I need to say something that might make CS leaders uncomfortable: most of what your team does before a renewal is valuable, but it’s listening to only one channel. Your EBRs, your health scores, your stakeholder maps. They capture what your customer is willing to tell you directly. What they don’t capture is the conversation happening everywhere else. And that’s usually where churn starts.
I know because I ran the standard playbook for years. EBRs, stakeholder mapping, health score reviews, and renewal prep meetings, where we rated our gut feeling on a scale of green to red. We had dashboards. We had strong CSMs who genuinely cared about their accounts. And we still got blindsided.
The $2M quarter is the one I can’t forget. Two enterprise accounts churned in the same 90-day window. Both were green in every system we had. One had an NPS of 72.
When I dug into what happened, I didn’t find a CS execution problem. I found a coverage gap. Every signal had been there. Just not in the places our process was designed to look. I sat in the post-mortem knowing we’d done everything our process asked us to do. That was the problem.
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Later in this article, I’ll show you what both of those accounts would have looked like inside Renewal Fix. Before anyone on my team knew there was a problem.
What your EBR captures, and what it can’t
I’m not saying EBRs are useless. A well-run EBR builds relationship depth, gives your champion ammunition internally, and surfaces problems the customer is willing to raise directly. But even the best EBR has a structural limitation: it only captures what someone chooses to say out loud, in a meeting, to a vendor.
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The real conversation about your product is happening in a Slack channel you’ll never see, in a procurement review you weren’t invited to, and in a 1:1 between your champion and their new boss who just joined from a company that used your competitor. The EBR gives you one essential channel. The danger is treating it as the only one.
The signals are everywhere. Just not in your CRM.
Here’s what was actually happening in those two accounts that churned on me.
Account one: their engineering team had filed 23 support tickets about API latency over four months. Not “the product is broken” tickets. Small, specific, technical complaints that got resolved individually. Nobody in CS ever saw them because they never escalated to “critical.” But lined up chronologically, the pattern was unmistakable: this team was losing patience, one resolved ticket at a time.
Account two: three of their five power users updated their LinkedIn profiles in the same two-week window. One started posting about a competitor’s product. Our champion’s title changed from “Head of” to “Senior Manager.” A quiet demotion nobody noticed because we were watching product usage dashboards, not org charts.
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Every CS leader I know has lost an account and later found out the champion left months ago. The customer’s reaction is always the same: “We assumed you knew.” They expect you to track publicly available professional changes, the same information any recruiter monitors. Not tracking them isn’t respectful. It’s a blind spot.
Neither signal lived in our CRM. Neither showed up in our health score. They were sitting in plain sight in systems our CS team had no reason to check.
What your health score measures, and the lag problem
Health scores aren’t the problem. Treating them as the whole picture is. A typical health score aggregates NPS, login frequency, support ticket count, and feature adoption. Green means safe. Red means act. But these are lagging indicators. By the time login frequency drops, the decision to evaluate alternatives may already be in motion.
When I started tracking leading indicators alongside our existing health model, the difference was striking. Across roughly 300 mid-market accounts over 18 months, we found that support ticket velocity, specifically the rate of increase in non-critical tickets over a rolling 90-day window, predicted churn at T-90 at roughly 2x the accuracy of our composite health score. The signals that actually predict churn aren’t the ones most CS platforms are designed to track.
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Building the Signal Coverage Model
The teams with the strongest renewal rates don’t abandon their existing processes. They add a signal layer on top. The highest-signal sources break into three tiers.
Tier 1: Support ticket patterns. Not the count, but the velocity, the sentiment trend, and whether the same team keeps filing. A steady trickle of “resolved” tickets from one engineering team is often a louder signal than a single P1 escalation. At scale, this becomes cohort-level complaint clustering across a segment.
Tier 2: People changes. Champion turnover, re-orgs, title changes, and new executives from a competitor’s customer base. The person who bought your product and the person renewing it are often not the same person. At scale, you’re watching for patterns of org instability across your book.
Tier 3: Competitive exposure. Whether your customer is being actively pitched, attending competitor events, or has team members engaging with competitor content online. At scale, you’re tracking which segments your competitors are targeting hardest.
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The real challenge isn’t knowing what to track. It’s that these signals live in five or six different systems, and nobody’s job is to stitch them together. Your CSM sees Zendesk. Your SE sees Jira. Your AE sees Salesforce. The full picture only exists if someone manually assembles it.
What this looks like in practice
One team I worked with built a manual version of this: CSMs logging signals from six different sources every Friday. About 90 minutes per account per week. Their renewal rate hit 96%. But the approach doesn’t scale past a 25-account book.
At 80 accounts in a mid-market motion, you need automation. At 150+ in a PLG model, the signals are still there, you’re watching for cohort-level drops in feature adoption or clusters of the same complaint across a segment, but you cannot find them without automation.
The teams doing this manually are logging into six tools every Friday. The teams doing this with automation get a Slack message when something changes. No dashboard to check. No Friday ritual.
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Detection without a playbook is just anxiety. The point of catching signals early isn’t to panic. It’s to have time to act. An executive sponsor who hasn’t logged in for 90 days needs a different intervention than an account with a competitor POC in their Salesforce sandbox. The signal tells you what’s happening. The response has to match.
That gap between knowing what to track and actually tracking it consistently is why I built Renewal Fix. Not to replace the manual process, but to remove the ceiling on it. The platform pulls signals from support tickets, call recordings, CRM data, and engineering channels automatically, stitches them into a single account view, and flags them before they become a renewal surprise.
