Hori is bringing its to the good ole US of A. The company , with an availability date of December 16. Preorders are open right now and the controller costs $60.

This Steam-focused gamepad was originally released back in October, but only in Japan. It boasts a big button to pull up the Steam menu and touch sensors on the joysticks for motion controls. It also ships with mappable back buttons. The gamepad connects to a computer, or a Steam Deck, via Bluetooth. To that end, it ships with a USB-A Bluetooth receiver.

Hori says the Steam controller will work for around 12 hours on a full charge, though it can operate while charging via USB cable. The controller menu in Steam also allows for making adjustments, like changing stick sensitivity and gyro controls.

There are a couple of slight omissions. The controller has no rumble functionality, nor does it boast a trackpad or a headphone jack. If you can get over those issues, this looks like a mighty fine way to work through that ever-growing Steam collection. Hori .

As for Valve, it discontinued . That gamepad was notable because it could be configured in a myriad of different ways .

The Department of Defense has awarded its first generative AI defense contract to Jericho Security, marking a strategic shift in military cybersecurity. The $1.8 million Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II contract, announced through AFWERX, tasks the New York-based startup with developing advanced cybersecurity solutions for the Department of the Air Force.

“This is one of the first generative AI contracts awarded in defense, marking a major milestone in how seriously our military is addressing AI-based threats,” Sage Wohns, CEO of Jericho Security, told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview

How AI-powered phishing attacks target military personnel

The company’s approach centers on simulating complex, multi-channel phishing attacks that mirror real-world scenarios. “In today’s landscape, phishing campaigns aren’t limited to just emails—they involve coordinated attempts across multiple platforms like text messages, phone calls, and even video calls,” Wohns explained, describing attacks that chain together multiple forms of communication to deceive targets.

What sets Jericho’s technology apart is its focus on human vulnerability — widely considered the weakest link in cybersecurity. The company claims that up to 95% of data breaches stem from human error. Their platform creates personalized security training programs based on individual risk profiles, using generative AI to simulate sophisticated attacks including deepfake impersonations and AI-generated malware.

Deepfake attacks and drone pilot targeting: The new frontier of military cybersecurity

The contract comes at a critical time, as military personnel face increasingly targeted attacks. “There was a highly publicized spear-phishing attack targeting Air Force drone pilots using fake user manuals,” Wohns revealed, highlighting how the company helped evaluate vulnerabilities through attack simulation and specialized training.

For a young company competing in the crowded cybersecurity market, landing a Defense Department contract represents a major validation. The deal positions Jericho Security to expand beyond its commercial roots into the lucrative government sector, where cybersecurity spending continues to grow amid escalating threats.

Military contracts often require stringent security measures. Wohns emphasized that Jericho maintains “military-grade cybersecurity standards” including end-to-end encryption and isolated secure environments for handling sensitive military data.

The next generation of AI defense: Predator and prey model

Unlike traditional cybersecurity approaches that react to known threats, Jericho Security employs what Wohns calls a “predator and prey” model. “We started with attack simulation, giving us a continuous stream of real-time data to enhance both offensive and defensive capabilities,” he said. This dual approach allows their AI systems to evolve alongside emerging threats rather than merely responding to them.

The Air Force contract, executed through AFWERX—the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force—is part of a broader initiative to accelerate military adoption of private sector technology. AFWERX has awarded over 6,200 contracts worth more than $4.7 billion since 2019, working to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and speed up technology deployment.

Symbiotic Security, which is announcing a $3 million seed round today, watches over developers as they code and points out potential security issues in real time. Other companies do this, but Symbiotic also emphasizes the next step: teaching developers to avoid these bugs in the first place.

Ideally, this means developers will fix security bugs before they ever get into a code repository, which in turn should also speed up the overall development process. And since the developers get to learn on the job and in the environment they are already working in, they are far more likely to correctly implement the required changes. That’s more effective than making them sit through an annual security training in SuccessFactors.

The company, which launched earlier this year, released its MVP about a month ago, with a focus on infrastructure-as-code languages like Terraform. As Symbiotic co-founder and CEO Jerome Robert told me, the company did this to get an MVP out of the door and prove out its vision. Over time, the team plans to expand to the rest of the application stack and support languages like Python and JavaScript.

