Thursday abruptly became a big news day for fans of Bellevue, Wash.-based video game developer Bungie, which announced that it plans to cease development on its popular online shooter Destiny 2.
Eight hours after Bungie’s announcement, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier released a piece that alleges Bungie plans “a significant number of layoffs” once Destiny 2 is brought to a close.
Bungie posted on its official blog Thursday morning that it will release its final content update for Destiny 2 on June 9, with plans by Bungie to “ensure that Destiny 2 remains playable” afterward.
In the blog post, Bungie said it had become clear that the Destiny franchise needs to move beyond Destiny 2, particularly after the 2024 expansion The Final Shape. It further noted that Bungie plans to turn towards “a new beginning.”
According to Schreier’s piece, however, Bungie allegedly has no firm plans in place to move on to its next major project, besides shifting more resources to support its recent release Marathon. While Marathon received a warmer reception than anticipated upon its release in March, Schreier’s piece states that Marathon still has not met sales expectations at Sony.
Advertisement
All this has happened in the wake of recent cost-cutting measures by Bungie’s parent company Sony, such as shutting down its subsidiary Bluepoint Games in March. As a result, there’s heavy speculation online that Bungie itself may be at risk of closure, or at least significant reorganization.
Bungie, founded in 1991, was originally known as the creator of the Halo franchise, which it developed for Microsoft before splitting off in 2007 to go independent. The studio launched the original Destiny in 2014.
Destiny 2, first released in 2017, is a massively-multiplayer online shooter set in the 28th century. Players take on the role of Guardians, empowered fighters who seek to defend what’s left of humanity from the hostile alien forces that have moved into Earth’s solar system. Further, the Guardians make up one side, and the aliens the other, of a cosmic proxy war between the forces of Light and Darkness. (Note: I am dramatically simplifying the storyline of a decade-long sci-fi epic.)
On June 9, 2026, we will be releasing our final live service content update for Destiny 2, Monument of Triumph, available to all players.📰 For full details: bung.ie/d2_may_21_2026
At its height, millions of people played Destiny 2 on a daily basis. The elevator pitch for Destiny as a series has traditionally been its unique blend of MMO mechanics with a team-based first-person shooter. Players could team up or go solo to fight computer-controlled aliens or compete with one another, all in search of improved weapons and armor so they could take on greater challenges.
It was one part Diablo, one part Halo, in a genre model that gaming fans often refer to as a “looter shooter.” Destiny didn’t invent the format, but it’s often credited with popularizing it, alongside other high-profile games like Borderlands.
When Destiny 2 was originally released, it was published by Activision Blizzard. Bungie subsequently broke ties with Activision Blizzard in early 2019 and opted to publish Destiny 2 by itself under a free-to-play model, which was an unprecedented move for a game the size of D2.
Off the back of Destiny 2’s subsequent success, Bungie remained independent until 2022, when it was purchased by Sony for $3.6 billion. This was the first of several moves made by Sony to adjust its creative output from award-winning single-player games (i.e. The Last of Us, God of War) to constantly-updated “games as a service,” a business plan that also saw the acquisition of Bellevue, Wash.-based Firewalk Studio and subsequent abrupt cancellation of its game Concord.
Advertisement
In 2024, Bungie released The Final Shape, the eighth full expansion for Destiny 2 and the ending of the series’s overall story arc. However, The Final Shape also seems to have inadvertently served as Destiny 2’s swan song.
While Bungie tried to continue D2’s story with further expansions such as 2025’s The Edge of Fate, independent population trackers such as SteamDB suggest that D2’s overall player numbers have dwindled since Final Shape’s launch.
D2 is still comfortably one of the top 20 online games in the current market, at least as far as can be determined from outside Bungie itself, but fans have complained since Final Shape about glitches, an emphasis on repetitive “grinding,” and newly aggressive monetization policies.
— Microsoft’s Xbox promoted Scott Van Vliet to the role of chief technology officer. Van Vliet, based in the Los Angeles area, has been with the company across two stints totaling more than seven years, with work on Teams and Azure Communication Services.
“I’ve been a gamer my whole life and an Xbox fan since day one, so this is a rare opportunity to bring together two things I care deeply about: building platforms and gaming,” Van Vliet said on LinkedIn.
The leadership change comes three months after Asha Sharma took over as Xbox CEO — a move that surprised some given her limited video game industry background. Van Vliet’s appointment adds gaming experience to Xbox’s top ranks.
Since Sharma took the helm, Microsoft has canceled its AI-powered Copilot assistant for Xbox and added four executives from CoreAI, the company’s engineering group where she previously worked.
Drew Garner. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Drew Garner was promoted to a newly created chief AI officer role at Smartsheet, the Bellevue, Wash., enterprise software company best known for helping businesses organize and track work. The announcement is just the latest C-suite change for the company.
Garner said on LinkedIn that his mission stays the same, using “AI that earns its keep with the people doing real work.”
Advertisement
Garner became Smartsheet’s VP of engineering in November, just after Rajeev “Raj” Singh took the helm as CEO. The two have significant overlaps in their resumes, with Garner rising to the role of CTO at Accolade during Singh’s tenure as leader of the healthcare platform. And Garner was a senior director at Concur, the Bellevue-based travel expense giant that Singh co-founded.
Tim Castree. (LinkedIn Photo)
— After nearly five years at Amazon, Tim Castreehas left to become chief marketing officer at DoorDash. While the food and retail delivery platform is already a large-scale operation, “there’s still a real entrepreneurial energy that fuels the company, and I loved the idea of joining a business where so much of the growth journey is still in front of us,” he said on LinkedIn.
Castree, based in Ohio, was most recently VP of EU Prime and Marketing at Amazon, overseeing brand, performance and growth marketing across more than 15 European markets.
