Microsoft has officially kicked off celebrations for Xbox’s 25th anniversary with a nostalgic new limited-edition console that pays tribute to the original Xbox era. Unveiled during the Xbox Games Showcase, the new Xbox Series X25 combines modern hardware with the iconic translucent green aesthetic that defined Microsoft’s first gaming console back in 2001.

The special edition console arrives ahead of Xbox’s official 25th anniversary in November and is clearly designed to appeal to longtime fans who grew up during the original Xbox generation. Officially called the Xbox Series X25, the console features a translucent green shell inspired by the classic debug-style look associated with the first Xbox hardware.

Microsoft has also included several nostalgic touches throughout the design. The Xbox power logo lights up in green, while the front of the console includes a dedicated 25th anniversary emblem. Despite the visual overhaul, the hardware specifications remain identical to the standard Xbox Series X, including the same 1TB storage configuration and overall performance capabilities.

Microsoft is leaning heavily into Xbox nostalgia

The anniversary edition highlights how important nostalgia has become in the gaming industry. Console makers increasingly rely on retro-inspired hardware, limited-edition designs, and legacy branding to reconnect with longtime fans who grew up alongside iconic gaming platforms.

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For Xbox specifically, the translucent green aesthetic carries significant emotional weight. The original Xbox launched in 2001 with a bold industrial design language that helped differentiate Microsoft from Sony and Nintendo at the time. The green color scheme quickly became one of the brand’s defining visual identities.

The new console also reflects the growing popularity of translucent gaming hardware again. Over the past few years, companies including 8BitDo have successfully revived retro transparent designs through Xbox-themed keyboards, mice, controllers, and accessories inspired by the original console generation.

Alongside the console, Microsoft also announced the Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition. The controller features the same translucent green shell along with colored ABXY buttons and bumpers inspired by the original “Duke” controller that shipped with the first Xbox.

For longtime Xbox fans, the controller may end up being just as nostalgic as the console itself. The Duke controller remains one of the most recognizable – and famously oversized – controllers in gaming history.

The anniversary launch shows that Xbox still values hardware identity

The limited-edition release arrives during an important period for Xbox. Microsoft has spent the past several years expanding beyond traditional console gaming through Game Pass, cloud streaming, PC integration, and AI-powered gaming initiatives. Some industry observers questioned whether Xbox hardware itself would remain central to Microsoft’s long-term strategy.

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Instead, the anniversary launch reinforces that Microsoft still sees emotional value in dedicated gaming hardware and the Xbox brand identity. Even as the company pushes toward subscription ecosystems and cloud gaming, nostalgic console releases continue to generate excitement among collectors and longtime players.

Microsoft says the Xbox Series X25 Console and Xbox Wireless Controller X25 Special Edition will launch together in select markets starting in November. The controller will also be sold separately for fans who want the retro design without purchasing a new console.

Pricing and pre-order details have not yet been announced, but given the limited-edition nature of the hardware, demand from collectors is expected to be high once sales begin later this year.

• T-CREATE EXPERT P35SG enables remote SSD destruction via cellular control
• Hardware level wipe prevents recovery even after advanced forensic attempts
• Physical button allows instant local activation of secure data wipe

A storage device capable of destroying its own contents remotely has emerged as one of the more unusual technologies unveiled at Computex 2026.

Teamgroup unveiled the T-CREATE EXPERT P35SG, an external SSD that combines portable storage with an integrated cellular communications system.

Yamaha has entered the premium wireless hi-fi speaker category with the NX-70A, a new active stereo speaker system aimed at listeners who want proper stereo performance without a rack full of separates, speaker cables, and the 7 a.m. Dunkin’ drive-thru conversation where you try to explain why the “simple wireless speakers” cost more than the family vacation.

The NX-70A is not another lifestyle speaker pretending to be serious because someone gave it a fabric grille and a fancy app. Yamaha is bringing real hi-fi engineering to the category, including Harmonious Diaphragm drivers, Synergistic Drive amplifier integration, YPAO room calibration, HDMI eARC, MusicCast, AirPlay, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, and Roon Ready support.

Yamaha has clearly noticed that KEF, Klipsch, Cambridge Audio, DALI, Fyne Audio, Sonus faber, and others are doing well with active and wireless hi-fi speakers. The NX-70A is Yamaha’s attempt to bring its loudspeaker, amplifier, DSP, home theater, and musical instrument experience into a modern wireless stereo system.

Yamaha Returns to Wireless Stereo with Real Hi-Fi Intent

The NX-70A is Yamaha’s first wireless stereo speaker system in roughly a decade, and it arrives with a feature set aimed at modern living rooms, smaller listening spaces, and TV-based systems where a soundbar may not be the ideal answer.

