as previously mentioned, screwing the central monitor into the stand ensures absolute stability, this is a bit of a design flaw and not ideal.
It does take a few minutes to assemble and connect, but once done, the setup is solid and essentially lets you set up a larger workspace with plenty of screen real estate in a relatively space-limited location.
Then at the end of your work session, the breakdown of all the components is relatively quick, and everything, including your laptop, can be neatly packed into the backpack along with the cables and charger. It’s a tight fit, but there is room.
Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop: Features
The Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor is a modular display system that’s been designed to work alongside your laptop to expand on the screen space you have available.
Each monitor features three connection points: one on each side and one on top, so you can configure the system as you want. For instance, you could have four panels in a horizontal row, a vertical stack, a mixed landscape-and-portrait that wraps around your laptop screen, a 2×2 grid, or in a triangle for meets where all participants can see a screen.
In practice, the configuration I found most useful for day-to-day work had two panels in landscape mode above the laptop screen and one on each side also in landscape mode. I tried portrait, but I think that’s going to take a mind shift on my behalf. This configuration kept a relatively low profile while still providing plenty of screen space.
This meant I could keep my main applications centre focus, with email and music on the side panels, and an additional browser window open at the top. Everything was always visible, and there was never a need to switch between applications as you do when using a single panel.
While PC users are used to this multi-screen display, Mac users often face constraints, and this system requires some initial setup with the USBDisplay App. Once installed however, you’re good to go.
One interesting feature of the monitors is that, as they’re designed for productivity and office work, the aspect ratio is 16:10 rather than the more common 16:9. This just means you have additional screen height for email, document editing, spreadsheets, and web browsing in landscape orientation, and more horizontal width in portrait. This format really does make sense for the intended use.
Switching between display modes, like turning a screen from horizontal (landscape) to vertical (portrait), has two steps: physically move the panel, then choose the correct option in the USBDisplay menu bar app.
The monitors switch relatively quickly, and the other part is to change the monitor arrangement in the operating system’s display settings. This takes only a few seconds and is easy after a couple of goes. The USBDisplay app is extremely simple and one of those single-screen support programs that runs in the background until you need it, when it can be accessed from the menu bar.
While the system is designed for multiple monitors, the modular approach means you can use one, two, three or all four even on a Mac.
If you need however, each panel can operate as an independent USB display with its own power and data connections, so if you want to travel with just one additional monitor for your laptop, then you can.
Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop: Performance
Benchmark scores
Spyder X2 Calibration Results
Gamut: 5.0/5
Tone Response: 4.5/5
White Point: 2.5/5 | Measured 7200–7500K
Contrast: 5.0/5 | Peak 1700:1 at 25% brightness
Luminance Uniformity: 2.5/5
Color Uniformity: 4.5/5
Color Accuracy: 3.5/5
Overall Rating: 4.0/5
Peak brightness (measured): 333.2 nits at 100%
Through this test, I was surprised by just how portable these monitors were, and while the supplied backpack was quite plain and uninspiring, it was perfectly sized to hold all four panels, with seperate sections for each, as well as a large cavity for the stand, and still room to squeeze in my 16-inch MacBook Pro.
The backpack was a little weighty, but no more than my usual work camera backpack, and perfectly acceptable for daily use on a commute from home to the studio/office or another location.
Over the test period, I varied the setup I took with me, and early on, screwed one of the panels onto the stand to make a secure base for any other monitor combination I would take.
The stand, while simple, is perfectly designed, with the three sections folding down securely so it essentially packs down nearly flat. Each section can be angled up to the position you need, and large push-button releases and locks the angle.
Through the test, I found that my most common configuration was to have two landscape panels above the laptop, one landscape panel on each side, which gave five visible screens, and I assigned a specific application to each.
As an example, email on one, 3D printer monitoring on another, music and media controls on a third, server monitoring on the fourth, and the main laptop screen reserved for primary work.
The fact that the four monitors are identical makes them extremely easy to work with, and they essentially match the one on the MacBook Pro, at least in size.
Initially, it took a while to figure out the best configuration, but once settled on the monitor positioning it was then time to install the USBDisplay software. Locating the software wasn’t straightforward, and finding the correct page, which didn’t seem to be linked from any page on the manual or website, took time. You can use this link on the official site, and scroll down to the firmware section.
Once this software is installed, everything else is straightforward: the monitors will flicker to life, ready to be oriented using the USBDisplay app and arranged in the system display settings.