— Stephan Betz is also leaving Amazon after more than 18 years with the company across two stints. He served as director of software engineering and product for Last Mile Tech, most recently focused on driver assistance and safety technologies, including software powering Amazon’s Rivian EVs. Betz is based in Santa Cruz, Calif.
“What’s next? I am going to take a very long, maybe permanent, break and look for ways to give back in these unprecedented times of change,” he said on LinkedIn.
Advertisement
Betz has also held roles at Microsoft, Google, Groupon and Netflix.
— Bryan Sherman is joining Amazon director of Global Partner Development, focusing on Amazon Ads. Sherman works out of Amazon’s New York office and was previously with Monks, the London-based advertising company.
Katerie Chapman. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Seattle Children’s has appointed Katerie Chapman as senior VP and chief operating officer. Chapman spent 23 years at Virginia Mason Medical Center, rising from administrative intern to president of the Seattle health organization, before joining Kaufman Hall as managing director. She comes to Seattle Children’s from that role.
“(Chapman’s) deep roots in the healthcare community and her proven track record in leading high-performing teams make her the ideal person to lead our operations as we continue to grow and innovate for the patients and families we serve,” said Dr. Christopher Longhurst, CEO of Seattle Children’s.
— Three University of Washington professors have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition for their leadership in work that supports research, public policy and the common good.
Advertisement
Magdalena Balazinska, director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, was elected for her work in data management and data science and for her leadership in the field.
Shwetak Patelof the Allen School and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering was elected for his work in ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction and sensor-enabled systems.
Daniel Schindler of the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences was elected for his research on the impacts of climate change, urbanization and land use on freshwater ecosystems.
— Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announced two promotions to its senior research leadership team:
Douglas Mans is now associate laboratory director for PNNL’s science mission areas, spanning the physical, computational, Earth and biological sciences.
Daniel Stephens has been named associate laboratory director for PNNL’s National Security Directorate.
— Dr. Toshio Tsukiyama, professor and associate director of Fred Hutch’s Basic Sciences Division, has received the inaugural David and Deborah Lycette Endowed Chair for Cancer Research. Tsukiyama, who has been with Fred Hutch for nearly three decades, studies cell function in pursuit of new strategies for targeting cancer cells with novel therapies.
— Michael Waggoner, founder and former CEO of Corumat, a sustainable packaging startup based in Yakima, Wash., has a new role following the company’s recent closure. Waggoner has joined Simplexity Product Development, a robotics engineering firm, as a senior design engineer.
As OpenAI prepares an IPO, information suggests it is bleeding money. Apple, on the other hand, continues to benefit from AI without all of the spend.
If you didn’t predict it already, you could sense that AI was past its sell-by date when you watched the 2026 Google I/O conference. Half the hyped new technologies seemed worthless or at best old hat, and half were yet again preposterous exaggerations about saving the human race from something or other.
What never changes is that AI is both said to be this staggering technology right now and, if you press a little, to well, no, it isn’t, but it’s going to be someday. You just have to believe, and to spend money.
And this is where we are now. Companies keep spending incredible sums of money, but according to The Information, OpenAI itself has lost $1.22 for every $1 it made in revenue.
Advertisement
The firm does predict that it will hit $30 billion in revenue for the whole of 2026. But according to the Wall Street Journal, it’s going to spend around $600 billion on servers and datacenters in the next few years.
This includes around $100 billion just on datacenter capacity. Between now and around 2033, it has committed to $1.4 trillion in deals with processor manufacturers and cloud providers.
That money is not going to come out of CEO Sam Altman’s pocket. Instead, OpenAI hopes to get help from the federal government. It wants the government to guarantee financing for the processors it needs.
“This is where we’re looking for an ecosystem of banks, private equity, maybe even governmental, the ways governments can come to bear,” said OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar. “[That] can really drop the cost of the financing but also increase the loan-to-value, so the amount of debt you can take on top of an equity portion.”
Advertisement
Friar said that in November 2025, and at the same time denied that the company was planning an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise money. Now CNBCreports that the firm will be filing for an IPO in the next few weeks, although it continues to deny this.
Sam Altman [left] and Jony Ive [center] speaking to Laurene Powell Jobs – Image Credit: Emerson Collective/YouTube
OpenAI also continues to seek out funding, most recently securing $122 billion in March 2026 to keep things going. It claimed previously that it would have gigantic losses every year until 2030.
But it’s okay, it’s fine, because in 2030 we will all apparently see that OpenAI was right. Through advertising in ChatGPT, OpenAI says it will create around $100 billion that year.
Advertisement
No more worlds to copy
AI stole the entire world’s published knowledge to create its Large Language Models, and it’s been allowed to do it. AI firms repeatedly say that if they had been forced to pay for what they did, they would not exist.
Throughout all of this, the only answer to that has been yes, you wouldn’t exist. Then there are stronger answers to how AI firms have subsequently protested that their own work is being stolen.
Your heart bleeds for them, but then you are an AI user. You have found out firsthand that AI is actually brilliant at certain really specific things. You’ve also found out how pointlessly wrong it is about the simplest things.
AI is so useful that you probably have certain tools you rely on already, such as AI transcription of recordings. But AI hasn’t written the next great novel — though it may have written a prize-winning short story — and the only life-changing impact it has had is on those people who’ve lost their jobs.
Advertisement
Companies are shedding workers on the belief that AI can replace them. Some are finding out that this belief was premature, if not idiotic. Just ask the Pizza Hut franchisee who says they’ve lost $100 million because of a botched AI kitchen management system.
There are signs that firms are hiring people back. But they’re hiring them back at lower salaries than before.