See it for yourself
Enter your work email at renewalfix.com. In 30 seconds, you’ll get a one-page executive brief showing your blind spots: 10 accounts that look like they belong in your CS platform, built from your company’s products, competitive landscape, and integration stack, each with a health score and risk signals sourced from support tickets, call recordings, and org changes that your current dashboard would never surface. No demo, no sales call.
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Find the account that looks most like Account One. Health score in the 70s, risk signals hiding underneath. Then click “Executive Brief” for a one-page summary of your portfolio’s total risk exposure, with dollar amounts and prioritized actions. That view is what Renewal Fix delivers weekly in production.
Your green accounts aren’t necessarily at risk. But they might be quieter than you realize.
Photographer Ancient crammed a fully functional computer into the tiny gap of a lens adapter, which may seem like an odd location to put one, but that’s just the goal. This adapter, which connects DSLR lenses to mirrorless camera bodies, is often just a hole in a metal item, but Ancient didn’t think that was adequate. Instead, they transformed that often-overlooked sliver into a home for a miniature computer and a programmable aperture.
Ancient recovered a transparent LCD screen from an ancient phone that was well past its prime. After the backlight and other unneeded layers were removed, the screen sat in the light path as if nothing was there, unless the computer commanded it to block the way. Under the LCD is a custom PCB that Ancient designed from scratch, complete with a configuration that allows the entire assembly to fit into the adaptor enclosure.
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Power is delivered to the rig via some gold contacts on the adapter, which Ancient meticulously matched to an odd pinout after extensive investigation. A few buttons slapped on the outside of the housing allow you to control the computer directly. The firmware for this little board is available on Github under AncientJames/aperture, and it handles all of the LCD’s sophisticated functions.
The LCD functions similarly to a dynamic iris, with no mechanical parts to bother with and only a collection of pixels that change from clear to opaque and back again to change the shape of the aperture in whatever insane way you like. Unlike a regular iris which just opens and shuts the whole thing, this digital one can do all sorts of interesting things, like display a lot of shapes continuously or even generate animations that change over time.
Photographers gain a lot more control over bokeh and depth effects. Your out-of-focus area can now be a spinning flower, a collection of caution signs, or even tiny little animations reminiscent of childhood cartoons. When you move the camera while the aperture scans horizontally, you get a really amazing parallax wobble that looks like 3D without the need for repeated exposures or post-processing.
Don’t expect the Steam Deck to be easier to get anytime soon. Valve has posted a notice on the Steam Deck page with a warning that the handheld gaming console “may be out of stock intermittently” in certain regions “due to memory and storage shortages.” The company also reiterated that the more affordable Steam Deck LCD is no longer in production and will no longer be available once stocks run out. Valve started phasing out the LCD console back in December, which means the OLED handhelds are now the only choice for gamers who want to get a Steam Deck. The company’s notice comes after it completely ran out of Steam Deck units a few days ago.
RAM and storage shortages are plaguing tech manufacturers due to massive demand for those components from the artificial intelligence industry. AI companies have been snapping up available memory chips and hard drives for their rapid infrastructure buildouts, leaving everyone else short. In fact, we couldn’t find any deals for RAM last Black Friday, and Samsung global marketing leader Wonjin Lee warned at CES 2026 that memory price hikes are on the horizon.
Valve also had to delay the release of the Steam Machine and the Steam Frame VR headset due to industry-wide memory and storage shortages. It had intended to start shipping those devices in early 2026, but it admitted in its announcement that it has to rethink their launch date and pricing, insinuating that they could be priced higher than the company had planned,
Anyone who has worked on a car’s brakes knows that it can be a dirty job. Grease and brake dust get everywhere, though to some people that’s just part of the “fun” of getting your hands dirty while working on cars.
That being said, there are a number of situations where getting dirty isn’t necessarily a good thing. When you’re reinstalling brake rotors, for example, cleanliness is a big deal, whether you’re using the old rotors or not. You don’t want to introduce corrosion between the brake rotor and the wheel’s hub, and you want to make sure the surface of the brake rotor is free of debris before installing its brake pads.
What about new brake rotors? Let’s say you just picked up a new set of rotors for your prized 1997 Acura Integra Type R and you’re eager to get them installed. The new rotors look clean right out of the box, so there’s no harm in unwrapping and slapping them on the car, right? Not so fast: You should always take a few minutes to ensure the rotors are clean.
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New brake rotors need to be cleaned before installation
Palitsyn Evgenii/Shutterstock
Most of the time, new brake rotors will come covered with a thin film of protective oil to prevent corrosion while it’s sitting in the box. Putting that rotor on the hub without cleaning it first can potentially end up placing this film of oil between the rotor’s surface and brake pads, possibly reducing your vehicle’s ability to stop by increasing your braking distance. It’s the reason why using a lubricant like WD-40 is a bad idea.
A little bit of good, old-fashioned elbow grease is what’s called for here. Giving the rotor a nice scrub with some warm, soapy water and and then drying it thoroughly with a clean cloth will do the trick. Lightly using brake cleaner spray may also help dissolve any more stubborn oil that remains on the brake rotor.
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However, it’s definitely not as simple as just giving the rotor a few shots of brake cleaner spray and calling it a day. Carefully inspecting the new rotors for any debris from the manufacturing or packaging process can prevent a lot of headaches down the figurative and literal road. You should also clean the hub you’re mounting the rotor on as well to ensure your new rotor fits well. Use a wire brush on your hub for the best results — even the thinnest coatings of rust can lead to performance problems.
Noise is hard to escape, whether it’s the hum of traffic, the buzz of a busy office or the neighbor’s lawn mower starting up right when you need to focus. That’s where noise-canceling headphones earn their keep. A good pair doesn’t just quiet the world around you, it creates a pocket of calm so you can actually enjoy your music, podcasts or peace and quiet.