Each speaker uses Yamaha’s Harmonious Diaphragm technology across its driver array. Yamaha says the diaphragm material is made from a carefully balanced blend of PBO fiber ZYLON and spruce wood. ZYLON is used in Yamaha’s flagship loudspeakers, while spruce wood is used in the soundboards of Yamaha grand pianos.

The NX-70A also uses Yamaha’s Synergistic Drive, which integrates the amplifier circuit and speaker unit as a dedicated system. Yamaha says this direct amplifier-to-driver approach helps manage current flow more precisely and reduce distortion caused by conventional amplifier/speaker interactions.

Yamaha rates the system at 100 watts for each woofer and 60 watts for each tweeter, confirming that the NX-70A is a fully active design with dedicated amplification for each driver rather than a passive speaker with wireless convenience bolted on.

Yamaha also lists frequency response at 50 Hz to 35 kHz when the speakers are connected by wire, and 50 Hz to 21 kHz when used wirelessly, both measured at -10 dB. That distinction matters because the NX-70A is being marketed as a wireless system, but Yamaha is clearly giving users a wired option for maximum performance and stability.

The primary speaker includes HDMI eARC/ARC, optical digital, 3.5mm analog input, Ethernet, USB-A for music playback and firmware updates, a YPAO microphone input, and an RCA subwoofer output. The secondary speaker can connect wirelessly or via Ethernet/LAN, and Yamaha includes a 3-meter LAN cable in the box for that purpose.

Physically, the NX-70A is compact but not featherweight. Each speaker measures 189 x 234 x 333mm, or roughly 7.5 x 9.25 x 13.125 inches. The primary speaker weighs 5.7 kg / 12.6 pounds, while the secondary speaker weighs 5.4 kg / 11.9 pounds. That puts the NX-70A firmly in the serious desktop, den, or living-room category rather than the “cute wireless speaker for the kitchen counter” pile.

YPAO Room Calibration and Wireless Left/Right Placement

One of the NX-70A’s most useful features is YPAO room calibration. Yamaha’s system uses a dedicated microphone to measure the listening environment and adjust playback for the room. In the NX-70A, YPAO R.S.C. addresses early reflections, while EQ is used to fine-tune tonal balance.

That matters because active wireless speakers are often used in real rooms, not review spaces with perfect symmetry, acoustic treatment, and no furniture that anyone actually owns. Walls, windows, bookshelves, coffee tables, and questionable placement all have a say in the final sound. Yamaha is at least giving users a tool to manage some of that.

The left and right speakers can also connect wirelessly, so users do not need to run a cable between them. That should make placement easier, especially in living rooms where “just run a cable across the floor” is how arguments start.

HDMI eARC, MusicCast, and Roon Ready Support

Yamaha has given the NX-70A the kind of connectivity that makes sense in 2026. HDMI eARC/ARC with CEC allows the speakers to connect directly to a TV and be controlled with a TV remote. That immediately makes the NX-70A a serious alternative to a soundbar for listeners who care more about stereo imaging than simulated surround fireworks.

Streaming support includes Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Google Cast, AirPlay, MusicCast multiroom playback, and Roon Ready compatibility, which should cover most potential buyers. Qobuz Connect does not appear to be supported at this stage.

Designed for Sound, Not Just the Showroom

The NX-70A cabinet uses rounded surfaces intended to avoid parallel internal walls and reduce standing waves. Yamaha also uses a 5mm aluminum top plate secured to the cabinet to increase rigidity and help control unwanted vibration.

The system will be available in black and white finishes, with a matching SPS-70A stand also listed by Yamaha.

The Bottom Line

The Yamaha NX-70A matters because it is not just another wireless speaker system with a premium badge and a tidy app. Yamaha is bringing a properly active 2-way design to the category, with dedicated amplification for each driver, YPAO room calibration, HDMI eARC, subwoofer output, wired or wireless speaker linking, and broad streaming support that includes MusicCast, AirPlay, Google Cast, TIDAL Connect, Spotify Connect, and Roon Ready compatibility.

At a reported £2,587, or roughly $3,500, the NX-70A is not inexpensive, and it will have to compete with strong active and wireless systems from KEF, DALI, Fyne Audio, Sonus faber, Klipsch, and others. What makes Yamaha’s entry different is the combination of hi-fi, DSP, home theater, and musical instrument engineering behind it. That does not guarantee victory, but it does make the NX-70A one of the more credible new wireless stereo systems to watch in 2026.

The real test will be whether Yamaha can turn that spec sheet into a system that sounds balanced, images properly, integrates well with TVs and subs, and makes traditional separates feel less necessary. On paper, the NX-70A has the right pieces. Now it has to prove they belong together.

