TECHNOLOGY
You’ve been targeted by government spyware. Now what?
It was a normal day when Jay Gibson got an unexpected notification on his iPhone. “Apple detected a targeted mercenary spyware attack against your iPhone,” the message read.
Ironically, Gibson used to work at companies that developed exactly the kind of spyware that could trigger such a notification. Still, he was shocked that he received a notification on his own phone. He called his father, turned off and put his phone away, and went to buy a new one.
“I was panicking,” he told TechCrunch. “It was a mess. It was a huge mess.”
Gibson is just one of an ever-increasing number of people who are receiving notifications from companies like Apple, Google, and WhatsApp, all of which send similar warnings about spyware attacks to their users. Tech companies are increasingly proactive in alerting their users when they become targets of government hackers, and in particular those who use spyware made by companies such as Intellexa, NSO Group, and Paragon Solutions.
But while Apple, Google, and WhatsApp alert, they don’t get involved in what happens next. The tech companies direct their users to people who could help, but at which point the companies step away.
This is what happens when you receive one of these warnings.
Warning
You have received a notification that you were the target of government hackers. Now what?
First of all, take it seriously. These companies have reams of telemetry data about their users and what happens on both their devices and their online accounts. These tech giants have security teams that have been hunting, studying, and analyzing this type of malicious activity for years. If they think you have been targeted, they are probably right.
It’s important to note that in the case of Apple and WhatsApp notifications, receiving one doesn’t mean you were necessarily hacked. It’s possible that the hacking attempt failed, but they can still tell you that someone tried.
A photo showing the text of a threat notification sent by Apple to a suspected spyware victim (Image: Omar Marques/Getty Images)
In the case of Google, it’s most likely that the company blocked the attack, and is telling you so you can go into your account and make sure you have multi-factor authentication on (ideally a physical security key or passkey), and also turn on its Advanced Protection Program, which also requires a security key and adds other layers of security to your Google account. In other words, Google will tell you how to better protect yourself in the future.
In the Apple ecosystem, you should turn on Lockdown Mode, which switches on a series of security features that makes it more difficult for hackers to target your Apple devices. Apple has long claimed that it has never seen a successful hack against a user with Lockdown Mode enabled, but no system is perfect.
Mohammed Al-Maskati, the director of Access Now’s Digital Security Helpline, a 24/7 global team of security experts who investigate spyware cases against members of civil society, shared with TechCrunch the advice that the helpline gives people who are concerned that they may be targeted with government spyware.
This advice includes keeping your devices’ operating systems and apps up-to-date; switching on Apple’s Lockdown Mode, and Google’s Advanced Protection for accounts and for Android devices; be careful with suspicious links and attachments; to restart your phone regularly; and to pay attention to changes in how your device functions.
Contact Us
Have you received a notification from Apple, Google, or WhatsApp about being targeted with spyware? Or do you have information about spyware makers? We would love to hear from you. From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email.
Reaching out for help
What happens next depends on who you are.
There are open source and downloadable tools that anyone can use to detect suspected spyware attacks on their devices, which requires a little technical knowledge. You can use the Mobile Verification Toolkit, or MVT, a tool that lets you look for forensic traces of an attack on your own, perhaps as a first step before looking for assistance.
If you don’t want or can’t use MVT, you can go straight to someone who can help. If you are a journalist, dissident, academic, or human rights activist, there are a handful of organizations that can help.
You can turn to Access Now and its Digital Security Helpline. You can also contact Amnesty International, which has its own team of investigators and ample experience in these cases. Or, you can reach out to The Citizen Lab, a digital rights group at the University of Toronto, which has been investigating spyware abuses for almost 15 years.
If you are a journalist, Reporters Without Borders also has a digital security lab that offers to investigate suspected cases of hacking and surveillance.
Outside of these categories of people, politicians or business executives, for example, will have to go elsewhere.
If you work for a large company or political party, you likely have a competent (hopefully!) security team you can go straight to. They may not have the specific knowledge to investigate in-depth, but in that case they probably know who to turn to, even if Access Now, Amnesty, and Citizen Lab cannot help those outside of civil society.
Otherwise, there aren’t many places executives or politicians you can turn to, but we have asked around and found the ones below. We can’t fully vouch for any of these organizations, nor do we endorse them directly, but based on suggestions from people we trust, it’s worth pointing them out.
Perhaps the most well known of these private security companies is iVerify, which makes an app for Android and iOS, and also gives users an option to ask for an in-depth forensic investigation.
Matt Mitchell, a well-regarded security expert who’s been helping vulnerable populations protect themselves from surveillance has a new startup, called Safety Sync Group, which offers this kind of service.
Jessica Hyde, a forensic investigator with experience in the public and private sectors, has her own startup called Hexordia, and offers to investigate suspected hacks.
Mobile cybersecurity company Lookout, which has experience analyzing government spyware from around the world, has an online form that allows people to reach out for help to investigate cyberattacks involving malware, device compromise, and more. The company’s threat intelligence and forensics teams may then get involved.
Then, there’s Costin Raiu, who heads TLPBLACK, a small team of security researchers who used to work at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Group, or GReAT. Raiu was the unit’s head when his team discovered sophisticated cyberattacks from elite government hacking teams from the United States, Russia, Iran, and other countries. Raiu told TechCrunch that people who suspect they’ve been hacked can email him directly.
Investigation
What happens next depends on who you go to for help.
Generally speaking, the organization you reach out to may want to do an initial forensic check by looking at a diagnostic report file that you can create on your device, which you can share with the investigators remotely. At this point, this doesn’t require you to hand over your device to anyone.
This first step may be able to detect signs of targeting or even infection. It may also turn out nothing. In both cases, the investigators may want to dig deeper, which will require you to send in a full backup of your device, or even your actual device. At that point, the investigators will do their work, which may take time because modern government spyware attempts to hide and delete its tracks, and will tell you what happened.
Unfortunately, modern spyware may not leave any traces. The modus operandi these days, according to Hassan Selmi, who leads the incident response team at Access Now’s Digital Security Helpline, is a “smash and grab” strategy, meaning that once spyware infects the target device, it steals as much data as it can, and then tries to remove any trace and uninstall itself. This is assumed as the spyware makers trying to protect their product and hide its activity from investigators and researchers.
If you are a journalist, a dissident, an academic, a human rights activist, the groups who help you may ask if you want to publicize the fact that you were attacked, but you’re not required to do so. They will be happy to help you without taking public credit for it. There may be good reasons to come out, though: To denounce the fact that a government targeted you, which may have the side effect of warning others like you of the dangers of spyware; or to expose a spyware company by showing that their customers are abusing their technology.
We hope you never get one of these notifications. But we also hope that, if you do, you find this guide useful. Stay safe out there.
The upcoming James Bond game 007 First Light has been delayed until 27 May 2026.
The much-anticipated title was due to be released on 27 March, but will now come out two months later.
It will be the first video game featuring the British spy since 2012’s 007 Legends.
In a statement developer IO Interactive, which also makes the Hitman series, said the game was “fully playable from beginning to end” – but extra time was needed to “further polish” it.
It is being developed in association with Delphi Interactive, which is also behind the upcoming Fifa game due to be released on Netflix ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
The latest in the Bond video game series will star Dexter Original Sin actor Patrick Gibson in the lead role, in a reimagined origin story for the iconic British spy.
It will follow the story of a 26-year-old James Bond as he is recruited into MI6 and gains his 00 title, in a standalone story from the films or novels.
At the Game Awards in December 2025 IO Interactive revealed the game’s main villain would be performed by US singer Lenny Kravitz.
Gameplay trailers have shown some similarities to the developer’s successful Hitman franchise as well as showcasing the gadgets and cinematic set pieces that fans have come to expect from Bond.