Modern noise-canceling headphones have come a long way, combining powerful ANC with clearer sound, longer battery life and smarter features like adaptive modes and multipoint connectivity. Some emphasize comfort for long flights, while others are tuned for audiophiles who want studio-level clarity.
We’ve tested a wide range of options to find the best noise-canceling headphones for every listener. Whether you’re after something lightweight for travel or a premium set for focused work sessions, these picks deliver the sound, silence and comfort you need to tune out the chaos.
Best noise-canceling headphones of 2026
Bose/Engadget
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Connectivity: Bluetooth | ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 30 hours | Transparency mode: Yes | Weight: 264 grams | Collapsible: Yes (folds both flat and inward)
The second-gen version of the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones aren’t an entirely new device, but there are impactful upgrades all around. With regard to the ANC specifically, Bose enhanced its ActiveSense tech to smooth any adjustments to sudden spikes in ambient noise levels. This bolsters what was already superb ANC performance, an achievement that gives the company a slight edge over the competition.
The new version also includes significant updates to power management and battery life, with at least five more hours of use in all listening modes. You’ll also get lossless audio over USB-C, putting the QC Ultra Headphones on the same level at Apple’s AirPods Max and others. A comfy fit, reliable controls and folding design round out the spec sheet for this model.
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Pros
Industry-leading ANC got even better
Sound and power upgrades are substantial
Cons
Still expensive
Glossy finish isn’t for everyone
Billy Steele for Engadget
Connectivity: Bluetooth | ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 30 hours | Transparency mode: Yes | Weight: 254 grams | Collapsible: No (ear cups swivel flat but do not fold inward)
Sony’s 1000X line has been our top pick for best wireless headphone for a long time now. That’s still true. However, even though the company packs in lots of premium features alongside excellent sound quality, the M6 sits just below Bose in terms of pure ANC abilities. With the WH-1000XM6, Sony subtly redesigned its flagship headphones, making them way more comfortable to wear for long periods of time. This is an important factor to consider when purchasing over-ear headphones. We also noticed in our tests that the company made noticeable improvements to the active noise cancellation, thanks to a new QN3 chip. There are now 12 total ANC mics as well – the previous model only had eight. This all combines to better block background noise at medium and high frequencies, including human voices.
The M6 also has improved sound quality, thanks to new drivers, some help from mastering engineers and spatial audio upmixing. Its battery life remains the same 30 hours as its predecessor, which is more than enough to get you through several days of work or long international flights. Speak-to-Chat still reduces volume and activates ambient sound when you talk and the M6 can automatically change noise settings based on your location or activity. The only real downside is that they’re $50 more than the WH-1000XM5 at full price ($450).
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Pros
Improved sound
Better ANC performance
Tons of handy features
Supremely comfy
Cons
Price has increased again
Speak-to-Chat still needs work
Call quality suffers in loud environments
Photo by Billy Steele / Engadget
Connectivity: Bluetooth | ANC type: Hybrid | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 35 hours | Transparency mode: Yes | Weight: 192 grams | Collapsible: No (ear cups swivel flat but do not fold inward)
The WH-CH720N won’t win any design awards with these over-ear headphones, but what you get for the price is well worth some aesthetic sacrifices. Due to their all-plastic construction, the CH720N are super lightweight and comfy, allowing you to wear them for hours at a time. The ANC isn’t as robust in these budget headphones as that in more expensive headphones, but it’s above average for products in this price range. Toss in customizability and a handy transparency mode, and you’ve got a solid device that costs only $150 — and regularly goes for around $100.
In addition to decent noise reduction for a small investment, the CH720N has 35-hour battery life, physical controls, DSEE upscaling and Sony’s 360 Reality Audio. You can also adjust both the EQ and the level of ambient sound. Plus, the company’s ever-present Adaptive Sound Control can automatically switch the sound settings based on your activity or location. Last but not least, the overall sound quality is really impressive for headphones at this price. There’s plenty of detail and subtlety in the audio; you can really hear the gritty texture of distorted guitars and near-pristine acoustic instruments.
Pros
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Affordably priced
Lightweight and comfy
Great sound quality
Some handy features
Cons
ANC struggles in certain environments
Lots of plastic
No automatic pausing
Advanced features reserved for pricier models
Billy Steele for Engadget
Connectivity: Bluetooth | ANC type: Adaptive | Customizable ANC: No | Max battery life with ANC: 30 hours | Transparency mode: Yes | Weight: 300 grams | Collapsible: No (ear cups swivel flat but do not fold inward)
If you seek to pair excellent sound quality with capable ANC performance, the Px7 S3 are the best option. Sure, you can find more impressive noise-blocking abilities elsewhere, but if you want pristine audio as well, Bowers & Wilkins is the way to go. An adaptive ANC setup uses eight microphones to capture unwanted noise and automatically adjust to any changes. 40mm dynamic full-range bio cellulose drivers pipe in balanced tuning that provides you with the finest detail of any song.
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You’ll also get up to 30 hours of battery life with ANC enabled, although you will probably surpass that figure. Plus, handy tools like transparency mode, multipoint Bluetooth and an adjustable EQ cover the basics on the Px7 S3. You won’t find more advanced features than those, but what Bowers & Wilkins does offer here is finely tuned and carefully polished.