For more information: europe.yamaha.com

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This is very handy when you want to share an excerpt of writing in context, a concept that is totally lost if you just take a screenshot with a highlight.

How This Works

This feature is made possible by a web standard called Text fragments. It’s been built into browsers for years now; it’s just not the kind of feature that made a lot of headlines at the time.

The feature basically creates a URL that includes enough information for your browser to find the highlighted text portion. If you copy a URL made this way and paste it into a document so you can study the link’s structure, you can see how this works.

In the simplest cases, the URL will include the entire highlighted portion. That works fine for short fragments, but for long passages, the URL gets ungainly pretty fast. When you’re linking to longer text fragments, the URL includes a reference to the beginning and end of the excerpt. Either way, the URL tells your browser not only which page to load, but what part of the text should be highlighted. Your browser finds the text, highlights it, and jumps directly to it.

There are subtle differences in how browsers handle this. Safari highlights text in yellow, for example, whereas in my tests Chrome seemed to prefer purple. But since this URL structure is standardized across browsers, a link created in one browser works in every browser.

It’s worth noting this feature doesn’t work in all contexts. If the website you’re reading is behind a paywall, and the person you’re sharing with doesn’t have access, they probably won’t be able to see the excerpt you’re trying to share. The feature also doesn’t work inside PDF files, even when you open them in your browser.

But sharing a text fragment, in most cases, is a lot more useful than sharing a screenshot. Give it a try the next time you’re trying to win an argument online.

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? Read on. 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.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: What someone may attempt to explain in a long, drawn-out description
Answer: DREAM

6A clue: Back in style
Answer: RETRO

7A clue: Remnants in a recently used fire pit
Answer: ASHES

8A clue: Sheds tears
Answer: WEEPS

9A clue: Animal in need of adoption
Answer: STRAY

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Takes a card from the deck
Answer: DRAWS

2D clue: The Great Meme ___, movement to purge social media of “brain rot”
Answer: RESET

3D clue: Thin air, so to speak
Answer: ETHER

4D clue: Colombian food cart dish
Answer: AREPA

5D clue: Green and fuzzy, as a rock
Answer: MOSSY

Following an early teaser in May, Citizen Sleeper creator Gareth Damian Martin has revealed Signet City. Martin describes their new game as a “fungalpunk” RPG. In an all too brief trailer, we’re introduced to the game’s stark monochrome visuals and mushroom-infested City 17-esque setting as the post-punk drone of the band SPRINTS plays in the background. “You are a parasite, in a city where strange technologies and radical ideas are taking root,” says the game’s YouTube description. “Grow into and through its inhabitants, uncover and change their stories, and witness the terminal season of the Signet City.”

“Unlike traditional RPG protagonists, players in Signet City exist as a parasite moving through the city’s social body, shaping conversations, influencing inhabitants, and navigating the games beautifully crafted locations,” publisher Fellow Traveller Witness writes in its press release for the game. “This allows the game to dig deep into the interior lives of the parasite’s hosts, in powerful, affecting prose that has become the signature of Jump Over the Age’s games.” A fact sheet adds that Signet City is partly informed by the turbulent decade the United Kingdom experienced during the 1980s, with its northern industrial cities serving as inspiration for the setting. 

Martin’s previous games, In Other Waters, and the Citizen Sleeper series, were all set in the distant future, so for them to explore what could be an alternate reality for their latest project is something new. As for the art style, screentoned manga, pen and ink drawings and black and white photography are cited as touchpoints. Signet City also sees Martin working with a new set of collaborators, with Eli Rainsberry taking over for Amos Roddy to produce the game’s soundtrack and audio, and Tom Kitchen assisting with its environmental art.

Jump Over The Age

I imagine a lot of people will compare Signet City to The Last of Us, but I would argue the game sees Martin exploring ideas that have interested them for years. In interviews following the release of Citizen Sleeper, they cited Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World as one of the game’s primary influences. Tsing’s book critiques capitalism, and our current era of precarity and ecological devastation, through the lens of matsutake, one of the more expensive varieties of mushroom. Matsutake, as well as girolle and other species of fungi, feature prominently throughout Citizen Sleeper, its sequel and In Other Waters, wherein the player guides a xenobiologist through an alien landscape teeming with life.

Signet City will arrive on PC through Steam later this year. No word yet on other platforms.

Notion’s integration with Anthropic apparently had a hiccup this weekend.

Early Sunday morning, the company posted, “Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 and 4.8 models are experiencing degraded performance, which is causing a higher rate of failures for users selecting these models in Notion AI.”

As a result, Notion said it was disabling use of “all Anthropic models” in its automated productivity tool.