But some comments under the video from fans voiced concerns about how the game looked – with some pointing out a drop in frame rates, and others criticising the use of motion blur.
In its latest post, IO Interactive called the game its “most ambitious project to date”.
“We’re confident this sets 007 First Light up for long-term success, and we sincerely appreciate the patience and continued support we’ve received ever since we revealed the game,” it said.
Arc Raiders is an extraction shooter from Embark Studios – so, a game where you deploy into a map full of other players and do as much shooting and looting as you can before making an escape. This is my first real go at the genre, and it’s excellent. It has smooth, only occasionally cumbersome combat, sound design that scratches the brain just right and robotic enemies that genuinely terrify. And it satisfies my constant need to sift through my inventory and rifle through every drawer.
But I have to keep my head on a swivel: Arc Raider’s player v player element means I can get jumped for my precious cargo by a malicious rival at any moment. And also, the knowledge that this game was made with the help of generative AI voice acting makes me slightly ashamed of how much I enjoy it. I play every game sheepishly looking over my shoulder (and my character’s) in case someone in-game takes my sought-after blueprint, or someone in real life kicks down my door to call me a hypocrite.
Shooting and looting … Arc Raiders. Photograph: Embark Studios
It’s ever more difficult to avoid AI in everyday life. Arc Raiders has become my guilty pleasure. In it, you play as a raider in post-apocalyptic Italy, living underground but regularly heading topside to scrounge for supplies, after a massive ecological event destroyed human civilisation and strange autonomous robots showed up shortly afterwards to scour the scarred landscape. These ARC can fly overhead, roll around on the ground, or leap extraordinary distances on four mechanical legs. Each is uniquely deadly.
You are woefully inadequate in a battle against most of Arc Raiders’ enemies, which means you’ll need to scurry around to avoid them, throw noisemakers to distract them, or attack as a team, with either the squad you deployed alongside or other players you convince to join you over chat. All of this is in service of the game’s one true god: loot, which you need in order to perform everything from repairing your weapons to crafting medical supplies to training your pet rooster so he can fetch items for you on the surface. And you can only keep what you successfully escape with, so if you die mid-match or fail to get to an elevator or metro car before the timer runs out, it’s all gone.
Though my first few rounds of Arc Raiders were supremely difficult and punishing (in my third match, I found several pieces of rare loot and was then ruthlessly murdered by a squad all clad in red), Embark has ensured that you can make progress fast. You can upgrade your raider’s mobility, stamina and stealthiness every time you level up, and you can earn experience through playing rounds and successfully extracting. You can recycle things into crafting materials to upgrade your weapons and shield, or sell trinkets to merchants for extra cash that will help you buy better equipment. Even after a bad round, you still get somewhere.
After every successful extraction, I want to jump right back in for more. I want more close calls, accidental explosions and terrifying sprints through ruined cities. I want to hurl more expletives over chat so that other squads know I’m in the thick of it, walk past another player blasting A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton through their microphone, usher another half-dozen more people into an elevator hatch before I press the button to close the door at the last second.
Arc Raiders isn’t just fun to play. It’s a straight-up shot of serotonin.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple’s first FOLDABLE iPhone is ‘revealed’ by a reputable leaker – and it confirms some major design features
It is one of the most eagerly anticipated devices for 2026 – and now we may have been given our first glimpse at the ‘iPhone Fold’.
Jon Prosser, a YouTuber known for his Apple leaks, has shared renders of what he claims is Apple’s first foldable device.
In a video posted to his YouTube channel, FrontPageTech, Mr Prosser shows off 3D renders of what the device might look like.
‘Next year you’ll only be seeing three new iPhones,’ he explains at the start of the video.
‘iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, oh and uh…this. This is the brand new iPhone Fold, and it’s probably your next iPhone.’
Apple experimented with clamshell and book–style designs, but eventually settled on the book–style, according to Mr Prosser.
If this is true, it will put Apple in direct competition with Samsung and Google, who both released their own book–style foldables – Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold – in 2025.
The leak has delighted thousands of Apple fans in the comments, with one joking: ‘This is the Christmas present I was waiting for’.
It is one of the most eagerly anticipated devices for 2026 – and now we may have been given our first glimpse at the ‘ iPhoneFold’
Although it has been rumoured for years, it now looks almost certain that Apple is planning to unveil the folding iPhone in September 2026.
‘After years of companies like Samsung pioneering and perfecting the foldable form factor, Apple finally decides that 2026 is the year to pretend they’re doing it too,’ Mr Prosser joked.
Where Apple really plans to set itself apart from its rival, however, is with the ‘crease’ – a feature hated by many foldable sceptics.
‘One big drawback to foldables, regardless of how cool they may look and feel, is that from too many angles, you can see and feel a crease down the middle of the plastic display where the hinge is,’ Mr Prosser explained.
While this issue has plagued Samsung and Google for years, Apple has ‘completely subverted’ it, according to the leaker.
He explained that the tech giant will do this by using a metal plate to disperse the pressure of bending the display, along with liquid metal in the hinge itself.
The outside of the device will almost look like a standard iPhone measuring around 9mm thick, with a 5.5–inch display.
‘That’s relatively thin considering when you unfold this thing you’ll be greeted with a 7.8–inch iPad like display,’ Mr Prosser said.
Apple experimented with both clamshell and book–style designs, but eventually settled on the book–style, according to Mr Prosser
iPhone Fold: Rumoured key specs
Style: Book–style
Size: 5.5–inch display when closed, 7.8–inch display when opened
Thickness: 9mm closed, 4.5mm open
Cameras: One on the outside, two rear–facing, and one on the inside
Colours: Black and white
Price: $2,000–$2,500
‘You’re looking at 4.5mm thin – it’s kinda crazy.’
Of course, one of the features users will be most interested in is the camera.
According to the YouTuber, there will be a total of four cameras – one on the outside, two rear–facing, and one on the inside.
Meanwhile, one of the most unusual rumoured features is the return of Touch ID, in place of Face ID.
Mr Prosser explained: ‘In terms of security, Touch ID will be making a return, right in the power button, which is also returning to the top of the phone.’
While Apple delighted fans this year with orange and blue version of its Pro smartphones, it’s expected to opt for more muted tones in the foldable.
‘The only colours available will be black and white,’ Mr Prosser said.
Finally, the leaker gives an indication of the price – which he calls ‘very, very expensive’.
‘We’re talking something in the ballpark of $2,000–$2,500,’ he added.
As ever, Apple is remaining tight–lipped on all iPhone Fold rumours.
Speaking to the Daily Mail at Apple’s London HQ in September following the launch of the iPhone 17 series, John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, politely declined to even discuss the subject.
‘You probably know we never talk about anything in the future,’ he said.
‘We are so excited to talk about what we’re going to be shipping to people tomorrow.’
THE TRILLION DOLLAR RISE OF APPLE
1976: Founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne created the company on April 1 1976 as they set about selling computer kits to hobbyists, each of which was built by Wozniak.
The first product was the Apple I.
1977: Apple released the Apple II in June, which was the first PC made for the mass market.
Steve Jobs unveils Apple Computer Corporation’s new Macintosh February 6, 1984 in California.
1981: Jobs became chairman.
1984: The Macintosh was introduced during an ad break for the Super Bowl and later officially unveiled during a launch event. It was discontinued a year later and Jobs left the firm.
1987: Apple released the Macintosh II, the first colour Mac.
1997: Apple announces it will acquire NeXT software in a $400 million deal that involves Jobs returning to Apple as interim CEO. He officially took the role in 2000.
The then Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Steve Jobs, with the iPhone
2001: Apple introduced iTunes, OS X and the first-generation iPod.
The first iPod MP3 music player was released on October 23, 2001, at an event in Cupertino and was able to hold up to 1,000 songs.