Out of the box, the calibration is OK and perfectly adequate for productivity. If you do want to match them to the MacBook Pro monitor, then a calibration device is needed. Just as a matter of course for the test, I used the Spyder X2 Ultra to calibrate and analyse the displays.
During calibration, it showed that despite the relative limitations of the panels, they still scored 5/5 for Gamut and Contrast, with a Tone Response of 4.5/5, which is impressive.
White Point, however, was quite low at 2.5/5, out of the box, with a measured reading of 7200–7500K, but it improved after calibration as the monitors are set to a yellowish warm by default. More notable was the Luminance Uniformity, which also scored 2.5/5, with brightness differences across the panels. I tested each, and each was slightly different, though in all cases you’d be hard-pressed to notice it visually. Really, this would only be an issue for photographers and videographers.
As the initial benchmarks showed, the panels arrive with a slight warm tint before calibration, which is easily corrected via the OSD. Running the Spyder X2 calibration across all four panels individually takes around an hour, but it brings them closer in representation to each other and to the MacBook Pro screen. For productivity applications, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, this really isn’t an issue, however this is something to note for color-sensitive work.
As these monitors are designed to be portable and will more than likely be used away from ideal office conditions, brightness is an important feature. Here, the benchmarking measured 333.2 nits at 100% against a claimed 300 nits.
In a studio or office environment at 50–75% brightness, the panels are a decent brightness, and in normal ambient light, there is no visibility issue. The 1920×1200 resolution is a bit of a limitation, and comparing these panels directly to the MacBook Pro display makes the difference apparent, but in use with Word and Excel rather than being used for creative displays, it is absolutely fine.
On Windows, the setup is considerably more straightforward than on Mac. Install the driver once you find it, again link above, connect the panels, and Windows handles the rest without prompting for permissions. Switching between Mac and PC required only swapping the USB-C and power cables with no reconfiguration of the panels.
Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop: Final verdict
The Lepow Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop is a great choice if you’re looking for a lightweight multi-screen solution that is ultra-portable. The way they all connect is innovative, and once you figure out how you like to position them, they really do become a very slick display option.
These are, however, designed for productivity rather than creative use and gaming, and with the limitation of 1920×1200 resolution at 60Hz and limited color depth, those specifications lack for the creative or game sector, however, they are ideal for productivity. However, as an addition to a MacBook Pro or ASUS ProArt monitor, there’s no arguing just how useful the multi-display system is, we all have to write emails, and do you really need an Adobe RGB class monitor for your music library?
What I also liked was that, because of the modular design, you can take one, two, three, or all four, and that choice is fully up to you. That flexibility makes them extremely useful.
Over a month of testing, I initially started taking the system with me as part of the test, but relatively quickly, the use alongside the MacBook and Netgear M7 made a powerful onsite solution giving plenty of space for documents and other media, and then the fact that it all packs into a handy backpack just made it ultra convenient.
It is a shame that the resolution is limited, and while the panels are 100% sRGB, which is fine for productivity for photographers and videographers, the fact that the minimum DCI-P3 requirement is not met and is way off the ideal of Adobe RGB accuracy means that most creative users will find them slightly limited on the creative front.
These modular monitors however seem perfectly suited for developers, business users, remote workers, or content creators who need multiple screens for productivity, monitoring, and organisation, rather than for color grading. The Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor is excellent and offers something that few other products at this price can match.
Should I buy the Lepow 16″ Quad Monitor for Laptop?
Swipe to scroll horizontally
|
Value |
Four 16-inch modular panels, a metal CNC stand, and a carry backpack for $893. Decent value for a portable quad-screen system. |
4 |
|
Design |
The composite polymer build is a step below the TriScreen Pro’s CNC aluminium, but it feels robust and perfectly suited for portable use. |
4 |
|
Features |
Fully modular quad-screen configuration with 16:10 panels, 360° orientation options, and a versatile meeting mode |
4 |
|
Performance |
The results say it all with a Rating of 4.0/5. 333.2 nits measured vs 400 nit claim. White-point mismatch before calibration, meaning they’re essentially excellent for productivity but not suitable for color-critical work. |
3.5 |
|
Overall |
A genuinely portable modular quad-screen system that offers flexible configurations for wherever you work. |
4 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
For more picks, see our guide to the best business monitors and the best portable monitors we’ve tested.
The stream will last for about 50 minutes, followed by a deep dive into gameplay.
It’s been a busy, busy week in the world of video games. PlayStation and Xbox both held showcases amid the maelstrom of Summer Game Fest. Nintendo isn’t going to stand by and be left out of the party this time, though. Via its Nintendo Today app, the company announced a Nintendo Direct stream for June 9. It’ll start at 10AM ET and you can watch it on YouTube or below.