Companies are not learning that this gets them staff who can’t do the job either.
But then companies are still spending similar sums to OpenAI in this dream of AI wonderment. Or at least this nightmare of being overtaken by rivals.
Advertisement
According to FastCompany, AI spending for 2026 amongst the biggest technology firms is:
Amazon: $200 billion
Microsoft: $190 billion
Google/Alphabet: $180 billion to $190 billion
Meta: $125 billion to $145 billion
Spot the missing company
That same list of technology firms’ spending on AI included one more company. The figure has to be estimated, but it is Apple at around $13 billion for the year.
This is the company that for years has been practically mocked for being behind in AI. It’s also, though, the firm that is predicted to make a cool $1 billion for doing practically nothing.
That’s the sum Apple is expected to earn from the App Store and its share of the sales of apps such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Speaking of ChatGPT, OpenAI is reportedly considering suing Apple because its integration into Apple Intelligence has not earned it enough money. But this deal is the one that sees Apple Intelligence send anonymized data to ChatGPT and demands that none of it be retained for training.
If it can’t profit from a user’s personal details, and it can’t even train on what they ask for, it’s hard to conceive how OpenAI thought this would be a cash cow.
Advertisement
OpenAI may have hoped that its deal with Apple would expand out in some way. If so, it too fell foul of the nonsense it peddles about some far-off brilliant future.
There’d be irony in that, but it’s hard to be amused when the prospect of AI has created as much damage to employment as if it really could do what it’s promised.
But then, it may be equally presumptive to say we’ve got as far with AI as we’re going to get. After all, OpenAI has this Jony Ive AI device that will be coming out.
Very powerful when needed, extremely flexible and cheap to run for regular cycles, the LG LDNTH862 24 Inch Smart Top Control Dishwasher is a brilliant dishwasher with plenty of options.
FlushFit design
Very flexible and large interior
Cleans brilliantly
Key Features
Introduction
Using a dishwasher is often a balancing act, with a choice between placing tall items at the top or the bottom. The LG LDNTH862 counters that, with a neat sliding cutlery rack that makes for more space at the top.
Combined with its smart app and powerful performance, this dishwasher is great for everyday use and for heavily soiled dishes.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Design and features
Lots of internal space
Clever sliding cutlery rack
Works with LG ThinQ
The LG LDNTH862 is one of LG’s FlushFit dishwashers. That means that it will sit flush with your kitchen cabinets, giving a smoother, neater finish. This doesn’t mean that you lose flexibility inside. Far from it.
At the bottom is the main rack, with evenly spaced tines that can hold everything from small plates to big dishes. And, the tines can be folded to fit in larger bits of cookware or pans.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Running the full depth of the dishwasher is a silverware holder. This is useful for extra bits of cutlery, but you can remove it if you don’t need it (there’s a cutlery rack at the top, so on a daily basis, you may prefer to have extra room in the bottom).
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Advertisement
The middle rack is similarly flexible and offers three height-adjustment positions, wine glass holders (which fold out of the way when not needed), and additional folding tines.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Even so, this kind of rack can often create a dilemma: do you want space for tall glasses but not enough for large plates below, or the opposite? Here, you don’t have to make that choice thanks to the clever design of the cutlery rack above.
The right-hand side of this rack has a clever height-adjustment slider, so you can lower this section to fit taller implements and even small dishes. In addition, this part of the rack can be dropped and slid out of the way, giving extra height below for tall glasses.
Advertisement
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
It’s nice to be able to load all kinds of glasses and dishes at the same time, and few dishwashers are as flexible as this.
Advertisement
The main controls are on the top of the door, with the main wash cycles covered: Auto, Normal, Heavy and 1Hour. There’s also a Downloaded option that gives you an extra cycle that you can add from the LG ThinQ app – it’s well worth connecting this dishwasher, as the app also lets you know when the dishwasher is done.
Cycle options are available with extras, including Steam (which loosens food at the start and helps avoid water stains at the end); Dry Boost (two settings), which uses heated air to help dry dishes; and High Temp, which boosts the washing temperature for a deeper clean.
There’s also LG’s QuadWash Pro system, using high-pressure jets of water to give a deeper clean.
Advertisement
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Performance
Good running costs
Heavy cycle deals well with heavily soiled dishes
I used the main wash cycles on the LG LDNTH862, recording water and electricity use, and testing cleaning performance with a variety of soiled dishes. With the Normal wash cycle, the running cost was an excellent 14c.
Advertisement
On this cycle, most regular dishes cleaned up well, such as my tea and coffee mugs.
My mac and cheese bowl also came up well.
The Normal cycle did struggle to deal with my bowl that had been used to make microwaved scrambled eggs.
Advertisement
Moving to Auto, the cycle cost increased to 27c, although the cleaning was slightly better. However, my egg bowl still had quite a bit of residue in it.
Advertisement
I then tried the Heavy wash cycle out, which increased the cycle cost to 48c. That’s quite a bit more, due to steam use, but the overall results were brilliant, with everything cleaning up well, including the egg bowl.
I then finished off with the 1Hour cycle, which cost 21c. That’s more expensive than the Normal cycle, but handy if you do need regularly soiled dishes to be turned around quickly. This cycle dealt with used tea and coffee mugs well, but you’ll need a longer cycle for more heavily soiled items.
Advertisement
Should you buy it?
You want flexibility and performance
Highly flexible inside with very adjustable racks, and the ability to clean brilliantly, this is a brilliant dishwasher that excels for heavy use.
Advertisement
You want something cheaper
If you have simpler needs, you can buy a standard dishwasher for less.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Final Thoughts
A little more expensive than some, the LG LDNTH862 balances the price out with a huge amount of internal flexibility, and excellent wash options taking in everything from low-cost cycles for daily use to high-performance cycles that can deal with tougher stains.