Robert noted that even the most developer-friendly security tools are still, at their core, tools for the security teams. “They are enabling the security teams to be better cops. They’re not tools that make the developers the good guys,” he said. “They are tools that allow security teams to send hundreds of messages all week long, saying, ‘You’ve made a mistake. You need to fix it.’”

Meanwhile, the developer constantly has to choose between fixing security issues and developing new features.

The idea behind Symbiotic Security is to nudge developers in the right direction, similar to the code completion tools they are already familiar with. Symbiotic, ideally, can help developers fix bugs in the inner loop, while they are still coding, and long before the continuous integration and delivery platforms start scanning the code for issues. Once that happens, the process slows down immediately, with Jira tickets and additional code review processes taking over.

This is also where Symbiotic goes a step further. “It would not be sufficient to just allow them to fix [the issues] and to detect it,” Robert explained. “We also need to train them on security — and developers love to train; it’s an absolute, 100% certain thing. However, security trainings are painful.”

For the developers, Robert argues that doing the training on the spot is something they can relate to. It’s focused on their immediate needs and not something that is abstract — and at just a few minutes, it’s short.

Right now, those training lessons and videos are pre-recorded, but over time, they could become more AI-driven, which would allow Symbiotic to make them even more relevant to the specific issues the developer is working on.

There’s also another interesting twist here. To best train a model to automatically fix security issues, you need a corpus of code with security bugs and the fixed versions of those code snippets. Since Symbiotic is seeing the issue and then telling the developer how to fix it, it could ideally create a high-quality dataset for building a remediation model. For now, that’s a long-term project, though.

Symbiotic is backed by the likes of  Lerer Hippeau, Axeleo Capital, and Factorial Capital. “Jerome and co-founder Edouard Viot have a deep understanding of the problems underlying traditional code security and demonstrated remarkable foresight with their approach to addressing the growing demand for shift-left security solutions,” said Graham Brown, managing partner, Lerer Hippeau. “Symbiotic has the potential to transform the industry, empowering developers and security teams alike.”

The Specialty Equipment Market Association, or SEMA, held its annual conference in Las Vegas this week. Billed as one of the biggest car shows in the world, the event typically brings together more than 135,000 attendees in the automotive aftermarket industry to see the newest trends in vehicle repairs and modifications.

And while there weren’t as many electric vehicle concepts and one-offs as years past — after all, we’re in the midst of a historic transition in the auto industry that is equal parts momentous and slower going than we expected — there were still a handful of interesting plug-in models worth highlighting.

The Stellantis-owned parts and accessories division brought a number of compelling concepts to this year’s SEMA show. But none of them were as effortlessly cool as this 1967 Plymouth GTX “electromod.” This one-of-a-kind restomod is based on the — you guessed it — 1967 Plymouth GTX muscle car. And this new conversion is a taste of what’s to come from the world of electric conversions of classic cars.

Mopar wanted to show what was possible — a “potential future,” the company put it in its press release — using Mopar’s e-Crate propulsion systems. Classic car enthusiasts could pick up one of these conversion kits to transform a vintage muscle car or truck into a battery-electric vehicle.

Mopar tweaked the Plymouth’s exterior to include a carbon-fiber front splitter and custom low-profile rear spoiler. The company also paid homage to the flip-top fuel caps of the 1960s and ’70s by updating its function as a charge-port door.

Kia’s spacious three-row EV9 got a rugged facelift for SEMA, transforming into a new adventure-themed concept aptly named ADVNTR. Appearing alongside it is the WKNDR concept, based on Kia’s Platform Beyond Vehicle (PBV) modular concept that was first revealed at CES earlier this year.

Together, both concepts are designed for off-the-beaten-path excursions, with custom exterior designs aimed at rock climbing or river fording. The EV9-based ADVNTR is raised three inches more than the standard EV9, along with rugged wheel and tire combinations. Meanwhile, the WKNDR is also perched on off-road-capable tires and features a customizable interior for an endless variety of outdoor adventures.

Kia highlights several modular features: an onboard compressor to handle inflation, from adjusting tire pressure to inflating air mattresses for camping; a mobile pantry for outdoor cooking; and built-in solar panels and hydro-turbine wheels that can recharge the batteries.

People in Mozambique are increasingly resorting to VPN services to bypass ongoing online restrictions in the wake of deadly protests contesting the election results.

Authorities first disrupted mobile internet connections on October 25, as protests erupted across the country the day before. WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram all went dark a few days after that, on October 31, making using a VPN necessary to keep using these platforms.