The Direct will run for about 50 minutes and feature games for both Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. Afterwards, we’ll slide into a Nintendo Treehouse stream, which will last for about 95 minutes and feature gameplay from several games shown during the Direct.
Nintendo currently has Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave and an exclusive FromSoftware game, The Duskbloods, on its slate for the remainder of 2026. Perhaps we’ll get release dates for those.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Zelda series, so maybe we’ll get some news on the franchise during this Direct too (such as another look at the upcoming movie). For what it’s worth, rumors have suggested a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is in the works.
Retro gaming finds often arrive with layers of dust and stories. This Spider-Man plug-and-play TV game from Jakks Pacific, released in 2004, fits that pattern perfectly. James Channel recently pulled one from an online marketplace and gave it the full treatment: cleaning, testing every mode, and opening it up to see what made it tick. The result shows a licensed product that leaned hard into its character theme while delivering the kind of simple, self-contained entertainment common in that era.
When you take the unit out of the box, you can tell it has a distinct personality because Spider-Man’s masked visage stares at you from the front. The lower half of the device is an interesting blue with white eyes, while a long red joystick rises from the machine’s core, surrounded by a black web pattern. AV connections protrude from the back, connecting to any standard television, and a little white button sits at the top of the stick.
LEGO Marvel Spider-Man Hero Figure – Super Hero Building Toy for Boys & Girls, Ages 12+ – Posable Kids…
- POSABLE SUPER HERO – Scale up the action with the highly articulated LEGO Marvel Spider-Man Hero Figure (76346) building toy for boys and girls ages…
- COLLECTIBLE LEGO FIGURE – Capture the appearance of the web slinging hero as portrayed in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day movie
- PLAY AND DISPLAY – Whether used for pretend play action or arranged on display, kids can position and pose the dynamic Super Hero and his…
Used accessories like this may eventually show signs of wear and tear, as battery leaks have been known to create corrosion, and unless you want to go through the cleaning procedure, you’ll have to fix it before the machine will start correctly. Even when it has been cleaned up, it reverts to a plain interface with only five built-in games and a high score list. There are no cartridges or memory cards needed; simply enter the device, turn on the power, and you’ll be ready to play.
The first game drops you into the streets and rooftops of a city as Spider-Man, and it’s a dead simple platformer in which you simply run, leap, and grab items while avoiding the traps that lay around every corner. The other modes are a touch more varied, with an on-rails shooter in a training facility, a time-sensitive battle against Venom, a sewer maze through which you must navigate all of the hazards, and an aerial shooter against the Vulture’s minions.
Controls are basically made up of the stick and the button at its end. Movement appears to be pretty direct for standard left, right, up, and down movements, but when you try to get crazy with diagonal inputs, the stick can become a little challenging. The rubber touch pads beneath have become hard over time, and the top button controls web shots or attacks depending on the game. There are also some more buttons on the base that let you to jump and perform other things, but some units can become loose with time, and the buttons can pop out in mid-game. Additionally, the spring inside the stick can wear down, making accurate swings or dodges more of a chance than a talent.
Inside the case, the build speaks for itself: you’re staring at a big integrated circuit attempting to manage everything, graphics, sound, processor, and memory, and it’s not up to the task. The game data is contained on a little flash ROM chip, and the PCB contains a few other supporting components and jumpers that allow you to toggle between PAL and NTSC countries. The problem is that the soldering and component quality all hint to a gadget designed to be inexpensive, since it works well for a time but isn’t made to last. Swapping the crystal might help get the video working, but that’s about all.
Tech
Ruby Fights Supply-Chain Attacks With Filter Offering ‘Cooldown’ Before Installing New Packages
Most supply-chain attacks using Ruby’s package hosting site “exploit a narrow window,” according to a new blog post form Ruby core maintainer Hiroshi Shibata.
So its packaging-managing Bundler tool now offers a filter that blocks new version until it’s been public “for at least N days. Releases too new to have been scrutinized are passed over in favor of ones that have aged past the window.”