Advertisement
How We Test
We test every dishwasher we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
We measure water and energy usage for each dishwasher to see how efficient they are.
We use real-world mess to test a dishwasher’s ability to clean.
FAQs
Does the LG LDNTH862 have adjustable racks?
Yes. The LG LDNTH862 offers a highly flexible interior with folding tines, a middle rack with three height positions, and a clever top cutlery rack with a sliding, height-adjustable section. This makes it easier to fit tall glasses, large plates and awkward cookware at the same time.
Advertisement
Which wash cycle is best on the LG LDNTH862?
It depends on what you’re washing. The Normal cycle is the cheapest to run and works well for everyday items, while the Heavy cycle is the best choice for tougher, heavily soiled dishes. The 1Hour cycle is useful when you need a quicker turnaround for lighter loads.
Advertisement
Full Specs
LG LDNTH862 24 Inch Smart Top Control Dishwasher Review
Empyrean will take up a new office space in the Half Moon Building at Lavitt’s Quay in Cork city.
Financial risk and performance management solutions provider to the banking industry Empyrean Solutions is to launch a new R&D project in Cork and create 40 new job opportunities.
Located at a new site at Lavitt’s Quay in Cork city and supported by the Government through IDA Ireland, the project will leverage advanced AI and machine learning techniques to deliver solutions that measure financial risk and provide insight into financial performance across several risk disciplines, including financial planning, credit loss estimation, loan behaviour analysis and finance persona-based insights, the company said.
Having launched in Ireland in 2018, Empyrean DC operates as the core R&D hub for Empyrean Solutions, leading multiple R&D projects and focusing on strategically scaling both team size and the number of software development projects running. The new office space is located in Cork’s Half Moon Building.
Advertisement
Commenting on the announcement, the CEO of IDA Ireland, Michael Lohan, said, “IDA Ireland is pleased to support Empyrean Solutions as it develops next-generation AI and machine learning capabilities in Cork. Projects like this strengthen Ireland’s position as a leading location for data-driven product development and financial services innovation.”
Paul Leahy, the managing director of Empyrean Ireland, said, “Empyrean is thrilled to embark on this R&D initiative with IDA Ireland. This project represents a significant step in our mission to empower the dynamic CFO.
“By combining advanced AI and machine learning with our financial risk and performance platform, we’re equipping finance leaders with the tools they need to operate with greater insight and confidence in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. We’re grateful for the support of IDA Ireland and the Irish Government as we build solutions that will make an impact for banks and credit unions.”
Earlier this month, Cork Airport Business Park announced plans to host the European headquarters of Evumed, a biopharmaceutical company that has committed to a multimillion-euro investment.
Advertisement
The move will see the creation of 30 new jobs at Evumed throughout 2026, in areas such as quality, regulatory, supply chain, finance and support functions.
Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
The beta program for T-Mobile’s Live Translation feature is now open, letting customers who sign up for the test phase talk to people in over 50 languages, with AI translating the conversation in real time. No human translator in the middle, no specific phone model required (yes, even a basic dumb phone will work).
What makes T-Mobile’s Live Translation feature different is that operates at the network level rather than on a specific device. The beta is open to subscribers of any post-paid T-Mobile plan, such as the Essentials, Experience More, Experience Beyond and Better Value plans. Customers who have already signed up for the beta will start receiving notices that the feature is available on a rolling basis.
Advertisement
“We want to make voice cool again,” said John Saw, T-Mobile chief technology officer, citing that its customers make 6 billion international calls per year, and 40% of those people travel internationally. “Live translation is a real breakthrough in innovation by introducing the latest AI models into our voice network.”
Just as it did during the beta of what became the T-Satellite service, T-Mobile has not yet decided which plans will include the live translation calling feature. It also hasn’t decided what, if any, cost there will be. T-Satellite is currently included in the Experience Beyond and Better Value plans and available on other plans as a $10 add-on. It’s also open to customers of other providers for $10 a month.
I look forward to testing T-Mobile’s live translation soon.
How live translation will work
Advertisement
You have to dial *87* to turn on T-Mobile’s live translation calling tool.
Kevin Heinz/CNET
To turn on live translation during a call, the T-Mobile subscriber presses *87* (star-eight-seven-star), which activates the AI agent. Only one participant on the call needs to be a T-Mobile subscriber, and it will also work when the customer is roaming.
T-Mobile says there’s no setup, no voice training and no need to specify which languages to translate. The AI agent detects which languages are being spoken in real time and speaks the translation when a person stops speaking.
The AI agent will also detect whether you’re calling from another country and select a language for the translation. If you call someone in Brazil, it might choose Portuguese, for example. If the person speaks a different language, such as Spanish instead of Brazilian Portuguese, the agent will switch immediately.
Also, the spoken translation will not sound like a robotic voice. “Our AI model can actually clone your voice in another language and preserve the intonation, the emotions and the rhythm as well,” all picked up on the fly, said Saw. He attributes the performance to the low latency inherent in T-Mobile’s 5G Advanced network.
Once activated, the feature doesn’t need to be turned off. If both speakers switch to the same language, the AI agent just stops working as the go-between.
The true test will be the quality of the translations. “We have done a lot of benchmarks for AI-powered translations,” Saw said, “and it matches the accuracy of all the established services.” He said the model is compliant with FCC 2027 captioning guidelines and meets all ADA accessibility standards.
When I asked Saw whether conversations are recorded, even during the beta period, he said that kind of fine-tuning is being done using millions of internal-only test calls. “We don’t listen to customers’ calls, and [the AI models] are not trained on customers’ data,” said Saw, noting that the service meets all FCC guidelines for privacy.