Pros
Excellent sound quality
Comfy fit
Sophisticated design
Cons
Expensive
Awkward button locations
A lack of advanced features
Photo by Billy Steele / Engadget
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Connectivity: Bluetooth | ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 60 hours | Transparency mode: Yes | Weight: 292.9 grams | Collapsible: No (ear cups swivel flat but do not fold inward)
Sure, there are headphones that will last longer than Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 Wireless, but they don’t offer the combo of great battery life, ANC and good sound quality you’ll find here. On this model, the company made big improvements to its active noise cancellation, catching up to rivals like Bose and Sony. Specifically, the ANC on the Momentum 4 handles constant distractions more effectively than previous models in the series.
I don’t care for the design Sennheiser introduced on the Momentum 4 as the company ditched what was a quite novel look for something much more generic and plastic. However, the change comes with the bonus of increased comfort. You’ll also get excellent sound quality, in fact, it’s some of the best you’ll find in wireless headphones. There’s noticeable depth to the audio profile with a wide soundstage that complements all genres. You might even discover finer details you previously missed. And, of course, its 60 hours of battery life with ANC on is double what a lot of flagship headphones offer these days.
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Pros
Impressive 60-hour battery life
Better ANC performance
Great sound quality
Improved comfort
Cons
Pinch gesture feels unnecessary
Standout design is gone
Auto on/off needs work
How to choose the best noise-canceling headphones for you
Design
When you’re shopping for the best wireless headphones, the first thing you’ll need to decide on is wear style. Do you prefer on-ear or over-ear headphones? For the purposes of this guide, I focus on the over-ear style as that’s what most noise-canceling headphones are nowadays. Sure, you can find on-ear models with ANC, but over-ear, active noise-canceling headphones are much more effective at blocking outside sounds since your ears are completely covered.
For gamers, there are also gaming headsets that feature noise cancellation — some even have detachable microphones, so they can double as over-ear headphones. However, for the purpose of this article, we’re only going to be focusing on noise-canceling headphones rather than headsets. Look for models with a comfortable headband and memory foam ear cups to ensure you can wear them for long periods without discomfort.
Many headphones also come with a range of color options, so if aesthetics matter to you, you’ll find plenty of choices beyond just black or white. Whether you’re looking for something neutral or a bold pop of color, brands now offer a variety of styles to match your personal taste.
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Finally, if you’re planning to wear your headphones for long periods of time, it’s important to pick a model with a comfortable fit. Memory foam ear cups, an adjustable headband, and lightweight materials can make all the difference during extended listening sessions. After all, great sound is only part of the equation; comfort matters just as much.
Type of noise cancellation
Next, you’ll want to look at the type of ANC a set of headphones offers. You’ll come across terms like “hybrid active noise cancellation” or “hybrid adaptive active noise cancellation,” and there are key differences between the two. A hybrid ANC setup uses microphones on the inside and on the outside of the device to detect outside noise and cancel it out. By analyzing input from both mics, a hybrid system can combat more sounds than “regular” ANC, but it does so at a constant level that doesn’t change.
Adaptive ANC takes the hybrid configuration a step further by continuously adjusting the noise cancellation for changes in your environment and any leakage around the padding of the ear cups. Adaptive noise-canceling also does a better job with wind noise, which can really kill your vibe while using headphones outdoors. Some high-end headphones also support Dolby Atmos, which enhances spatial audio and makes everything from music to movies sound more immersive. For the purposes of this best headphones list, I’m only considering products with hybrid ANC or adaptive ANC setups because those are the most effective at blocking noise and improving your overall listening experience.
Customization
You’ll also want to check to see if the ANC system on a prospective set of headphones offers adjustable levels of noise cancellation or presets. These can help you dial in the amount of ANC you need for various environments, but it can also help you save battery life. Master & Dynamic, for example, has ANC presets that provide both maximum noise blocking and more efficient cancellation that is more energy efficient. Other companies may include a slider in their companion apps that let you adjust the ANC level to your liking. Some high-end models even allow you to fine-tune the ANC for specific types of environments.
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How we test noise-canceling headphones
The primary way we test headphones is to wear them as much as possible. I prefer to do this over a one-to-two-week period, but sometimes deadlines don’t allow it. During this time, I listen to a mix of music and podcasts, while also using the headphones to take both voice and video calls.
Since battery life for headphones can be 30 hours or more, I drain the battery with looping music and the volume set at a comfortable level (usually around 75 percent). Due to the longer battery estimates, I’ll typically power the headphones off several times and leave them that way during a review. This simulates real-world use and keeps me from having to constantly monitor the process for over 24 straight hours.
To test ANC performance specifically, I use headphones in a variety of environments, from noisy coffee shops to quiet home offices. When my schedule allows, I use them during air travel since plane noise is a massive distraction to both work and relaxation. Even if I can’t hop on a flight, I’ll simulate a constant roar with white noise machines, bathroom fans, vacuums and more. I also make note of how well each device blocks human voices, which are a key stumbling block for a lot of ANC headphones.
ANC-related features are something else to consider. Here, I do a thorough review of companion apps, testing each feature as I work through the software. Any holdovers from previous models are double checked for improvements or regression. If the headphones I’m testing are an updated version of a previous model, I’ll spend time getting reacquainted with the older set. Ditto for the closest competition for each new set of headphones that I review.
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Other noise-canceling headphones we tested
AirPods Max
Apple’s AirPods Max are premium, well-designed over-ear headphones that incorporate all of the best features you find on standard AirPods: solid noise cancellation, spatial audio and easy Siri access. However, their $550 starting price makes them almost prohibitively expensive, even for Apple users. There are better options available at lower prices, but if you can pick up the AirPods Max at a steep discount, they might be worthwhile for the biggest Apple fans among us.