The feature was designed in the open, drawing on how other ecosystems approach the same problem. It is opt-in, and complements rather than replaces existing defenses like mandatory 2FA and trusted publishing… Cooldown is unset by default, so a project without it keeps resolving to the newest versions…. Passing 0 disables cooldown for the run…
Cooldown is most useful as one part of the wider security investment happening on rubygems.org. The registry now validates gem contents at push time and checks logins against Have I Been Pwned so that compromised passwords cannot be reused, work described in Protecting rubygems.org from the outside in. A dedicated team is running AI-assisted vulnerability scanning against the most critical gems, backed by Alpha Omega and Anthropic, and the direction of all of this is tracked on a public roadmap. Trusted publishing and mandatory 2FA already raise the bar for who can push a release in the first place.
Tech
Xbox Revives Its Original Green Console in a See-Through Series X for the Brand’s 25th Anniversary
Microsoft picked June 7 to show off a new limited edition Xbox Series X, called the X25, that celebrates the company’s gaming hardware reaching its 25th birthday. The machine carries a translucent green shell that lets light pass through and gives a glimpse of the structure inside. This marks the first time a Series X has received a see-through treatment.
The design is primarily inspired by the original Xbox system, which debuted in 2001. The enclosure includes a prominent 25th anniversary logo. When it boots up, the distinctive green light of the original Xbox button appears, just as fans remember it. There are references to Xbox heritage throughout the case, as well as a few cheeky surprises to honor long-time players. The shell preserves all of the standard qualities introduced by the Xbox Series X, so power, functionality, and performance remain unchanged. You still get a terabyte of storage. The special version simply covers all of the tried-and-true hardware in a new set of colors and embellishments.
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This restomod of sorts includes a matching controller, which completes the package. It’s also made of translucent green, with the rear cover and battery door totally transparent, letting you to view the iconic Xbox logo beneath. However, the buttons are identical to the original; green, red, blue, and yellow all return. The controller’s bumpers resemble the black and white buttons on the vintage “Duke” controller, but the grip texture and overall appearance are comparable to the current models, making it feel right at home in your hands. Wireless connectivity, button quickness, vibration, and all other great features remain same. You basically get a nice nostalgic touch for collectors and anyone who wants to go back to where Xbox began.
In November, the console and controller will be offered in a limited edition package, with the controller sold separately. Microsoft claims it will soon disclose the exact price and pre-order details with select stores in participating areas, but there is one catch: supplies will be limited, so if you’re interested, keep an eye out for updates.
According to Jason Ronald, Xbox’s vice president of next-generation efforts, the collection is all about reproducing the look and feel of the original console, plus a few clever touches to memorialize the journey with the people who helped launch the brand. The release is merely one part of a bigger effort to celebrate this major milestone with the community that has helped propel Xbox to its current position. For fans, this translucent green edition offers a fresh opportunity to own a piece of Xbox history while maintaining current-generation performance.
Massachusetts lawmakers have voted to pass privacy protections that grant the state’s residents new rights over accessing and deleting their data held by big tech giants. The bill also bans companies from selling their users’ precise location data.
Lawmakers in the Massachusetts House passed the state’s Consumer Data Privacy Act in a unanimous 146-0 vote on Thursday, months after all of the Senate’s 40 lawmakers voted in favor of advancing its own bill in September. Now, the bills will be combined in the Senate, and sent to the state governor’s office, where it is expected to be signed into law. It’s not immediately clear when that will happen.
The move makes Massachusetts the latest U.S. state to push for stronger consumer privacy rights after years of documented abuses by the wider technology, advertising and social media industries. While the United States does not have a nationwide privacy law, unlike many of the world’s major democracies, U.S. states have filled the void of legislation by bringing their own patchwork of privacy rules that apply to their states.
The bill, if passed into law, will apply to companies that handle or process the personal data of more than 100,000 consumers. It will largely affect medium-sized startups as well as Silicon Valley technology titans.
The law would block the sharing or sale of sensitive information without a user’s explicit consent. This data includes biometrics (such as health data, genetic information, and fingerprints), their precise geolocation data, and other markers about their religion, immigration status and sexual orientation.
The collection and sale of people’s location data has been a major flashpoint in privacy debates for years. Data brokers have for years relied on app developers selling their users’ location data to repackage and sell it to anyone who can pay, including stalkers, governments and militaries. In many cases, the government says it does not need a warrant to purchase data that’s commercially available on the open marketplace.
The Biden administration came close to banning the sale of sensitive Americans’ data at the federal level, but the Trump government has since scrapped the change.
By applying the location data ban to both residents and visitors, the Massachusetts law will effectively blanket ban the sale of location data across the state. The bill is anticipated to have a broad effect on startups that collect, share and sell location data in Massachusetts, as well as advertising companies that use location data to target people with ads.