Exactly which AI translation models are being used, or which partner companies are providing them, is something Saw declined to share. He did confirm that T-Mobile is working with several AI companies, but “we’re not going to name them because we love them all the same.”
Saw noted that the way T-Mobile’s network is designed as a platform has the advantage of being able to plug in updated AI translation models, run an upgrade overnight and make it available to hundreds of millions of phones.
Advertisement
Live translation is just the first T-Mobile agentic AI feature
Without pointing to specific upcoming strategies, Saw named a few other tasks that AI agents could handle in the future, such as an AI receptionist or AI concierge. Centering the AI technology in the network opens up those possibilities.
So why is the company choosing live translation as the first entry for AI-based, customer-facing network features?
“Live translation is not an easier solution to do,” Saw replied, “but it’s the right pain point to be solving today.”
An exercise bike is a great tool if you’re looking to get cardio in at home or at the gym. However, if you don’t properly set it up or do too much too soon, it can ruin progress. Even if you’ve been cycling for years, it helps to get a refresher on the best cycling practices.
To make sure you’re using an exercise bike properly and doing the right workouts, I spoke with several cycling experts. They break down the common mistakes you’re likely making on an exercise bike and how to fix it.
1. Your seat is too low
One of the first lessons I learned when I started taking group cycling classes was that you need to properly adjust the seat height. Aviron coach and certified indoor cycling instructor John Steventon says the right seat height is key.
Advertisement
“[If the seat is] too low, they won’t be able to get full extension of the legs, often needing to cycle with their knees splayed outward to make room for them,” Steventon explains. This leads to a loss of potential power and a compressed and uncomfortable pedal stroke. “If the seat is too high, the rider will risk bouncing from side to side as they lean off the side of the saddle, trying to get the right extension of the legs.”
According to Matt Wilpers, the saddle should be positioned high enough that your knee is slightly bent and not locked.
Erik Isakson/Getty Images
Peloton instructor Matt Wilpers offers a couple of tips to keep in mind when setting up your seat. “When riding, bring your one foot to the bottom of the pedal stroke (6 o’clock),” he says. “The saddle should be positioned high enough that there is a slight bend in the knee so that the knee is soft and not locked.” This will prevent you from feeling cramped or having to reach for the bottom of the pedal stroke.
Advertisement
Steventon points out that how the foot sits on the pedal is important, too. “The center spindle that the pedal rotates around should be underneath the ball of the foot because I’ve seen people who ride on their toes, and people who ride on their heels — both reduce power and efficiency of the stroke.”
Wilpers advises trying the “heel test,” which is when you unclip the foot at 6 o’clock to see if your heel can touch the pedal when your leg is straight.
You don’t want the seat too far or too close to the handlebars.
Advertisement
Andrii Borodai/Getty Images
2. The saddle isn’t the right distance from the handlebars
Another factor to consider when setting up your exercise bike’s saddle is its distance from the handlebars. Wilpers says the goal here is to get the knee stacked over the pedal, especially when the pedal is at 3 o’clock. “I usually start with the saddle pushed toward the handlebars and then adjust accordingly when I ride,” he recommends. The problem is that when your seat is too far forward, your knees take on the pressure, and if it’s too far back, the stress lands on the heels.
3. The handlebars are too high
Besides the seat, make sure the handlebars are at the right height. “In general, it’s recommended to keep the handlebars at the level of your saddle or just above,” says Wilpers. “Many competitive cyclists like their handlebars at or slightly below saddle height because it better optimizes both performance and aerodynamics when cycling outdoors.”
Make sure the handlebars are aligned with the saddle on your bike.
Advertisement
Konstantin Ushakov/Getty Images
However, Wilpers says that in some cases, such as if you have back problems, raising your handlebars even further is advised.
4. You skip the warm-up or cool-down
If you’re eager to jump on your bike and get a quick workout in, chances are you’re skipping a warm-up or cool-down. Steventon says that if you want to get your body ready for your workout, spending 10 minutes increasing resistance and cadence before a longer or more intense ride will prime the muscles.
“Rather than slowly working up from 60 revolutions per minute to 110 rpm during the warmup, 30-second bursts at gradually higher reps in between 30 seconds of easy pedalling will allow the warmup to be effective without draining energy before the main workout,” he explains.
Some warm-up exercises Wilpers recommends include:
Advertisement
Hip openers like 90/90s (a stretch that uses internal and external hip mobility), pigeon pose and lateral lunges
Quadruped thoracic rotations (this exercise stretches out your spine)
World’s Greatest Stretch (a full body mobility exercise that targets hips, hamstrings, and spine)
Exercises to wake up the ankles and feet, such as ankle-controlled articular rotations (slow rotational movement of the ankle to improve ankle mobility) and performing the downward dog stretch while pedaling out the calves
If you skip a warm-up or cool-down, you’re missing out on some important steps.
Wera Rodsawang/Getty Images
The cool-down shouldn’t be neglected either. “In some cases, after a particularly hard workout, stopping suddenly can cause the blood to pool in the legs, and the cyclist may get dizzy,” warns Steventon. He recommends spending 5 minutes slowing your cadence to help the muscles keep pumping blood and oxygen as you ease out of the strain of the main workout.
You should also stretch the muscles used during a ride, such as your hamstrings, quads, hip flexors and calves. “Triceps, shoulders and wrists shouldn’t be ignored either,” Steventon says. “These muscles are soaking up the mass of the upper body, bouncing up and down, left and right on the handlebars.”
If you’re riding a bike with a screen, the screen’s position can sometimes lead to neck pain. In those circumstances, Steventon recommends gentle neck stretches to ease off the tension after a workout.