2007: Apple unveils the iPhone.
2010: The first iPad was unveiled.
2011: Jobs resigned in 2011 due to illness, handing the CEO title to Tim Cook. Jobs died in October from pancreatic cancer.
2014: Apple unveiled the Apple Watch. It also unveiled its first larger iPhones – the 6 and 6 Plus.
2015: After purchasing Beats from Dr Dre, Apple launched Apple Music to compete with Spotify and other music streaming services.
2016: Apple returned to its roots and announced the 4-inch iPhone SE. Meanwhile, the firm is embroiled in a legal battle with the FBI, involving the agency demanding access to the locked phone used by Syed Farook, who died in a shootout after carrying out a deadly December attack in San Bernardino, California with his wife. The court order was dropped on March 28 after the FBI said a third party was able to unlock the device.
2017: Apple introduces the iPhone X, which removes the home button to make way for a futuristic edge-to-edge screen design and a new FaceID system that uses advanced sensors and lasers to unlock phones with just the owner’s face.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks at an Apple event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
2018: In a first for the company, Apple introduces new features in its latest operating system, iOS 12, that encourage users to manage and spend less time on their devices. The move was spawned by a strongly worded letter from shareholders that urged the firm to address the growing problem of smartphone addiction among kids and teenagers.
2019: In January, Apple reports its first decline in revenues and profits in a decade. CEO Tim Cook partly blamed steep declines in revenue from China.
2020: In March, Apple closes all its bricks and mortar retail stores outside of China in response to coronavirus.
2021: In an online virtual event in April CEO Tim Cook declared Apple’s goal of becoming carbon neutral for Earth Day. Later in the year the iPhone 13 was announced.
2022: In September the iPhone 14 was announced. One of the new features included a new sensor to detect if a user had been in a car crash as well as an improved camera system.
2023: Apple brought back its ‘Home Pod’ after the first generation was discontinued. The ‘Home Pod’ can be seen as an alternative to Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home as it is powered by voice commands.
2024: Apple makes its first steps into artificial intelligence with the release of Apple Intelligence. The features are not all released at once with many delayed until the following year.
In the past few cycles of drops, smartphone progress has felt predictable. Each release promised faster chips, better cameras, and bigger numbers. In 2025, that changed. The most important upgrades weren’t about power or design, but about how phones fit into everyday life.
Phones lasted longer on a charge. Cameras got better. AI worked quietly in the background, handling routine tasks without getting in the way. Foldables finally became practical; software support stretched further, and screens got brighter, significantly making them easier to use outdoors.
All of this combined reset expectations of what a phone is supposed to be. In so many ways, 2025 was the year when smartphone makers stopped trying to impress and started trying to help. For people who rely on their phones for work, creativity, etc., that mattered more than any sleekness any manufacturer could have offered.
These are the 10 best smartphone features of 2025, not just because they were new, but because they made the smartphone experience better.
1. Silicon-carbon Anode Batteries
Image Credit: Android Guides
For a decade, we’ve been stuck on the lithium-ion batteries, capping out around 5,000mAh. For anything beyond that, you’re asking for a phone the size of a brick. That changed this year as manufacturers like Oppo and OnePlus successfully replaced traditional graphite anodes with silicon-carbon.
Because silicon holds significantly more lithium ions, which determines the capacity of phone batteries, devices like the Oppo Reno 15c and the OnePlus 15 that came with the Silicon-carbon Anode Batteries stunned us with 6,500mAh capacities. For the first time, genuine two-day battery life for power users wasn’t just a marketing claim; it became a reality.
2. “Agentic” On-Device AI
Image Credit: Quality Company
In our review of the Pixel 10, we saw that Google’s Tensor G5 chip wasn’t just retrieving information; it was taking action. This is the definition of “Agentic AI.” Unlike older assistants that could only read you the weather, this new system uses the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) actually to operate your apps for you.
Whether you copped the Google Pixel 10 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you could tell your phone to “book a ride to the airport for my flight,” and the device will cross-reference your email for flight times, check traffic, and stage the booking in Uber, all locally on the phone with your privacy uncompromised.
3. The “Tri-Fold” Display
Image Credit: TechTalk TV
Foldables have been going mainstream for a while, but 2025 was the year they evolved beyond the simple “book” design. As we discussed during Samsung’s Unpacked event in July, the dual-hinge architecture of the Samsung Galaxy G Fold (Tri-Fold) has finally bridged the gap between the phone and the tablet.
By allowing the device to unfold into a legitimate 10-inch workspace, these devices have effectively eliminated the need for carrying a separate iPad or Galaxy Tab, proving that screens can be massive without being burdensome.
4. 3,000-Nit “Real World” Displays
Image Credit: Phone Arena
Display brightness used to be a theoretical number achieved only in tiny windows during HDR playback, but in 2025, it became practical. Using Tandem OLED stacks, a technology that layers two organic pixel sheets to double brightness and extend lifespan, flagships like the iPhone 17 Pro and the Oppo Find X9 Pro are hitting sustained peaks of 3,000 to 3,600 nit displays.
The result is an almost perfect visibility even under direct, harsh sunlight, coupled with adaptive refresh rates that drop to 1Hz to save power when users are just reading text.
5. Satellite Messaging 2.0
Image Credit: PC Mag
Connecting to a satellite used to require a chunky, specialized antenna and an expensive subscription. This year, partnerships between carriers like T-Mobile and satellite providers like Starlink brought “Direct-to-Cell” technology to the masses.
With standard modems inside the iPhone 17 lineup and the Samsung Galaxy S25 series, users can now text friends and send locations from the middle of the ocean or deep within national parks, effectively rendering “dead zones” extinct without extra hardware.
6. Variable Telephoto Cameras
Image Credit: All About Phones
As noted in our Oppo Find X9 Pro vs. OnePlus 15 comparison, the era of fixed “3x” or “5x” lenses is ending. 2025 saw the proliferation of moving internal lens groups that physically zoom between focal lengths, much like a traditional DSLR lens.
Devices like the Sony Xperia 1 VII and Xiaomi 17 Ultra utilise this to provide sharp, lossless optical images at any point between 3.5x and 5x. This grants creators professional framing freedom, eliminating grainy digital crops.
7. Qi2 Magnetic Wireless Charging
Image Credit: Android Central
It took long enough, but the magnetic charging standard (based on Apple’s MagSafe) finally went global this year, creating a near-unified charging ecosystem. Android heavyweights, including the Google Pixel 10 and the entire Galaxy S25 family, adopted the Qi2 standard, allowing chargers to snap magnetically into perfect alignment every time.
This seemingly small change has drastically improved charging efficiency, reduced heat, and opened up a universal market of magnetic wallets and car mounts for all users, regardless of their OS.
8. Longer Software Lifecycles
Image Credit: Youtube
When you spend over $1,000 on a phone, it shouldn’t have an expiration date of two years. As highlighted in our Techloy Readers’ Choice Awards announcement, sustainability has become a top priority, driving Google and Samsung to standardise the 7-year OS update policies.
This commitment ensures that a Galaxy S25 bought today will be running Android 23 securely in 2032, signalling the end of planned obsolescence in the premium sector.
9. Titanium & “Armour” Glass
Image Credit: Tech Edition
The shift away from heavy stainless steel toward aerospace-grade materials has redefined durability. We saw this most clearly in our drop tests of the iPhone 17 Pro Max, where the Titanium frame significantly reduced the weight while proprietary glass structures, like the Gorilla Glass Armour 2, virtually eliminated reflections and micro-scratches.
This combination has emboldened more users to go case-free, trusting the hardware to survive the rigours of daily life.
10. Desktop-Class Ray Tracing
Image Credit: SamMobile
Mobile gaming is no longer just a way to kill time; it is a visual spectacle. The Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple A19 chips brought hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a lighting technique previously reserved for PCs, to the masses.