According to local media WBUR and Massachusetts newspaper Lynn Journal, state lawmakers worked across party lines under the belief that privacy is a fundamental right to Massachusetts state residents.
The bill was generally praised by privacy groups and advocates.
Evan Greer, director of the Fight for the Future advocacy group, said the Massachusetts bill “took a major step toward cracking down on Big Tech’s surveillance abuses,” while the ACLU praised the landmark bill as positioning the state as a “leader in protecting personal privacy and curbing digital surveillance.”
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SCIENCE
Global Talent visa program aims to draw in dissatisfied scientists from countries including the US
Britain’s much-heralded scheme to attract top scientific talent has managed to attract a total of 18 takers, the government has admitted.
The Global Talent visa program was launched last summer following announcements from the EU and France that they intended to tempt scientists unhappy with their lot in Trump’s America and elsewhere.
But while the EU was putting up €500 million ($575 million) in funding for foreign eggheads, the UK could only stump up a dedicated pot of £54 million ($72 million) to lure boffins to Britain.
According to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), UK research organizations have managed to attract ten leading international researchers in the latest wave, who are expected to drive breakthroughs in clean energy, life sciences, and other advanced technologies.
This is on top of eight researchers previously announced by the agency.
Nevertheless, DSIT today declared a key milestone for the scheme, with all 12 of the Global Talent Fund research organizations taking part having successfully recruited international candidates. This demonstrates strong delivery against initial program objectives, it claimed.
DSIT highlighted two scientists that have left the US for Great Britain: Professor Bryony DuPont is joining the University of Strathclyde in Scotland from Oregon State University to work on the use of AI to improve energy systems and make them more resilient to the changing environment.
The second is Dr Ivana Bukvin, who is joining the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, from Stanford University. She is researching proteins to advance understanding of aging and neurodegeneration in diseases such as Huntington’s.
UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), which oversees the scheme, says it is expanding its Global Talent visa fast-track route to cover all of the Association for Innovation, Research and Technology Organisation members (including IBM).
Doing so means it will cover about 100 R&D-intensive businesses across key high-growth sectors, including advanced manufacturing and digital technologies.
“It’s no coincidence that the world’s top researchers, driving groundbreaking innovations in AI, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy, are choosing to come to the UK to advance their work,” stated Lord Vallance, Minister for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear.
The government says the Global Talent Fund is also strengthening UK research capability thanks to early investment in infrastructure and lab equipment. Some organizations are already deploying funding into specialist facilities and start‑up resources to support incoming talent, it claims. ®
Dell has shaped its XPS line into new territory with a mini PC that brings together NVIDIA RTX Spark technology and a chassis styled after the Mac Studio. The result sits in a space between traditional towers and ultra-compact devices, offering desktop performance in a package that fits easily alongside a display or on a shelf. A dark gray finish covers the boxy form, with ventilation slots running along the sides to keep temperatures in check during extended work sessions. A removable lid on the underside opens access to the internal storage drive, allowing straightforward upgrades without special tools or disassembly of the whole unit.
Ports are a key selling factor for the XPS Mini PC. The device’s front panel contains two USB-C ports as well as a handy full SD card reader, which is a significant feature because most competitors’ RTX Spark tiny PCs lack it. Moving on to the back, there’s even more going on: a slew of USB-C connectors capable of handling high-speed data, power delivery to keep peripherals or the PC charged, an HDMI output for a monitor or TV, a regular Ethernet port for a dependable wired network connection, and the power button.
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All of this means that many creators will no longer need to use adapters or external docks to complete their projects. A photographer can simply insert a card and start uploading files, whereas a video editor can connect many drives, a main display, and network storage all at once without any hassle or fussing. The unified memory is particularly impressive, with capacities of up to 128GB of LPDDR5X, making it ideal for use in huge projects with numerous sophisticated features and AI components.
Photo credit: Wccftech
Users can also easily expand storage by just lifting the bottom up. Consider the power under the hood. This device is powered by NVIDIA’s RTX Spark, which combines up to 20 ARM-based Grace cores for general tasks with a Blackwell graphics engine capable of scaling up to 6,144 CUDA cores. It all adds up to a seriously high bandwidth of 300 gigabytes per second at the very top end, with AI acceleration yielding a petaflop of FP4 precision. All this means is that you get extremely gorgeous seamless high-resolution video playback, substantially faster rendering and exports, and the ability to mess about with 3D models or run local AI tools for upscaling, noise reduction, or generative features in the right apps.