Dyson On-Trac
The On-Trac headphones have an almost infinitely customizable design, and that’s what’s most unique about them. The sound profile offers some nice detail, but lacks dynamic range overall. ANC is average at best and there aren’t any advanced features that will make your life easier. Well, except for the hearing health monitor, which is actually handy. All told, that’s not a lot for a set of $500 headphones.
Sonos Ace
The Sonos Ace is an excellent debut for the company’s first headphones. The combination of refined design, great sound quality and home theater tricks creates a unique formula. However, ANC performance is just okay and key functionality is still in the works for many users.
Sony ULT Wear
If most headphones don’t have the level of bass you desire, the ULT Wear is an option to consider. The low-end thump isn’t for everyone, but there are also plenty of handy features and a refined look to make the $200 set more compelling than many in this price range.
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Beats Studio Pro
The Studio Pro lacks basic features like automatic pausing, and multipoint connectivity is only available on Android. Moreover, they’re not very comfortable for people with larger heads. Overall sound quality is improved, though, and voice performance on calls is well above average.
Master & Dynamic MH40 (2nd gen)
The MH40 are a great set of headphones if you favor crisp, clear and natural sound that isn’t overly tuned. This pair showcases the company’s affinity for leather and metal too, but limited customization and short battery life for non-ANC cans kept this set from making the cut.
Bowers & Wilkins Px8
The company’s trademark pristine sound is on display here, but the Px8 is more expensive and not nearly as comfortable as the Px7 S3.
Noble Audio FoKus Apollo
While this is my top pick for overall sound quality in our main guide to the best wireless headphones, the ANC performance is less impressive than the Px7 S3. Bowers & Wilkins gets the nod here for its improved noise cancellation over the Px7 S2 and Px7 S2e, and its overall excellent audio quality.
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Noise-canceling headphones FAQs
Does noise cancellation block all noise?
Noise cancellation doesn’t block out all noise, though it does drastically reduce the volume of most external sounds.
Is there a difference between wired vs wireless noise-canceling headphones?
In terms of sound quality, if you have two headphones — one wired and one wireless — with similar specs, the difference is going to be very minimal. However, wireless headphones offer more convenience, allowing you to move around more freely with your headphones on, which is why they often feature noise cancellation to minimize external sounds.
Does noise cancellation impact sound quality?
ANC does bear some weight on sound quality, but the impact of this often doesn’t outweigh the benefits. Noise cancellation reduces ambient noise, allowing a greater focus on audio detail. For audiophiles, however, there may be a small difference in sound fidelity when ANC is turned on.
A short drive from London, the town of Potters Bar is separated from the village of South Mimms by 85 acres of rolling farmland segmented by a scribble of hedgerows. In one of the fields, a lone oak serves as a rest stop along a public footpath. Lately, the tree has become a site of protest, too. A poster tied to its trunk reads: “NO TO DATA CENTRE.”
In September 2024, a property developer applied for permission to build an industrial-scale data center—one of the largest in Europe—on the farmland. When locals caught wind, they started a Facebook group in hopes of blocking the project. More than 1,000 people signed up.
The local government has so far dismissed the group’s complaints. In January 2025, it granted planning permission. The following October, multinational datacenter operator Equinix acquired the land; it intends to break ground this year.
On a dismal Thursday afternoon in January, I huddled around a gate leading onto the farmland with Ros Naylor—one of the Facebook group’s admins—and six other local residents. They told me that they object to the data center on various grounds, but particularly to the loss of green space, which they see as an invaluable escape route from town to countryside and buffer against the highway and fuel stop visible on the horizon. “The beauty of walking in this area is coming through this space,” says Naylor. “It’s incredibly important for mental health and wellbeing.”
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As the UK government races to meet the voracious demand for data centers that can be used to train AI models and run AI applications, similarly large facilities stand to be built acrossthecountry. For the people who live in closest proximity, though, the prospect that AI might buoy the economy or infuse new capabilities into their smartphone is thin consolation for what they consider a disruption to a countryside way of life.
Bonfire of Red Tape
Since the mid-20th century, London has been hemmed in on all sides by a nearly contiguous patchwork of land known as the green belt, made up of farms, forest, meadows, and parks. Under UK law, construction is only permitted on green belt land in “very special circumstances.” The aim is to protect areas of countryside from urban encroachment and stop neighboring towns from melding into an amorphous blob.
After the present government came to power in 2024, however, the UK introduced a new land classification—grey belt—to describe underperforming parcels of green belt on which construction should be more readily permitted. At around the same time, the government announced it would treat data centers as “critical national infrastructure.” Together, those changes have cleared the way for a raft of new data centers to be built across the UK.
When the local planning authority approved the Potters Bar data center, its officers concluded that the farmland met the definition of grey belt. They also said their decision was colored by the government’s support for the data center industry. The benefits from an infrastructure development and economic standpoint, they concluded, outweighed the loss of green space.
“People have this slightly romantic idea that all green belt land comprises pristine, rolling green fields. The reality is that this site, along with many others, is anything but that,” says Jeremy Newmark, leader of Hertsmere Borough Council, the constituency that encompasses Potters Bar. “It’s a patch of very low-performing green belt land.”
Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I admit, I thought 8-Across was spelled with another letter at the end, but I guess you can spell it two different ways. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.
If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Claude and Topaz platforms will be integrated to create AI agents for enterprise customers.
Indian conglomerate Infosys will team up with AI giant Anthropic to pool their collective resources for agentic AI enterprise solutions in telecoms, financial services, software development and manufacturing.
The integration of Anthropic’s Claude platform with Infosys’s own AI offering, Topaz, will help customers to automate complex workflows while adhering to high standards of governance and transparency, the company said today (17 February).