On gaming-centric devices like the RedMagic 10 Pro and Asus ROG Phone 9, this tech delivers realistic water reflections, shadows, and global illumination, effectively turning the smartphone into a high-fidelity portable console.
2025 was another busy and unpredictable year for the cryptocurrency market. Prices moved up and down sharply, sometimes within days or even hours.
New projects gained attention; some older coins made comebacks, and global events continued to influence how investors reacted to digital assets. For many, 2025 was a reminder that crypto remains one of the fastest-moving parts of the global financial system.
At the same time, changes in regulation, growing interest from institutions, and new technology developments played a role in shaping how different coins performed. As the year closes, it is a good time to step back and take stock. Which cryptocurrencies performed the best in 2025?
Which ones stood out because of steady growth, strong usage, or major events that pushed prices higher? And what can their performance tell us about the direction of the crypto market going forward?
Here are the 10 best cryptocurrencies of 2025:
Current Value: $3.25.
MYX Finance earned its place on this list because it was one of the highest price performers of 2025. It launched in May at a very low price near $0.10 per MYX but within months, rose sharply, delivering a year-to-date gain of more than 3,300 percent, making it one of the biggest gainers in the entire crypto market.
MYX stood out because it captured attention at a time when investors were looking for new opportunities beyond large, slow-moving coins. Its focus on decentralized derivatives trading and strong early community interest helped drive demand.
While MYX was not stable in price and experienced large swings, its performance tells the story of 2025 clearly;. Smaller tokens with real activity and strong narratives were able to outperform bigger names. MYX represents the high-risk, high-reward side of the market this year.
Current Value: $440.36
Zcash is on this list because it delivered exceptional gains and benefited from a clear trend in 2025. This year, it rose by more than 500 percent, with some periods seeing gains close to 700 percent. This made it one of the best-performing privacy coins of the year.
Zcash stood out because interest in privacy returned in 2025. As regulations increased and tracking of transactions became more common, some investors moved toward coins that protect user data. Zcash offers private transactions, which made it attractive again after years of low attention. While its price was volatile, the strong upward movement and renewed relevance explain why it belongs on this list.
Current Value: $1.86
XRP belongs on this list because of its steady performance and real-world use in 2025. The coin traded around $1.80 to $1.90 toward the end of the year and showed periods of strength when other large coins were flat or falling.
XRP stood out because it became popular for cross-border payments and remittances use cases. In a year where many crypto projects struggled to show real utility, XRP benefited from its role in moving money across borders quickly and cheaply.
While its price did not explode, its stability and purpose helped it outperform many competitors.
Current Value: $0.27
TRON is on the list because it delivered modest but steady growth and avoided sharp declines. TRX started the year around $0.25 and traded near $0.27 to $0.28 in late December, giving it an estimated gain of about 8 to 10 percent.
TRON stood out for stability rather than excitement. Its strongest use case in 2025 was payments and stablecoin transfers, especially USDT. Many users prefer TRON because fees are low and transactions are fast.
While TRON did not see massive price jumps, it remained useful and active during a year when many projects lost users.
Current Value: $582.2
Bitcoin Cash earned its place because it showed solid price growth in a year when many large coins struggled. BCH gained roughly 30 to 38 percent in 2025, which made it one of the better-performing layer one cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin Cash stood out because of its focus on fast and cheap transactions. While Bitcoin is often used as a store of value, Bitcoin Cash aims to be usable for everyday payments. This clear purpose helped support its price. In a market full of speculation, Bitcoin Cash benefited from being simple and practical, which explains its steady performance this year.
Current Value: $0.007
Rain Protocol delivered significant gains of around 185 percent in 2025, making it one of the year’s best‑performing digital assets outside of traditional tokens. Rain Protocol built its momentum by attracting more users and attention to its ecosystem during a crowded year in the crypto markets. The growth of real applications and increasing utility for users helped push the price higher.
While its percentage gains were smaller than the top two winners, Rain Protocol’s performance was still strong compared with many other projects on its level. For these reasons, Rain Protocol stood out in 2025.
Current Value: $0.0027
Zebec Network was another strong performer in 2025, achieving returns of around 164 percent for the year. Zebec is known for its real‑time payment and streaming finance solutions, which focus on improving how money moves on blockchains for businesses and individuals.
Increasing interest in faster and lower‑cost payments, as well as real‑world use cases for finance apps, helped Zebec gain traction with investors. Its steady performance throughout the year showed that utility‑driven tokens could deliver solid returns even when broader market conditions were challenging. This performance secured Zebec Network a notable place in the list of top gainers for 2025.
Current Value: $2968
Ethereum is on this list because of its strong and consistent use, even during a difficult year for many major cryptocurrencies. In 2025, Ethereum did not deliver the biggest price gains, but it showed stability and importance in the crypto market. Its price moved between about $2,800 and $3,500 during the year and ended around $2,900 to $3,000. While this was lower than earlier highs, Ethereum avoided major crashes that wrecked the market this year.
Ethereum also stood out this year for its usage. Most decentralized finance platforms, NFTs, and blockchain apps still run on Ethereum. Even when prices dropped, developers did not leave the network. New upgrades and layer two networks helped reduce fees and improve speed, which kept Ethereum useful and active.
Current Value: $839
BNB is included because it showed strong stability and consistent demand throughout 2025. Its price stayed mostly between $800 and $900 and ended the year near $860 to $890. Compared to many tokens that lost significant value, BNB held its ground.
BNB also stood out because of its close connection to the Binance ecosystem. Users continued to rely on it for trading discounts, token launches, and activity on the BNB Chain. Even when markets were volatile, people still needed BNB to use Binance services. This steady demand helped BNB remain strong in a difficult market and makes it one of the more reliable performers of 2025.
Current Value: $0.03
Zora is one of the top-performing cryptocurrencies of 2025, with 138.13% gains year-to-date. It is a SocialFi layer-2 token that helps content creators and their communities earn directly from their online activities.
In 2025, more developers and creators used Zora to issue tokens, reward fans, and manage memberships, which increased interest from investors. Its price started the year around $1.25 and rose to about $2.95 by December. This growth shows how a crypto focused on practical use, rather than just speculation, can deliver strong returns.
Zora stands out because it combines real-world utility, growing adoption, and market excitement around SocialFi.
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TECHNOLOGY
Terrifying Pentagon report sparks WWIII fears after revealing China is readying intercontinental missiles
A brand new report from the Pentagon has revealed that China has armed over 100 long-range nuclear missiles which could reach the US in an all-out war.
The December 23 report to Congress found China’s military has placed more than 100 DF-31 missiles, which are powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), into underground launch sites called silos.
These missiles use solid fuel, meaning they’re ready to launch quickly without needing extra preparation, unlike older liquid-fueled ones that take longer to set up.
The US Department of War identified fields of missile silos in three remote areas in northern and western China: Hami in Xinjiang, Yumen in Gansu, and Yulin in Inner Mongolia, near the border with Mongolia.
Together, these fields have around 320 silos, but US officials believe only over 100 are loaded so far, allowing China to potentially shuffle missiles around to confuse enemies in a tactic like a ‘shell game.’
The DF-31 missiles can fly up to about 6,800 miles, far enough to hit most of the US from their launch sites in China.
China tested one of these missiles in 2024 by launching it into the Pacific Ocean, showing it could travel long distances and land near places like French Polynesia.
‘China’s historic military buildup has made the US homeland increasingly vulnerable. China maintains a large and growing arsenal of nuclear, maritime, conventional long-range strike, cyber, and space capabilities able to directly threaten Americans’ security,’ the new report warned.