Photo credit: Wccftech
The desktop cooling system enables the components to run hotter for longer periods of time than a compact laptop, making it perfect for sustaining optimum performance. Dell is now pushing the XPS tiny PC as part of their creator-focused lineup, alongside the XPS 16 Creator Edition laptop, which has the same CPU but is in laptop form. They focused construction quality and beneficial elements that are only suitable for pros.
Photo credit: Wccftech
Compared to the Mac Studio, the XPS Mini PC offers a Windows environment with native software support in a variety of industries, as well as a wealth of built-in connections that will appeal to a diverse spectrum of customers. The unified memory architecture serves the same purpose, but the NVIDIA graphics stack has a speed edge in CUDA-accelerated programs and gaming-specific features.
We’ll have to wait a little longer to find out the final price, specific configurations, and shipping dates. What is clear is that this is a well-thought-out little desktop that provides artists with a new Windows-based option for power, as well as appropriate space and connectivity.
[Source]
Contact information, direct messages and connected accounts potentially compromised, Meta said.
Hackers used Meta AI to hack into 20,225 Instagram accounts, Meta reported in a government data breach notice on 6 June.
According to the notice, the breach occurred on 17 April, but wasn’t discovered by the company until more than a month later, on 31 May.
The company explained that hackers exploited a now-resolved bug in its AI-assisted support tool, designed to help Instagram users access their account after being logged out.
“HTS (High Touch Support) is an AI-assisted support tool designed to help users who are locked out of their Instagram accounts regain access,” said Amber Hannah, Meta’s associate general counsel for incident response legal.
“Users can request support from HTS and, as part of that process, can ask that a password reset link be sent to their email address.
“The tool itself worked properly and functioned as intended; however due to a bug in a separate code path, the system did not properly verify that the email address provided by the individual requesting a password reset matched the email address associated with that user’s Instagram account.”
The bug allowed hackers to avoid triggering Instagram’s automated account protections, enabling password reset links to be sent to an email not connected to the account. Bad actors were then able to reset passwords to gain access to a victim’s account. The breach affected accounts without two-factor authentication enabled.
The hack affected prominent figures’ accounts, including the inactive Instagram handle for the Obama-era White House, beauty retailer Sephora and a senior US Space Force official.
Meta said that hackers could have potentially accessed sensitive data, including contact information, direct messages and communications, and connected accounts and linked services, such as email IDs. The company said that it will fix the bug before relaunching the AI tool.
In 2024, the Irish Data Protection Commission fined Meta €251m for a 2018 data breach affecting approximately 29m Facebook accounts. The same year, the watchdog fined Meta €91m for improperly storing passwords.
In 2023, the company was fined €1.2bn by the DPC for violating GDPR guidelines by transferring users’ personal data outside of the EU.
AI-enabled cybercrime is fast becoming a sore point for companies, as attacks become more frequent and sophisticated. Just last month, hackers stole 8TB of data from the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, while medical equipment manufacturing giant Stryker was struck in a global cyberattack.
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ASUS has introduced a new initiative to make genuine laptop battery replacements easier for customers across India. Through this initiative, customers can now replace their laptop batteries with ease and get proper service and warranty advantages in the process. Rather than opting for risky third-party alternatives, customers can now purchase official ASUS batteries. This initiative covers not only regular laptops but also gaming laptops.
Battery Finder Tool Simplifies the Replacement Process
ASUS has launched a Battery Finder microsite that will make laptop battery replacement easy for its customers. Using this facility, consumers can enter their laptop model and find a compatible battery. The system also finds the locations nearest to them where such batteries are available at exclusive ASUS outlets and channel partners. Consumers can even contact ASUS’s authorized service centers for assistance.
The battery replacement program supports many of ASUS’s most popular laptop series. Customers with Vivobook laptops can access genuine replacement batteries through the initiative. Several ROG gaming laptops are also part of the program. ASUS has further expanded coverage to include ExpertBook, ProArt, and TUF models. The Battery Finder platform helps users confirm compatibility before visiting a store or service center.
ASUS Strengthens Its After-Sales Support Network
As part of enhancing its customer support services, ASUS has extended its post-sale service network in various parts of India. This has included areas such as Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Punjab, and others. ASUS has made this service available as part of its Assurance Program. The organization’s main aim is to provide reliable and effective service, warranties, and an enhanced customer experience.
Apart from increasing the number of battery sources, ASUS is also working to help consumers manage their batteries effectively. Consumers are advised on how to charge their laptop batteries to ensure that their performance remains high. ASUS also highlights the need to control laptop temperature and have devices serviced regularly.
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