Advertisement
5. Your bike workouts aren’t planned out
If you don’t have a general workout program or structure, you may be using your bike inefficiently. It’s important to make sure that you’re riding with intention if you want to get the most out of it. “Everyone has the same three training variables to manipulate in order to get what they want out of their training: frequency, duration and intensity,” Wilpers says.
Frequency relates to how often you work out, since it’s important to have a consistent riding schedule. “Cycling is great because it’s low impact, meaning it’s easier to recover from it and therefore you can ride more often without much fear of injury,” Wilpers says.
If you’re a newbie, it’s best to focus on easy rides. Steventon recommends new riders aim for two to three rides per week and take a rest day between each cycling workout to let their bodies recover from the workout the day before. “Not only for the muscles, but depending on the length of the ride, there’s an element of saddle discomfort that rest will help,” Steventon explains.
Once you have a riding schedule established, you can focus on duration. This is when you start increasing the length of your sessions.
Advertisement
Finally, once you’ve become comfortable with your bike, you can increase the intensity to improve your fitness. Steventon says more experienced riders are capable of putting in four to five workouts a week.
“The importance of foundation building zone 2 heart rate [exercise performed at 60% to 70% of your maximum heart rate] during longer rides is the same for all riders, but with three more workouts to play with,” Steventon explains. “They can add in some tempo and sprint interval workouts too, pushing the cardio harder, and working at a mix of cadence and resistance through these workouts.”
Below are different ways you can structure your workout depending on your goals:
Advertisement
You should have a plan, whether cycling is your main form of cardio or your choice of cross-training.
Westend61/Getty Images
As the main form of cardio
If cycling is your main focus, Wilpers recommends riding three to five days per week, with one to two intense days, one long day and the remainder as easier rides. Aim to ride for 30 minutes to 2 hours or longer.
As part of a strength-training program
If you’re prioritizing strength training but want to include cycling as your preferred form of cardio, Steventon and Wilpers advise aiming for two to three sessions at a zone 2 heart rate for 20 to 45 minutes.
As part of a cross-training plan
You can also use an exercise bike for cross-training. This could be ideal for runners or other athletes who want a hybrid workout schedule during the week. Steventon says, “Cross-training utilization of cycling can be a very effective way to keep cardio topped up without the impact problems of constantly running.” Wilpers recommends cross-training once or twice per week for 20 to 45 minutes, as long as you’re healthy.
Advertisement
If you have injuries or certain aches from running, you can shift your training to cycling two to four times per week for 20- to 45-minute sessions. Steventon recommends that runners cycle whenever their bodies need to recover from running. “Long, slow rides will keep your fitness foundation strong, with harder sprint intervals tapping into VO2 max improvements,” Steventon says. VO2 max is the maximum rate at which your body consumes oxygen during exercise.
Riding distracted is just as bad as doing too much during a ride.
DaniGonzalez/Getty Images
6. Doing too much or too little on the bike
One of the biggest mistakes people make when riding an exercise bike is either doing too much too soon or coasting while distracted. “Many people seem to think that unless they wake up sore, nothing was accomplished, and on the other end of the spectrum, I see people just pedaling and texting,” says Wilpers.
Advertisement
When riding, remember to focus on the workout at hand. Distractions like texting or answering emails can get in the way of making progress. “Have a purpose and plan before getting on the bike so that your time is structured,” Wilpers suggests. “This will help you stay focused and get the most out of your time.”
Steventon notes that the best way to use a bike or any fitness machine is to mix up the intensities to avoid hitting a plateau. “Long, slow rides, short sprint intervals and tempo rides (moderately hard ride) including hard, long intervals will improve the mitochondria-building, zone 2, foundation end of fitness, while the shorter sprints will help improve the VO2 max end, and the tempo rides are where mental resilience is built,” he says.
7. Wearing the wrong cycling shoes
Wearing the right cycling shoes can improve your riding experience. Depending on the bike, you may need specific cycling shoes, like carbon-fiber cleats, road bike shoes, clip-in shoes, mountain bike shoes or even everyday shoes.
When choosing a cycling shoe, you want to make sure it’s comfortable because they don’t come cheap. Steventon recommends mountain bike shoes if you aren’t sure what to pick. “These are a little bit more flexible and have recessed cleats, making it a lot easier to move around, providing stability in situations where ‘off bike’ moves like squats or weights are included in a cycling class.”
Advertisement
The right shoes can improve your cycling experience.
Getty Images
Wilpers favors clip-in cycling shoes because they’re stiff and lead to better energy transfer from the body to the bike. However, the shoe you pick will depend on the type of bike you’re using, and most importantly, you want the shoe to fit well.
Steventon says everyday gym sneakers are acceptable, but that they may not be the best option. “The pedal efficiency may be compromised even with toe clips that hold these shoes in place on the pedal,” he explains, pointing out that because these shoes tend to be soft-soled, it can be uncomfortable to use for long periods of time.
Advertisement
Wilpers notes that some cycling shoe brands are much narrower than others, so it depends on your needs and comfort. “Lastly, I think it’s worth noting that a good set of road cycling shoes can cost hundreds of dollars, but these shoes typically last up to five years,” he says.
8. You’re not braking correctly
Usually, when you stop an exercise bike, you’re either pressing down the emergency brake or using the resistance knob to slow it down. “Trying to suddenly stop the flywheel or unclip feet while the heavy flywheel still wants to turn has great potential for injury,” warns Steventon. “Always use the resistance knob or emergency brake to slow things down properly, and wait until the flywheel has stopped before unclipping.”
If you aren’t properly braking, you risk injuring yourself.