China launched a test of its intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2024 (Pictured)
A new report by the Pentagon revealed China’s ability to strike the US with nuclear weapons
The Pentagon believes this buildup is part of China’s plan to have over 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, making their forces more ready for quick counterattacks if they detect incoming threats.
It’s the latest sign tensions are inching closer to a breaking point as China and the US battle for influence over Asia.
According to the Department of War, China’s big-picture goal is to become a global superpower by 2049, with a world-class military that can protect its interests and ‘rejuvenate’ the nation, including taking control of places like Taiwan that it claims still belongs to the communist nation.
The Chinese Communist Party is believed to see keeping its power, growing their economy, and defending territorial claims as its ‘core interests’ that it will never compromise with the US on, no matter what.
The new report warned that China is building up its military to be ready to invade or blockade Taiwan by 2027, practicing large exercises that include long-range strikes which could also hit US forces trying to help.
Pentagon officials also noted that China believes there is bipartisan agreement in the US Congress to ‘contain’ their rise, with the Chinese growing more and more frustrated with America’s alliances throughout Asia, specifically with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.
Despite growing tensions that have led to nuclear weapons being armed, a senior official from the Department of War told the Daily Mail the White House and Pentagon are working to deescalate the situation.
‘President Trump seeks a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China. The Department of War will support the President’s intent by opening a wider range of military-to-military communications with the People’s Liberation Army and seeking other ways to make clear our peaceful intentions,’ the senior official said in a statement.
The report to the US Congress also revealed China’s missile bases and other military assets
China is believed to have the world’s third largest nuclear warhead stockpile, behind Russia and the US (Stock Image)
A 2024 report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a nonprofit global policy think tank, revealed that there were 12,121 nuclear warheads scattered across nine nations.
Those nuclear-armed countries included the US, Russia, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the UK.
Russia still outnumbered the US by several hundred warheads.
However, the two nations controlled roughly 88percent of this global stockpile, with Russia reportedly holding 5,580 bombs and the US possessing 5,044.
China has been among a group of five countries, including Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea, that have been quietly increasing their nuclear stockpiles over the past 40 years.
The new report by the Pentagon put China’s current count of nuclear warheads in the ‘low 600s,’ meaning the growing military power in Asia is expected to increase that number by roughly 100 per year this decade.
The Department of War declined to comment further regarding their level of concern over China’s nuclear weapons program.
TECHNOLOGY
Sauron, the high-end home security startup for “super premium” customers, plucks a new CEO out of Sonos
When Kevin Hartz’s security system failed to alert him as an intruder rang his doorbell and tried to enter his San Francisco home late one night, the serial entrepreneur decided existing solutions weren’t good enough. His co-founder Jack Abraham had experienced similar frustrations at his Miami Beach residence.
In 2024, they launched Sauron — named after the sinister, all-seeing eye from “The Lord of the Rings” — to build what they envisioned as a military-grade home security system for tech elites. The concept resonated in Bay Area circles, where crime had become a constant topic during and after the pandemic, despite San Francisco Police Department statistics showing property crime and homicide rates declining last year.
The startup raised $18 million from executives behind Flock Safety and Palantir, defense tech investors including 8VC, Abraham’s startup lab Atomic, and Hartz’s investment firm A*. It came out of stealth exactly a year ago, promising to launch in the first quarter of 2025 with a system combining AI-driven intelligence, advanced sensors like LiDAR and thermal imaging, and 24/7 human monitoring by former military and law enforcement personnel.
But a year later, Sauron is still very much in development mode — a reality that its new CEO, Maxime “Max” Bouvat-Merlin, acknowledged candidly in a recent interview with TechCrunch.
After nearly nine years at Sonos, including a stint as chief product officer, Bouvat-Merlin took the helm of Sauron just last month. He’s spending his first days on the job finalizing fundamental questions: which sensors to use, how exactly the deterrence system will work, and when the company can realistically get products into customers’ homes.
The answer to that last question? Later in 2026 at the earliest — a significant delay from the original timeline.
“We’re in the development phase,” Bouvat-Merlin said. “You’ll see a phased approach where we get our solution to market as a stepping stone. All the different components — our concierge service, our AI software running on servers, our smart cameras — are building blocks coming together in a plan we just put in place very recently.”
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Still, Bouvat-Merlin sees striking parallels between Sauron and Sonos, which both target wealthy customers first, rely on word-of-mouth growth, and combine complex hardware with sophisticated software. “I had lunch with John MacFarlane, the founder of Sonos, a few weeks ago,” Bouvat-Merlin said. “All the topics he was thinking about when starting Sonos were exactly the same topics we’re discussing at Sauron.”
Both companies faced the same strategic questions: Start with super-premium customers or mass premium? Professional installation or DIY? Build everything in-house or partner with an ecosystem? “We might make different decisions, but the questions are very similar,” he said.
The security problem
Bouvat-Merlin says he was drawn to Sauron by both the mission and an opportunity to solve a real customer problem. “Securing people’s homes is important, but I also like the deterrence aspect — changing people’s minds before they make a bad decision and get into trouble,” he said.
His research showed that market leaders in premium home security have small market shares and negative Net Promoter Scores. “People are not happy with their solutions today,” he said. “There are so many false positives that when law enforcement is called, they don’t respond because they assume it’s a false alarm.”
The company is targeting customers “where safety and security is a major concern” — people like Hartz. The plan is to start with this premium segment, establish a reputation for supporting demanding clients, then expand to what Bouvat-Merlin calls “mass premium.”
The problem (that’s still taking shape)
So what exactly is Sauron building? The answer is still evolving. The offering starts with camera pods containing multiple sensors — “40 cameras and different types of sensors, potentially LiDAR and radar, potentially thermal,” Bouvat-Merlin said. These pods connect to servers running machine learning software for computer vision, all linked to a 24/7 concierge service staffed by former military and law enforcement personnel.
“Those people understand patterns,” he said. “They’re good at helping us mature our machine learning solution and train our system to detect weird behaviors.”
The deterrence system remains somewhat vague. Options being considered include loudspeakers, flashing lights, and other methods. But Bouvat-Merlin emphasized that deterrence should begin before someone enters a property, detecting when homes are being surveilled, noticing cars circling neighborhoods multiple times, and identifying threats at each stage.
“The more upfront we are with deterrence, the more we can convince people this is the wrong house to rob and the wrong decision to make,” he said.
As for the drones mentioned when Sauron first took the wraps off its plans last year, Bouvat-Merlin declined to say much. “These are roadmap conversations. I don’t want to go too deep at this point because there are so many things we could do, but we’re such a small company,” he said. He added that, bigger picture, the focus is on growing the ecosystem through partnerships rather than reinventing the wheel.
Timeline and business model
With fewer than 40 employees, Sauron plans to hire just 10 to 12 more in 2026. The company will also begin working with early adopters later in 2026, with a Series A fundraise planned for mid-year.
“Raising a Series A is not about raising because we have to — it’s because we want to,” Bouvat-Merlin said. “I want to make sure we’re showing progress and explaining how we’ll use extra funds to accelerate growth, [including to] launch our first end-to-end product, drive customer adoption, and accelerate the roadmap.”
The company has already attracted a significant list of prospective clients, he said, thanks to work by Sauron’s three founders, which include roboticist and engineer Vasumathi Raman. “We expect the strategy initially to be word of mouth, then grow differently over time.”
But Bouvat-Merlin is cautious about growth. “I want to make sure we grow sustainably and keep the experience and service premium over time,” he said. “I want to manage growing pains as much as possible while driving profitability.”
The surveillance state question
Facial recognition and privacy concerns loom large for a surveillance-heavy product. Bouvat-Merlin outlined one approach: a trust-based system where homeowners grant access to specific people. “I granted you access to my house, so now you’re in the trusted group. When you come, I detect it’s you and you’re allowed in. Everyone else is an unknown person,” he said, painting a picture of a likely scenario.