In a statement on the partnership, Infosys also said that its goal is to help clients build custom AI agents that can work persistently across long, complex processes rather than one-off interactions, while helping organisations to modernise legacy systems by combining Topaz and Claude.
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Salil Parekh, the CEO of Infosys, said: “AI is not just transforming business – it is redefining the way industries operate and innovate. Our collaboration with Anthropic marks a strategic leap toward advancing enterprise AI, enabling organizations to unlock value and become more intelligent, resilient, and responsible.”
India is this week hosting a major AI summit as it attempts to show the world that it can compete with the US and China in the constantly evolving global AI race. World leaders, tech moguls, AI founders and investors will attend the New Delhi conference.
Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei said of the new partnership: “There’s a big gap between an AI model that works in a demo and one that works in a regulated industry – and if you want to close that gap, you need domain expertise.
“Infosys has exactly that kind of expertise across important industries: telecom, financial services and manufacturing. Their developers are already using Claude Code to accelerate their work and to create AI agents for industries that demand precision, compliance and deep domain knowledge.”
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This week, Anthropic also announced partnerships with Air India and Cognizant around internal deployment of Claude.
Infosys, based in Bengaluru, has operated for more than 40 years and employs more than 300,000 people working with clients in around 60 countries. Anthropic was recently valued at around $380bn after a Series G funding round.
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Styx: Blades of Greed isn’t an Assassin’s Creedgame. It’s not a Sniper Elite, aHitman, or part of any of the other popular stealth action franchises that have received new entries in the last couple of years. This is a proper, old-fashioned stealth game – the kind that you really don’t see much of anymore.
Review info
Platform reviewed: PC Available on: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S Release date: February 19, 2026
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The focus is entirely on the act of sneaking, surreptitiously sticking to shadows, and creeping around environments in order to avoid detection entirely, rather than trying to blend in or silently take out enemies from afar.
As the titular green goblin Styx, you’re certainly not a fighter, and detection means an almost certain demise. Sure, you can fend for yourself against one or even two low-level enemies in a pinch, but your health pool is extremely limited, and open combat quickly spirals out of control as more guards are alerted by the sound of the fray.
You can hardly break out of a crouch when you’re moving around maps, as your footsteps alone are enough to trigger a chain reaction that inevitably ends with you getting skewered by an army of heavily armed goons. It sounds frustrating, and believe me, it sometimes is, but I simply wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Nothing beats the satisfaction of pulling off the perfect heist, and some smart quality-of-life features stop the experience from ever becoming too exasperating.
Styx and stones
(Image credit: Nacon)
Its big innovation is a clever, quick save system. You might see the phrase ‘save scumming’ (the practice of frequently reloading saves made before your mistakes) tossed around as a derogatory term in discussions about other titles, but in Styx: Blades of Greed, it’s not only necessary for success, but actively encouraged.
It’s instant and bound to pressing down the left thumbstick on your controller, with a successful save signaled by a small on-screen notification that doesn’t break your immersion. Get slashed by a guard, fall off a ledge, or accidentally come into contact with water (goblins dissolve instantly like the Wicked Witch of the West, apparently), and you’re back to your save point after just a brief loading screen.
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It’s a little awkward at first, but after a few hours, saving every time you make any significant progress becomes second nature, and it’s absolutely liberating.
(Image credit: Nacon)
Rather than annoyingly setting you back, deaths become your signal to experiment. “What would happen if I tossed an acid trap on that carpet just as the guard saw me?” “Can I actually take out that worker without his mate seeing me?” “Would that falling chandelier really land on that armored patrol if I timed it just right?”
Best bit
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(Image credit: Nacon)
In this instalment Styx is more mobile than ever before, with an incredibly fast default move speed and rapid double jump. It makes scurrying across open rooftops or darting down empty corridors a joy, and really helps you feel like a devious little goblin.
The game’s three main levels are mammoth and filled with multiple avenues of approach that really reward trying new approaches. With endless ledges, chimneys, the undersides of tables, inside barrels or chests, and maintenance passages, you’re never short of places to hide, and making full use of every available spot in order to infiltrate somewhere flawlessly is satisfying.
Don’t be worried about the fact that there are ‘only’ three maps either. Side quests and collectibles incentivize you to scour them thoroughly, and an intelligent metroidvania-esque progression system sees you gradually acquire new traversal tools like grapple hooks or gliders that open up vast new zones in them to explore.
Each story chapter also ends in unique, more linear segments that are a refreshing change of pace after such openness and help you get acquainted with each new mechanic as they come.
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Carrot and Styx
(Image credit: Nacon)
Styx is a seasoned master of infiltration, so he has a wealth of abilities to play around with that are unlocked through a modest but impactful upgrade tree. The most interesting of these are tied to your acquisition of Quartz, the sinister new material that Styx and his rag-tag crew of allies are pursuing.
Mind control has you manually piloting adversaries that would otherwise be too powerful to defeat and commanding them to jump to their deaths, while slowing down time helps you escape otherwise impossible situations in a flash.
This is on top of some returning favorites from the past Styx games, like invisibility, throwable clones that latch on to the faces of foes, plus basic tools like throwable bottles, acid mines, and more. It’s perfectly possible to get through the game without using the majority of these, but fully engaging with every tool at your disposal invites exciting gameplay possibilities.
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It’s unfortunate that there are plenty of jagged edges here that might trip up those coming over from more casual stealth experiences. I really appreciate the commitment to make Styx: Blades of Greed a faithful sequel to both Master of Shadows and Shards of Darkness (not to mention a prequel to Of Orcs and Men), but it’s almost too faithful at times when the last instalment was almost ten years ago.