Twelve hours later, Notion’s head of product Max Schoening wrote that he was “astonished” at “the amount of people RT-ing this because they want a story around model quality to be the reason.” (According to the public stats on X, Notion’s post has been reposted around 1,200 times.)

“The degraded performance was a temporary service disruption,” Schoening said. “This happens. It happens to Notion, GitHub, AWS, your OpenClaw, and everything in between.”

He added that Notion has restored access to Anthropic’s models.

Meanwhile, an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement, “A brief infrastructure issue caused elevated errors on multiple Claude models for a short period of time. The issue has since been resolved. We’re grateful to our users for their patience while we worked to restore service.”

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey isn’t hitting theaters for another month or so, but if you’re already planning your trip to the cineplex, you may want to check out this page on the movie’s website which lets you view the trailer in the six (!) different formats it’s being released in.

We don’t really have an opinion on the big-screen adaptation of the epic tale as a piece of media, but from a technical standpoint, it’s interesting to see how the viewing experience changes between the 70mm IMAX version with an aspect ratio of 1.43:1 and the 35mm cut at 2.39:1. Unfortunately, the website offers no way to approximate what the movie will look like once compressed, streamed over the Internet, and displayed on a cheap TCL TV, to say nothing of how the viewing experience will be impacted should you watch the movie on your phone by way of a series of short YouTube clips while going to the bathroom. Maybe Nolan is saving that for his next film.

If you head over to the movies in one of Waymo’s vehicles, you can feel a little better about the long-term ecological impact of your trip thanks to a recently announced partnership between the autonomous car maker and B2U Storage Solutions. Under the agreement, old batteries pulled from Waymo’s fleet of self-driving electric cars will get a second life as localized grid storage.

The idea is that batteries which no longer hold enough charge to power a robo-taxi should still have enough capacity to store the energy produced by renewable sources so it can be doled out later when the demand goes up. By installing these batteries in the cities that Waymo actually operates their vehicles in, they don’t have to worry about shipping them around either — they can just yank them out of the car, and wire them right into the grid. Of course, eventually the batteries will be too cooked to adequately perform in this role as well, but this should give them a few more productive years before they get torn down and scrapped.

Speaking of scrapping, the Ladybird project has announced a pretty radical change for an open source project: as of Friday no public pull requests to the codebase will be accepted, and the only people who can make changes to the code will be the official maintainers. The license for the project isn’t changing, so folks are still free to create forks and modify the code of the scratch-built browser however they wish, but they’ll have to do so with the understanding that their changes will likely never get merged back upstream.

So why the change? You probably guessed it already: they are sick of people sending in patches developed with AI. We’ve talked about this issue previously, and the Ladybird devs are hardly the only ones struggling to separate the wheat from the vibecoded chaff. For what it’s worth, the announcement makes it clear that the team isn’t necessarily against the responsible use of AI in software development. Their concern stems more from the fact that AI lets anybody and everybody produce code that at least looks valid, and it makes it harder to figure out what’s good and worthy of inclusion and what should probably stay in somebody’s personal repo.

On the subject of software development, health-conscious free software aficionados will be excited to hear that the GNUtrition project hit version 0.33 on Friday. For those keeping track, the free-as-in-speech tool for *nix nerds looking to keep track of their caloric intake hasn’t seen a major release since 2012. The update takes into account the latest US Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary data, and somewhat surprisingly, switches the whole codebase from Python 2 to pure C. Patches which would have allowed the new build of GNUtrition to calculate the nutritional value of substances eaten off of one’s shoe were mysteriously vetoed from the highest levels of the Free Software Foundation.

One more software link for the road: assuming it hasn’t been taken down by Nintendo’s rabid lawyers by the time this hits the front page, check out this WebASM port of Pokemon Emerald that you can play right in the browser.

The game came out more than 20 years ago for the Game Boy Advance, so the fact that it can run in a modern browser isn’t exactly shocking given how much of today’s software lives on the web. But we still love seeing these decompilation efforts and all the hacks that are made possible once you’ve got the code to work from rather than having to emulate the original system.

Finally, the good folks at iFixit have released a video wherein they take apart fake Apple products that were purchased in the electronics wonderland of Shenzhen. As you might expect, the gadgets they picked up all look fairly convincing at arm’s length, but many of their features don’t actually work and their internals are cobbled together with random ill-fitting bits and bobs.

At the end of the video they do note that the knock-offs are in general easier to take apart than their Cupertino counterparts, but that this doesn’t really help with their repairability or long-term viability as you’ll likely have a hell of a time tracking down replacement parts for the Number 1 Best AirPoods Max.

See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line, we’d love to hear about it.