License plate detection is also being considered for identifying cars circling neighborhoods multiple times. “How do we assess if that’s a threat? The ex-military and ex-law enforcement team will be really good at helping mature our machine learning solution,” he said.
Either way, Bouvat-Merlin is confident in the opportunity ahead. Home security market is fragmented. ADT leads with roughly 18% market share, with competitors holding small pieces. “A lot of companies started as traditional security companies and are trying to add tech,” Bouvat-Merlin said. “We’re looking at it from the opposite angle — we’re a tech startup in San Francisco bringing technology to this market.”
Sauron is also appearing on the scene as concerns rise about crime among the most wealthy. Recent high-profile incidents include a November armed robbery at the home of tech investors Lachy Groom and Joshua Buckley in San Francisco’s Mission District, where $11 million in cryptocurrency was stolen during a 90-minute ordeal involving torture and threats.
“We see people who are wealthy attracting criminals,” Bouvat-Merlin said. “We’ve seen a lot of robberies in San Francisco and other major U.S. cities, sometimes at gunpoint. I don’t think the world is getting safer — there are probably more disparities between people at the top and bottom of the wealth spectrum. We see anxiety from prospective clients who are eager to get their homes secured.”
Still, much remains uncertain about Sauron’s path forward. The company must finalize everything from sensor configurations to manufacturing locations. (Bouvat-Merlin mentioned potentially starting in the U.S. for proximity and control, then moving to more affordable locations as volume grows.)
It must also determine how to serve customers in different settings, from estates with perimeters to dense urban residences, while maintaining premium service quality.
For now, Bouvat-Merlin says he’s focused on listening to his team, building credibility, and finalizing the strategy he’s putting in place. “I don’t demand that people trust me — I want to show them why they should.”
The company expects to share more details about its products later next year.
Local police said they have charged an Illinois driver who struck and killed a pedestrian while she was livestreaming on TikTok.
The New York Times reports that Tynesha McCarty-Wroten, who posts to TikTok under the name Tea Tyme, has been charged by the Zion Police Department with two felonies — reckless homicide and aggravated use of a communications device resulting in death.
In a video that has been reshared by other accounts on TikTok, woman posting as Tea Tyme can reportedly be seen speaking into her phone when there’s a loud thud. An offscreen child asks, “What was that?” then the woman replies, “I hit somebody.”
Surveillance videos reportedly showed McCarty-Wroten’s vehicle entering the intersection while the traffic light was still red, with investigators determining that she did not seem to slow down or change course before striking Darren Lucas, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
McCarty-Wroten’s lawyer told the NYT that evidence will show that “what happened was an accident, was a negligent act, but was not an intentional or reckless act.”
Structured and proper records are critical for successfully organising business meetings. In the absence of adequate notes, it is difficult for teams to establish unity, follow up on communications, or even engage in decision-making.
Here are six reasons why a credible board meeting minutes template improves the organisation of efficient and productive meetings.
1. Creates a Clear Structure for Recording Key Points
Minutes templates come with a predefined configuration. To put it another way, they offer the writer specific instructions regarding what to record and when to record it. As a result, all of the debated subjects, decisions, and subsequent action points are reported logically.
In addition to this, the template maintains the written data in an organised manner, which makes it simpler to read. There is also a guarantee of clarity following the meeting, thanks to the structured data. A reader does not need to sift through the papers because he or she knows where to look for a particular piece of information.
2. Saves Time During and After Meetings
Using a template helps note-takers save time that would otherwise be spent constructing a layout. Because of this, they are able to concentrate on gathering information rather than making sure that the structure is correct. In the end, recording the minutes of the meeting requires less time and effort than was originally anticipated.
The time-saving nature of templates becomes even more valuable after the meeting. Coherently organised minutes make it much easier to review, check, and distribute.
3. Improves Accuracy and Reduces Missed Details
A suitable template directs the note-taker to all aspects that must be recorded, such as agenda items, motions, votes, points, and so on. This type of guide guarantees the inclusion of all relevant information. As accuracy is guided by the form, a true-to-fact record is achieved in a natural way.
Other than that, accurate minutes enhance strong decision-making. If everything is properly recorded, the team will not forget important details or compromise factual accuracy.
4. Supports Accountability Across the Team
Minutes also simplify the process of assigning tasks and subsequences. Each case item identifies the employee responsible for its performance and provides a clearly defined timeframe for it.
This degree of transparency is motivation for the conclusion and prevents assignments from being neglected. Clarity of duty leads to more productive discussions in the meeting.
5. Helps Maintain Compliance and Proper Documentation
Meeting records are necessary in many organisations for audits, governance, or reporting. A constant template may guarantee that all the necessary information is properly included. It is critical for retaining compliance with internal or external regulations.
Aside from that, a constant paper trail results in a reliable history of decisions and discussions. They can benefit the organisations in terms of long-term planning or performance evaluation.
6. Makes Sharing and Reviewing Minutes Easier
With a consistent structure, minutes are generally more readable for everyone. They are easier for the team members and other people to read since they can locate relevant information in the sections of interest instead of looking through unstructured records.
The writers have all the necessary information in one place, and the minutes can be compiled quickly. This results in efficient collaboration. Additionally, a well-organised cooperative gathering is expected and thus happens as scheduled.
Meetings That Work Smarter, Not Harder
Indeed, Microsoft minutes templates make meetings less about everyone struggling to take notes and more about having clear, purposeful conversations. When everyone leaves knowing exactly what was decided and who is responsible for the next steps, meetings become faster, clearer, and ultimately more productive.
This year, Apple released three new Apple Watch models: the Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch SE 3, and Apple Watch Ultra 3. If you received an Apple gift card over the holidays and are exploring the different models, we can help point you in the right direction.
With its $799 price tag, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is clearly aimed at a niche, high-end market and athletes. For most consumers, the purchasing decision likely lies between the Apple Watch SE 3 and the Apple Watch Series 11, starting at $249 and $399, respectively.
Despite its lower price tag, the Apple Watch SE 3 comes with much of the same software as the Series 11. If you’re looking for a straightforward smartwatch with essential features like step counting and sleep tracking, the SE 3 is an excellent and affordable choice.
While the Series 11 and Ultra 3 offer modest improvements over their predecessors, the SE 3 has received a significant upgrade from the SE 2. The smartwatch jumps from the S8 chip to the S10 and now features an always-on display, supports fast charging, offers better crack resistance, introduces new health features, includes a wrist-temperature sensor for advanced sleep tracking and retrospective ovulation insights, and more.
Image Credits:Apple
Although it’s not as flashy as the Series 11 and Ultra 3, it definitely stands out and packs great value, especially for first-time buyers and younger users. The gap between the standard and budget smart watches has never felt smaller.
Of course, if you want access to more advanced health features, better battery life, and a larger display, the Series 11 would be the better option for your needs. But, it’s worth comparing both models because the SE 3 might be all you need.
We’ll walk you through the similarities and differences between the two smart watches to help inform your decision.
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Similarities between the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch SE 3
Image Credits:Apple
- S10 chip: Both models come with the same chip, which means there won’t be significant differences in performance.
- Always-on Retina display: The watches can display the watch face and time, even when your wrist is down.
- Heart health features: Both watches feature high and low heart rate notifications, irregular rhythm notifications, and low cardio fitness notifications.
- Wrist flick and double tap gestures: Both models let you do a “wrist flick” gesture to dismiss notifications and timers, and a “double tap” gesture to trigger actions like answering calls or playing music.
- Emergency SOS: The watches can quickly call local emergency services, share your location, and notify your emergency contacts once you press and hold the side button.
- Fall detection and crash detection: Both watches can automatically alert emergency services and designated emergency contacts when a hard fall or severe car crash is detected.