Advertisement
D_Zheleva/Getty Images
9. You don’t maintain or clean your bike
It’s easy to forget that you need to do maintenance and clean your bike every so often. Wilpers reminds us that all bikes need to be cleaned and maintained. “Cyclists are known for constantly cleaning and occasionally replacing parts on their bikes because this is what it takes to keep your bike working great for many years,” he explains.
Keeping your bike in good condition is important if you want it to last a long time.
Getty Images
One thing people often overlook is adjusting their bike settings annually. “Think about how much your body can change in a year,” explains Wilpers. “You may get stronger, weaker, heavier, lighter, tighter, more flexible and so on.” By adhering to bike settings, you’ll not only have a more comfortable ride but also one that’s customized to your changing needs.
A solo Russian-speaking threat actor used a jailbroken Google Gemini in a fraud and credential-theft campaign targeting hardcore Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists.
Between September 2025 and May 2026, the “low-skilled” scumbag using the handle bandcampro partnered with the LLM to impersonate an American veteran, run a Telegram channel (@americanpatriotus), hack admin credentials, and steal cryptocurrency, according to a threat report from TrendAI. His only “real cost” in the operation was stolen API keys.
Bandcampro ultimately reached about 17,000 subscribers, used 73 likely-stolen Gemini API keys, hacked 29 WordPress admin credentials, infiltrated at least one company, and emptied at least one victim’s cryptocurrency wallets, according to TrendAI researchers Philippe Lin, Joseph C Chen, Fyodor Yarochkin, and Vladimir Kropotov.
The threat-hunters detailed the campaign in a Thursday report, and said while the Telegram channel dates back five years, bandcampro’s success skyrocketed once he started using AI-generated content last fall.
Advertisement
“We have reached an inflection point for cybercrime conspiracies,” Tom Kellermann, TrendAI’s VP of AI security and threat research, told The Register, adding that “bandcampro’s conspiracy underscores the sophistication of the Russian cybercriminal community and how weaponized jailbroken LLMs are manipulated to orchestrate a systemic cybercrime campaign.”
Kellermann said the attack “highlights LLMs’ Achilles heel, which is the tremendous exposure to API attacks.”
TrendAI researchers discovered the scammer’s infrastructure in May, which exposed the full contents of the individual’s operational environment.
He used Google Gemini to generate the Telegram channel text and Venice.ai to power an interactive chatbot designed to simulate a Quantum Financial System (QFS) terminal.
Advertisement
Neither Google nor Venice responded to The Register’s requests for comment.
The campaign targeted the QAnon and MAGA communities, mimicking the cryptic, anonymous “Q drop” messages at the heart of the QAnon conspiracy, but the researchers say his “use of information operation techniques was more likely for cryptocurrency fraud instead of political motives,” based on the content posted, and the stock remote access trojan (RAT) used alongside other commercial malware.
On September 9, 2025, the actor posted a fake “freedom-first, self-custody wallet” called StellarMonster, with a welcome bonus of up to 1,000 XLM (about $380) on the Telegram channel.
It was an executable named StellarMonSetup.exe. Malware analysis determined that in reality, StellarMonSetup.exe is a legitimate remote access tool called GoToResolve, which gives the operator a persistent remote desktop session with file access, command execution, and clipboard capture.
Advertisement
Plus, any subscribers who used the “import your wallet” function and typed their seed phrase into the fake import screen gave the attacker their wallet keys.
“At least one victim’s crypto-wallet was fully compromised: password cracked, 12-word mnemonic stolen, and the owner’s 40+ wallet addresses harvested across all major chains,” the researchers noted.
The attacker also used an AI-powered brute-forcing tool to hack WordPress accounts, we’re told. “The script is built on the premise that people mutate familiar base passwords in predictable ways, and Gemini 2.5 Flash can model the mutations when supplied with static wordlists,” Trend wrote.
In total, the AI-assisted WordPress hacking operation cracked 29 WordPress administrator accounts, including those belonging to weapons retailers, legal offices, medical practices, and small commercial sites.
Advertisement
During his conversations with Gemini, bandcampro asked questions like: “When the bot accumulates 5,000 active users, how much can we earn from one pump-and-dump cycle?” The criminal also asked how professional crypto call centers scam North American victims and Gemini suggested Medicare and/or Health Canada fraud targeting the elderly.
The Russian speaker also automated his content campaign through a pipeline he named “Quantum Patriot,” a set of Python scripts that called Gemini to role-play as an American veteran patriot. The pipeline fed a preset list of newsfeeds into the LLM and Gemini rewrote them, prompted to act as an admin of an “American Patriot” channel looking for “hidden angles.”
The crypto- and credential-thief also used Gemini to help him hack, set up a command-and-control framework – including a mail-testing tool, a Gmail aggregator, and an anonymous proxy on a VM in the Netherlands – steal and validate credentials, and run the chatbot.
“In the anatomy of one busy working day, Gemini deployed servers, helped debug code, automated workflows, wrote a script to rotate API keys, and managed the actor’s Cloudflare tunnels,” the TrendAI researchers wrote. “The actor prompted in Russian, while the LLM reasoned and replied in English. Over one 16-hour session, the actor co-worked with Gemini end-to-end.”
Advertisement
At one point, after a nine-hour pause from the human partner, which the authors say “was likely a 9-hour sleep,” bandcampro found the bot posting every 20 minutes without a break – but with Russian slang appearing in the English posts. So he opened another session to fix it.
“What previously required a team of writers, social media managers, IT workers, and malware programmers can now be automated by a single actor using a VPS, a Telegram bot, and API access to frontier models,” Trend’s team warned. ®
T-Mobile for Business is the upgrade a small business owner will find useful, boasting unlimited plans, a super-fast 5G network, and customer service support whenever you need it. With no data overages, surprise fees, or annual service contracts, there’s an affordable plan for any type of business. Plus, without an annual contract, you’re never locked into anything long term, and as your business changes and grows, your plan can too.