Without knowledge of the previous entries, the otherwise surprisingly decent story isn’t going to make a lick of sense, and many of its coolest moments, like returning to the ruins of an old map, simply won’t resonate.
(Image credit: Nacon)
Even true Styx heads like me might struggle to stay fully engaged with it, given the fairly dire voice acting, though. The performance for the protagonist is excellent, especially his many ironically charming one-liners, but the lines for side characters and NPCs are often amateurish. Cutscenes feel cheaply animated, with stilted motion and odd cuts that never seem to flow quite right.
There’s plenty of more general jankiness to get past, too, from frame rate stutters and typos in subtitles to bugs that see you fall through the floor, get seen through solid objects, or have the entire game crash without warning. Thanks to its strong foundations, the experience was never truly spoiled for me, but I do hope there are some patches in the works to make everything more stable.
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Should I play Styx: Blades of Greed?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
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Accessibility features
Styx: Blades of Greed has three difficulty levels, in addition to a modest accessibility menu. Aside from the option to disable controller vibration, all of the settings relate to color blindness.
There are three vision filters: deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia. Subtitles are enabled throughout the game by default.
How I reviewed Styx: Blades of Greed
I went full goblin and played more than 20 hours of Styx: Blades of Greed on PC over the course of a few days. During this time, I completed the entire game, thoroughly explored all of the levels, tested every single ability, and worked my way through many of the side quests.
I reviewed the game at full graphics settings on my system, which is a 5070 Ti-powered model from retailer Scan that features a compact Corsair 2000d RGB Airflow case, Asus ROG Strix B860-I Gaming Wifi motherboard, Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU, a 2TB WD Black SN770 SSD, 32GB of DDR5 Corsair Vengeance RAM, and an Nvidia 5070 Ti manufactured by Asus.
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Fractal Scape review: one-minute review
The bar keeps being raised in gaming peripherals lately, and as such, there’s no room for overpriced or feature-bloated models whose specs don’t translate to a great user experience. Fractal Design clearly knows this very well as it enters the wireless gaming headset market with a $200 model that looks like something Apple would try to sell you for $500, and comes with a charging dock and feature set that you’ll be more accustomed to seeing from pricer Astro headsets.
The looks will be a big selling point for many, as you’d expect from Fractal and its reputation for understated, Scandi-style PC cases. Available in both black and white, it’s got a grown-up look quite apart from the gaming peripherals of yesteryear, and with a detachable mic and Bluetooth connectivity, you can quite comfortably leave the house wearing the Fractal Design Scape as your smartphone’s headset without broadcasting an overstated ‘gamer gear’ look to the world and its judging eyes.
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Also included is a wireless charging station, which will juice up the headset with up to 40 hours of use when RGB is disabled, and up to 24 when it’s enabled. Taking the headset out of the magnetic dock automatically powers it on, which feels like an incredibly decadent feature for this price.
While the materials and design generally lend themselves well to comfort – with a particular shout-out due to the high-grade memory foam earcup covers – this definitely favors a smaller head size, and I have concerns about the amount of padding on the headband itself. If you’ve got a larger head, you may start to feel the headband dig in during longer sessions.
It’s not perfect then, but that imperfection is effectively offset by how generous Fractal has been by adding not just a detachable boom mic but a built-in omnidirectional mic too. Not to mention fundamentally crisp and clear sound with some meaty bass response.
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(Image credit: Future)
Fractal Scape review: price & availability
List price:$199.99 / £169.99 (around AU$285)
Astro-like features for a far lower price
Priced competitively against Razer Blackshark V2 Pro and PlayStation Pulse Elite
The price point is a big win for Fractal out of the gates. How the manufacturer has managed to bundle a high-quality headset and charging station that look ready to sit in the window of an Apple store is anyone’s guess, but somehow that very thing has been achieved. The choice of two mics and strong construction materials and finish quality are further bonuses that make this a frontrunner in the $150-$200 market.
The competition? Probably still two members of the old guard. PlayStation’s official PS5 Pulse Elite headset features similarly elegant looks and hassle-free wireless operation, while Razer’s older Blackshark V2 is more of an all-rounder that features similar device compatibility to the Scape.
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(Image credit: Future)
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Fractal Scape review: Specs
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Row 0 – Cell 0
Fractal Design Scape
Price
$199.99 / £169.99 / around AU$285
Weight
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11.8.oz / 338g
Compatibility
PC, Mac, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, iOS/Android
Connection type
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2,4 GHz Wireless via USB-A dongle, Bluetooth 5.3, Wired via USB-C to USB-A cable
Fractal’s headset was never going to be an aggressive, overwrought affair. Its cases are recognizable for their elegant minimalism, and the same is very much true of this Scape. It’s reminiscent at first glance of Steelseries’ Arctis range, but has a ‘debadged’ look and the most minimal of RGB zones that carries through the Scandi operation’s less is more philosophy.
The dock features magnetic connections that keep the headset in place and carries through the understated look, guaranteed to bring some culture and sophistication to your desk, no matter how many Funko Pops it’s sharing the real estate with. A USB-A dongle is hidden on the underside of that dock so that you can plug the dongle into the dock and use the USB cable from the dock to your device’s USB port, keeping things nice and clean and giving you a bit more choice over where to position the dock.
In addition to the usual physical controls at the rear of each earcup (power, wireless/Bluetooth connection, and mic mute on the left, RGB on/off on the right), there’s a ‘control crown’ in the upper-left rear which controls volume and provides some multimedia controls for pausing music and skipping tracks. While every other control works well, feels sturdy, and is easy to find without having to take off the headset, I find the control crown a bit fiddly. It’s too small to make precise volume changes easily, and pressing and holding the crown to pause or skip feels awkward.