- Water resistant to 50 meters: Both watches can be used for swimming.
- Sleep tracking: Both models feature sleep tracking, sleep tracking notifications, and Apple’s new Sleep score, which gives you a number on a scale of 1 to 100 for how well you slept. They both also have temperature sensing, which can provide insight into your well-being by tracking nightly changes in your wrist temperature.
- Cycle tracking with retrospective ovulation estimates: The watches can determine when you most likely ovulated in your previous cycle.
- Fast charging capabilities: Both watches are fast-charge capable (up to 80% charge in about 30 minutes for the Series 11 and up to 80% charge in about 45 minutes for the SE 3; 15 minutes for up to eight hours of normal use for both models).
- Find iPhone: Both watches let you press a button to play a sound on your iPhone to help you locate it. However, the Series 11 does feature “precision finding,” which means it can pinpoint the exact location of your phone.
Differences between the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch SE 3
- Battery life: The Series 11 can last up to 24 hours (28 hours in low-power mode), while the SE can last up to 18 hours (32 hours in low-power mode).
- Health features: The Series 11 comes with more advanced health tracking features, including hypertension notifications (detects high blood pressure), an electrical heat sensor, an ECG app, and Blood Oxygen app.
- Screen and display: The Series 11 can reach up to 2000 nits, while the SE 3 goes up to 1000 nits. Plus, the Series 11 features a wide-angle OLED, while the SE 3 has a simple OLED display.
- Size: The Series 11 is available in 46mm and 44mm sizes with aluminum or titanium cases, while the SE 3 comes in 44mm and 40mm sizes with an aluminum case. Additionally, the Series 11 is almost 10% thinner than the SE 3.
- Color: The Series 11 comes in aluminum colors: Jet Black, Silver, Rose Gold, and Space Gray, and titanium colors: Natural, Gold, and Slate. The SE 3 comes in Midnight Aluminum and Starlight Aluminum.
- Other smaller differences: The Series 11 comes with a depth gauge to six meters, a water temperature sensor, 1 nit minimum brightness (vs 2 nit minimum brightness on the SE 3), and certified IP6X dust resistance.
TECHNOLOGY
Team of South Korean scientists find evidence dark energy may end our universe in a ‘Big Crunch’
A team of South Korean scientists have discovered evidence that dark energy may end the universe in what astronomers have called a ‘Big Crunch’.
Analysis suggests that instead of the universe continuing to expand, galaxies could be pulled back together via gravity.
Scientists who conducted the analysis believe they could be on the cusp of one of the most major discoveries in astronomy for decades.
Other astronomers have questioned the findings, however, but are unable to completely rule them out.
Previously, astronomers believed that the expansion of the universe, which kicked off with the Big Bang, should gradually slow down due to gravity.
But in 1998 evidence for dark energy was discovered as a force speeding up the expansion of the universe.
Theories suggested that the expanding universe would spread the stars so far apart that almost nothing would be visible to us in the sky at night.
Meanwhile, other theories suggested that it might even tear atoms apart, in what was described as a ‘Big Rip’.
A team of South Korean scientists have discovered evidence that dark energy may end the universe in what astronomers have called a ‘Big Crunch’ (Stock photo)
The Big Crunch could ‘suck’ the universe back in on itself. Above, a NASA animation still frame which depicts two neutron stars colliding, produced by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
In March, surprising results from an instrument on a telescope in the Arizona desert, named the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (Desi), were collected.
Data suggested that acceleration of the galaxies had changed over time, according to Professor Ofer Lahav of University College London.
He told the BBC: ‘Now with this changing dark energy going up and then down, again, we need a new mechanism. And this could be a shake up for the whole of physics.’
Prof Young Wook Lee, of Yonsei University in Seoul, and his team returned to the kind of supernova data that first revealed dark energy nearly three decades ago.
Adjustments made by the team suggested that not only had dark energy changed over time, but that the acceleration was in fact slowing down.
Professor Lee said: ‘The fate of the Universe will change.’
If dark energy is really weakening, then one possibility is that it becomes so weak that gravity starts to pull the galaxies back together.
This would mean a Big Crunch is possible.
TKTK. Above, a nighttime photo of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) installed at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona
However, the mainstream view is still that the Universe is accelerating with virtually unchanging dark energy.
Senior astronomers such as Professor George Efstathiou of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University have disputed Professor Lee’s theory.
Professor Efstathiou branded the idea ‘weak’, adding he thought the idea was ‘just reflecting the messy details of supernovas’.
The rebuttal comes amid the publication of hundreds of scientific papers and disagreement amongst experts as to the best explanation for the universe’s origin.
For most people on Earth, the first signs of the Big Crunch would be in the sky, with galaxy clusters and galaxies merging, or stars beginning to collide with each other.
Telescopes would show that the cosmic microwave background (a fossil echo of the Big Bang) was warming up — and would soon reach thousands of degrees Celsius.
For comparison, the current temperature of this background microwave radiation is just under 3 degrees above ‘absolute zero’ or ‘negative 273.15 degrees Celsius,’ according to the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA and other experts.
Roughly 300,000 years after the Big Bang, this cosmic microwave background is estimated to have been 3,000 degrees Celsius; and farther back in time, closer to the Big Bang itself, NASA estimates that its heat was as high as 273 million degrees.
‘At these high temperatures,’ according to NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe team, ‘hydrogen was completely ionized into free protons and electrons.’
In short, the forces which currently make the universe expand would fizzle out and the universe would fall in on itself, in an obscene reversal of the Big Bang.
All intergalactic matter would condense together with stars and planets sucked into a burning core where the surface of stars would ignite other celestial bodies.
Eventually, the universe itself would become a single, vast fireball, at least according to some astronomers and astrophysicists, with all living things incinerated, and time and space itself wiped out of existence.
Nalden, who co-founded the file transfer service WeTransfer in 2009 along with Rinke Visser and Bas Beerens, is not pleased with the company’s direction after the service was acquired by Bending Spoon last year — and he doesn’t mince his words about it.
“Bending Spoons doesn’t really care about people, and even though I get that it is their private equity strategy, I notice that since I left [WeTransfer] in 2019, there were a lot of updates that were basically killing the product, in my point of view,” he told TechCrunch.
Post-acquisition, WeTransfer made a confusing move related to transfer link experiences and laid off 75% of its staff. This year, the company was caught in a controversy around using its users’ content to train AI models and had to backtrack on changes to its terms.
Around this time, Nalden had creatives reaching out to share their frustration with WeTransfer. He realized that he wanted to build an alternative to WeTransfer with the original ethos of the service around simplicity. The service is called Boomerang, and you can use it to transfer files without logging in.
“Why do tech companies always make things so complicated? I’ve always struggled with this, and I just wanted to offer another tool that is just, it’s all about user experience, it’s ease of use, it’s the simplicity of sharing something quickly, and that just saves time. You don’t need to sign up, you don’t need to verify via email,” Nalden told TechCrunch about the ethos of the service.
Image Credits: Boomerang
For casual users, the non-login experience would be sufficient, but it has its limits. You can have 1GB of total space, and upload files of up to 1GB in size with a seven-day expiration. If you want a bit more, you can choose to create a free account. That will get you 3GB of total space with a file upload limit of 3GB per file. You’ll asl get access to your upload history, the ability to add and delete files anytime, and the ability to customize emojis on the page while sending the file.
If you want even more, there is a €6.99 per month paid tier, which will give you 200GB per space (folders) and 500GB total storage with a file upload limit of 5GB per file. Plus, you’ll get custom covers for spaces, password protection for files, up to 90 days of expiry, and the ability to invite unlimited users to access files in a space.