With T-Mobile for Business, you can just focus on your growing business, knowing that you’ll have unlimited data and texting in over 215 countries, four full-flight Wi-Fi sessions per year, and unlimited one hour Wi-Fi sessions with streaming on flights, so wherever your business takes you, T-Mobile Business will be there. And we at WIRED have a T-Mobile promo code and other deals to help you save on essential plans so you can stay connected.
Lock in a Big Sign-Up Bonus for Business Internet
If T-Mobile Business is right for you (and your business), be sure to check business internet eligibility in your area. All you’ll need to do is enter your business address on T-Mobile’s site to see the plans available near you. And as an added bonus, you can get a Virtual Prepaid Mastercard when you activate (allow 10 weeks). But this deal isn’t going to be around forever, so act soon to get big rewards on the internet service you already need.
Switch to T-Mobile Business and Score a Prepaid Card Reward
No matter how your small business changes and grows, you can feel secure knowing that your 5G Business Internet rate will be locked in for five years, guaranteed. Plus, T-Mobile has business experts available to assist in finding the perfect plan and hardware to support any and all of your business needs. And (perhaps best of all) for a limited time, you can receive cash via a Virtual Prepaid Mastercard when you sign up (allow 10 weeks).
Advertisement
Bundle and Save on Your T-Mobile Business Plan
You can get business internet at an even lower price when you bundle it with other T-Mobile plans. You’ll get huge discounts when you pair your business internet with any voice line. Plus, the offer is backed by the five year price guarantee, meaning your rate won’t change for five years. There’s also no annual contracts, with flexible month-to-month services on T-Mobile’s fast 5G network.
Pick the Right T-Mobile Business Phone Plan for Your Team
There are a few T-Mobile Business phone plans to choose from, so you’ll want to make sure you’re choosing the right plan for your small business and its needs. The first plan is the basic CoreMobile plan, which has unlimited hotspots with 5GB high-speed data, 50GB of premium data, and unlimited talk and text. Next is ProMobile, which has all the above benefits, as well as enhanced security, premium and hotspot data, and in-flight Wi-Fi. The top tier is SuperMobile, which also includes all previous perks, as well as intelligent network performance, satellite coverage, unlimited premium data, and more mobile hotspot data.
Get a Third Line Free When You Activate a New Business Plan
Right now, if you’re a new customer and you activate a new business plan, you’ll get a third line for free! This T-Mobile discount is for any new customer activating two new lines on a new eligible voice plan, which includes: SuperMobile, ProMobile, CoreMobile, Business Unlimited Ultimate+, Experience More for Business, and Experience Beyond for Business plans.
Japanese cybersecurity software company Trend Micro has addressed an Apex One zero-day vulnerability exploited in attacks targeting Windows systems.
Apex One is Trend Micro’s enterprise-grade endpoint security platform that protects corporate networks from a wide range of security threats, including malware, ransomware, fileless attacks, and web-based threats.
Tracked as CVE-2026-34926, this directory traversal vulnerability in the Apex One (on-premises) server allows local attackers with admin privileges to inject malicious code.
“A directory traversal vulnerability in the Apex One (on-premise) server could allow a pre-authenticated local attacker to modify a key table on the server to inject malicious code to deploy to agents on affected installations,” Trend Micro saidon Thursday.
Advertisement
“This vulnerability is only exploitable on the on-premise version of Apex One and a potential attacker must have access to the Apex One Server and already obtained administrative credentials to the server via some other method to exploit this vulnerability.”
However, despite the restrictive requirements for successful exploitation, the company warned that “TrendAI has observed at least one attempt to exploit this vulnerability in the wild.”
Federal agencies ordered to patch within three weeks
Yesterday, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also added CVE-2026-34926 to its list of actively exploited vulnerabilities and ordered federal agencies to patch their devices by June 4.
“These types of vulnerabilities are frequent attack vectors for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise,” CISA warned. “Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.”
Advertisement
On Thursday, Trend Micro also released security updates to address seven local privilege escalation vulnerabilities in the Apex One Standard Endpoint Protection (SEP) agent that attackers can exploit if they have permission to execute low-privileged code on the target system.
Threat actors have frequently targeted flaws in Trend Micro Apex One over the last several years, often in zero-day attacks.
For instance, Trend Micro warned of an actively exploited Apex One RCE bug (CVE-2025-54948) in August 2025 and addressed two other Apex One zero-days exploited in the wild in September 2022 (CVE-2022-40139) and September 2023 (CVE-2023-41179).
Automated pentesting tools deliver real value, but they were built to answer one question: can an attacker move through the network? They were not built to test whether your controls block threats, your detection rules fire, or your cloud configs hold.
This guide covers the 6 surfaces you actually need to validate.
Trdo is a modern internet radio player built for Windows with a focus on simplicity and elegance. Stream your favorite radio stations with a beautiful, intuitive interface designed for Windows 11.
Built with .NET 9, WinUI 3, and the Windows App SDK, Trdo provides a native Windows experience with smooth animations and responsive controls.
Features
Stream internet radio stations from around the world
Modern, clean user interface with Fluent Design
Customizable settings
High-quality audio playback
Save and organize your favorite stations
Now playing information display
Support for Windows 11 themes
Trdo is designed to be simple and elegant, focusing on what matters most: enjoying your favorite radio stations. By leveraging modern Windows technologies, Trdo provides a smooth, native experience that feels at home on Windows 11. The interface is designed to be intuitive and uncluttered, letting you focus on discovering and listening to great content.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login