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With that said, it’s extremely impressive that the two mic options have bespoke mute mechanics. The boom arm is flip-to-mute, whereas the built-in omnidirectional is controlled with a button.
(Image credit: Future)
Fractal Scape review: Performance
Strong and precise sound
Great battery performance
Headband comfort can be an issue
Great care has clearly been taken to build a lot of comfort into these cans. That’s most evident when you give the earcup cushions a squeeze and find the most luxuriously squishy memory foam pads you ever squished. This is seriously high-grade material, equivalent to flagship Bose models.
And it’s a vital piece of the comfort puzzle, because the Scape offsets its middleweight heft (11.9oz / 338g is on the lighter side of average for wireless sets now) with a lot of clamping force. The idea is that the tighter the earcups clamp around your ears, the less weight hangs from the headband on top of your head. Plus, you get a nice bit of passive noise cancellation and a tight acoustic chamber for low-end frequencies to resonate in.
(Image credit: Future)
That works on two of three fronts. It’s great at blocking out noise, and the bass response sounds full-bodied. But personally, I still notice the weight of the headband during longer sessions, and when I examine its construction, I find considerably less padding and considerably lower-grade cushion material.
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It’s still absolutely possible to adjust the Scape so that it sits comfortably for marathon sessions, by extending the headband as big as possible and thereby placing more emphasis on the horizontal clamping force. But it’s something to keep in mind if your mind is kept within a larger skull.
The sound quality isn’t audiophile stuff, but with a standard-issue 20Hz-20KHz frequency response range, its drivers are more than capable of articulating power, detail, and nuance all at the same time in your game mix. Even with a Discord buddy shouting callouts with their 2011 headset mic.
The battery goes for just as long as the specs suggest, and during my real-world testing, I found more than 40 hours could transpire before I got the beeps. It’s so welcome to have an RGB off button on the headset rather than having to delve into Fractal’s (actually very decent, zero-footprint, web-only) software app, and similarly, I found that enabling the lighting didn’t quite reduce the charge life down to 24 hours. Perhaps I like to play at a lower volume than Fractal does.
Onto the choice of mics. It’s a double-edged sword, this feature, because although it’s incredible value to have two inputs on one headset, the noise cancellation on the unidirectional boom mic isn’t very strong, and external noises can leak into your voice chat. That’s even more true when using the omnidirectional mic, obviously. So: yes to dual mic design, no to the noise cancellation. This is the sort of thing that can be remedied in firmware updates, though, and I really hope it is because otherwise this is an exemplary package, and it’s priced low enough to have established brands like Razer, Logitech G, and Corsair worried.
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(Image credit: Future)
Should you buy the Fractal Scape?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
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Also consider…
Does this Fractal leave you in two minds? Consider these premium wireless alternatives.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Row 0 – Cell 0
Fractal Scape
Razer BlackShark V2 Pro
PlayStation Pulse Elite
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Price
$199.99 / £169.99 / around AU$285
$199 / £199 / AU$349
$149.99 / £129.99 / AU$239.95
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Weight
11.84oz / 338g
11.2oz / 320g
12.1oz / 347g
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Compatibility
PC, Mac, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, iOS/Android
PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch
PS5, PlayStation Portal, PC, Mac
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Connection type
2.4 GHz Wireless via USB-A dongle, Bluetooth 5.3, Wired via USB-C to USB-A cable
Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless (Hyperspeed dongle)
Wireless (PlayStation Link via dongle), Wired (3.5mm audio jack), Bluetooth
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Battery life
40 hours RGB off, 24 hours RGB on
70 hours
30 hours
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How I tested the Fractal Scape
Weeks of daily use on PC, PS5 and iPhone
All connection types tested
Tested in online games, Discord comms, and work calls
This being a wireless product with a ton of usability options, including an on/off RGB battery saving setting, it was important to stress-test the Scape’s stated battery capacity and wireless stability.
That meant tracking hours of use without charge, putting in some long mountaineering sessions in Cairn, and plenty of Discord walk-and-talks to test out the wireless range.
The DPC inquiry wants to find out whether X complied with GDPR.
Ireland’s data protection watchdog has launched a “large-scale” inquiry into X after reports found millions of non-consensually generated sexually explicit or suggestive content created using Grok AI. X’s European headquarters is situated in Dublin.
Users on X could prompt Grok to ‘nudify’ people after the platform outfitted the AI bot with the ability to edit images late last December. Prompts asking Grok to undress people generally affected women and children, analysis found.
The Data Protection Commission’s (DPC) inquiry wants to find out whether X Internet Unlimited Company (XIUC) complied with its GDPR obligations. Specifically, the lawfulness of data processing, and the legal requirements to carry out a data protection impact assessment with regard to EU data subjects.
“The DPC has been engaging with XIUC since media reports first emerged a number of weeks ago concerning the alleged ability of X users to prompt the @Grok account on X to generate sexualised images of real people, including children,” said DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle.
“The DPC has commenced a large-scale inquiry which will examine XIUC’s compliance with some of their fundamental obligations under the GDPR in relation to the matters at hand”.
Ireland’s inquiry into X comes after the European Commission and the UK government launched a similar investigation into the Elon Musk-owned platform last month.
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Meanwhile, a year-long inquiry by French authorities has expanded to probe Grok’s possible role in disseminating Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes. California also launched a similar investigation into X and Grok’s parent company xAI last month.
Against this backdrop, however, where new legal troubles crop up for X once every while, Musk’s space-tech business SpaceX announced that it acquired xAI to create the world’s largest private company, estimated to be worth around $1.25trn.
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