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Image Credits: boomerang
Nalden is clear that with this new service, he doesn’t want to offer advertising to users and keep a simple structure for payment. He feels that there is a lot of complexity in the advertising business, and with Boomerang, he wants to get the least amount of data he can from users.
“I just want to offer a tool that works for users. It’s like buying a hammer. You possibly don’t want to buy a fancy hammer, but a hammer that just works,” he noted.
Boomerang’s site and interface are barebones, and that is by design. Nalden noted that a lot of design is to please investors, and he feels that stripping down the experience is a refreshing change. While companies are looking to add more and more AI features, Nalden said that he is largely using AI to build the product, but he doesn’t want to use it around user-facing features.
Boomerang is available on the web, but the company said it is planning to release a dedicated Mac app soon.
TECHNOLOGY
From that bird guy to ‘bus aunty’: the real social media personalities rising above AI slop | Social media
For years, social media fame has been associated with the red carpet glamour of the Kardashians and Cristiano Ronaldo’s megawatt sporting celebrity, but millions of users globally are increasingly turning their attention to unassuming heroes drawn from everyday life.
TikTok says a range of accounts, from a bird enthusiast to an Italian grandmother and a doubledecker bus fan, have grown in popularity this year as social media users latch on to authentic voices.
A Cotswolds-based pensioner has become an Instagram hit thanks to his posts celebrating his garden – including a fondness for red cabbage. Gerald Stratford, who has 370,000 followers, has starred in a photoshoot for Gucci off the back of his grassroots success.
Gerald Stratford, who is a fan of red cabbage. Photograph: @stratfordgerald/Instagram
Rowland Smith, the creative director at Billion Dollar Boy, a UK-based advertising agency that works with creators, says Stratford is an example of the authenticity and passion that online audiences are seeking as their channels become overwhelmed with AI-generated “slop”.
Pointing out that the demand for everyday content appears to have increased this year, he says: “We are getting a lot of AI content on social media and I think this is an antidote to that. A lot of material like Gerald’s has an educational element as well. Audiences are wanting to get more out of their feeds than just scrolling every three seconds.”
TikTok is viewed as a good platform for lesser known creators because its algorithm prioritises relevance and resonance over celebrity, according to Smith.
“Audiences are becoming quite fatigued with polished, overly stylised creator content. We are starting to see a push away from it.”
At this year’s TikTok awards for UK and Ireland, the platform handed the Voice for Change gong to Tola and Kevin Andu, a mother and son, for their @raisingkevin_ account, which documents Kevin’s journey as a young autistic man. Badged “autism joy”, the videos detailing 20-year-old Kevin’s daily experiences, from trying new foods to having a job, receive millions of views. The account has more than 700,000 followers.
Left to right: Tola Andu, Kevin Andu and a guest at the TikTok awards where they won the Voice for Change award. Photograph: Nicky J Sims/Getty Images
Tola says Kevin’s online popularity has given him opportunities that have “truly changed his life”, including a permanent job. “I’m incredibly proud because I remember the nights I lay awake worrying about him, what his future will look like and worried sick about if the world would ever understand and accept him,” she said. “So now to see millions of people choosing to follow his journey and celebrate him is an answered prayer for me.”
Elsewhere on TikTok in the UK, “bus aunty” Bemi Orojuogun and the ornithologist Jack Baddams have proved popular.
Jack Baddams with a feathered friend. Photograph: @jabaddams/TikTok
“When people have a niche and are passionate about it, it tends to blow up,” Smith says.
In the US, unlikely creator hits on TikTok include the seventysomething identical twins Wayne and Dwayne Haneline, who were a singing duo before serving in the Vietnam war and have returned to entertaining several decades later. Their unique take on AC/DC’s Back in Black has had nearly 80m views alone. Another popular US veteran is Asena Johnson, from Hawaii, who posts about post-army life and Samoan and Tongan culture.
In Europe, Nonna Silvi, an 84-year-old from Tuscany, has become a hit with posts from her son’s bakery. She now offers her own line of bakery products. Solange Fugger, another Italian creator, has won plaudits for her educational videos as the youngest head of the emergency department at a major hospital in Rome. She has 600,000 followers.
Madolyn Grove, the head of creators at TikTok for the UK and Ireland, said the creativity of “everyday people” had captured the hearts of users this year.
For the last few years, I wore either an analog watch or Xiaomi Band 6 for basic step tracking and time. I didn’t opt for an Apple Watch because I wasn’t constantly active, I didn’t feel the need to check my notifications, and I didn’t want to think about charging the watch every day.
This year, I got a chance to test the new Google Pixel Watch 4, which made me feel like I might start wearing smartwatches again.
I have always had a soft spot for circular watches. One of the first smartwatches I owned was the Moto 360, and I loved its rounded design.
The Pixel Watch 4 has a curved domed Actua 360 display with thinner bezels as compared to last year’s watch. I have the 41 mm watch as the test unit, but I would personally opt for the 45mm size for battery and a bigger display. The display is also brighter with 3,000 nits of peak brightness, and that makes it easier to use in daylight.
The battery life is great on the Pixel Watch 4, even with the smaller size. I have managed to get more than a day’s use out of the watch on those days when I have lighter activities.
Image Credits: Ivan Mehta
Though the Pixel Watch 4 has a proprietary charger where you can place the watch on the cradle like a puck, the charging speed makes up for it.
Google advertises that you can charge this watch from 0% to 50% in 15 minutes and from 0% to 100% in 45 minutes. While the real-life timing doesn’t exactly match these numbers, I saw charging times that came close to these figures. The advantage of this rapid charging is that you can always put your watch to charge when you are making a coffee or doing a quick chore within the house, and get enough juice to last you throughout the day.
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I largely used the Google Pixel Watch 4 to track my pickleball sessions and walking. Apart from calorie burns, there were no particular insights into sports-related movement. For the last 15 days, I started going to a gym, and apart from the treadmill and elliptical mode, there aren’t any specialized modes for particular gym equipment. Instead, you have to select from options for things like core training, weights, or a general workout mode, based on the workout you are doing.
The watch does have more features for someone who runs — but that’s not possible in Delhi weather with terrible AQI right now. It also detects cardio workouts after 15 minutes of continuous activities, but while walking, these have been hit or miss for me. Another measure that has been off for me has been floor count. On days, I’ve walked to a cafe, I’ve seen a very high count for that, and on days I have gone up to my terrace multiple times, the number of floors climbed is incorrect.
I am not someone who used to wear my watch or band to sleep. With the Pixel Watch 4, I had to mentally train myself to keep the watch on so I could get a better understanding of sleep and readiness scores. After a few weeks of usage, I regularly wore my watch to sleep. However, you don’t get additional or actionable insights related to sleep or readiness score on the watch in the daily summary. You do get suggestions on the Fitbit app related to readiness, but that’s about it. With fitness apps adding more AI to their apps, Google needs to step up its game.
Image Credits: Screenshot by Techcrunch
Google’s new Material UI design for the watch is refreshing and matches the theme on my Pixel Fold. The weather app is very nice to look at for both hourly and day forecasts. My one gripe is that I wish the exercise app allowed for more than three kinds of workouts to be available through quick start. I could raise my watch to talk to Gemini, which is neat, but beyond starting timers, asking for occasional sports updates, and starting a workout, I have not needed Gemini to be ever-present for me.
I have been a fan of the recent Pixel Watch 4 update that lets me use the pinch gesture to dismiss notifications, play or pause videos or music, or even move my wrist to dismiss calls.
The gripes I had about the watch didn’t bother me in daily usage. The display is fantastic, the software and fitness experience overall are great, and the display, along with the new design, is an upgrade from the last generation. However, the thing that drew me the most to the watch and made me stick to it is the combo of battery life and fast charging.
All in all, the Pixel Watch 4 is one of the best Android smartwatches around.