Wayne Williams

Stardock has released an updated beta of Connection Explorer, the Windows app it first launched a month ago that lets users can see and understand all of the network activity on their PCs. The new update adds additional ways to view bandwidth usage and connection history, giving users a better understanding of where the data is going and -- even more importantly -- why.

Connection Explorer shows every network connection a PC makes in real time and turns background activity into something readable. It allows users to see which apps and processes are communicating online and where those connections terminate.

Kodi 21.3 Omega has just been released, bringing with it a range of fixes and improvements. It is the first update since January for the hugely popular home theater software, coming ahead of the launch of Kodi 22 Piers, which is expected to arrive early 2026.

For a lot of users, running Kodi on an Amazon Fire TV Stick (or Firestick as it’s better known) is the best way to enjoy the software and everything it has to offer, giving users access to a wide array of streaming services and media libraries.

The Kodi Foundation is still hard at work on Kodi 22 'Piers', with a second Alpha release expected soon. The team hasn’t forgotten Kodi 21 users however, and a new build for that branch has just arrived.

Kodi 21.2 'Omega' was released back in January, and now the Kodi Foundation has rolled out a new build, Kodi 21.3, with a raft of changes, fixes and improvements. This is what’s new:

Google is expanding the translation features in Search and its Translate app with new systems built on the Gemini AI model. The update introduces improved text translation and a beta version of live speech translation in headphones, giving users clearer and more natural results and bringing the experience closer to a real-world Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The new text translation system uses Gemini 3 to handle idioms, slang, and local expressions with more context awareness. This lets the app produce translations that are closer to natural speech rather than direct word swaps.

Companies are adopting AI quickly, but most still overlook the energy impact of the systems they use daily. New research suggests this gap is now large enough to affect electricity use in offices, data rooms and commercial buildings. Energy specialists say the problem could be turned into an opportunity -- if firms pay attention to how their AI tools work in practice.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation has published early findings from its AI Company Data Initiative, known as AICDI. The new study examines AI governance disclosures from 1,000 companies in 13 sectors. Built with UNESCO, it is described as the largest dataset that tracks how firms explain and oversee their use of AI.

Huawei has taken the wraps off its Mate X7 foldable phone at a new "Unfold the Moment" event in Dubai. The new device features a slimmer profile and a hinge system designed for repeated daily use. The Mate X7 comes in a nano fiber woven-style Brocade White finish, with vegan leather versions in Nebula Red and Black also available.

Huawei has made a number of improvements to its camera system, including the addition of new Ultra Lighting HDR Camera, an Ultra-Wide Camera and a Telephoto Macro Camera, as well as second generation True to Color Camera, which promises 43 percent better color accuracy. Video can be recorded at up to 17.5 EV HDR to capture brighter highlights and more shadow detail.

As the old saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. AI generated video is already absolutely everywhere, and you're about to start seeing a lot more of it -- this time featuring a host of well known Disney characters. The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI have agreed a new deal that brings characters from the House of Mouse’s many brands to Sora.

The partnership links Disney’s library with OpenAI’s video generation tools and gives fans new ways to create and watch short clips. If you've ever wondered how Lady and the Tramp would react to sharing a meal with Pumbaa, you'll soon be able to find out.

Generative AI is often praised for its ability to analyze data, summarize research and even propose scientific ideas, but new findings suggest its creative limits are more substantial than many of the exciting headlines imply.

Research led by Professor Amy Wenxuan Ding of emlyon business school and Professor Shibo Li of Indiana University found that while GenAI can imitate the process of science, it cannot yet produce the imaginative leaps that drive true discovery. In their study, which you can read here, a computer simulated experiment challenged ChatGPT-4 to solve a real genetics puzzle, asking it to propose hypotheses, design lab experiments and revise its thinking as results unfolded.

Two months after its invite-only debut, Opera’s experimental agentic browser, Opera Neon, is now available for anyone to download and try out. Neon is designed for people who want to work with emerging AI tools as soon as they become available.

The software has been in a closed "Founders phase" since early October, and the removal of the waitlist means anyone can now sign up to use it for $19.90 a month.

Stardock has rolled out an update for its popular Fences desktop organization tool. The program creates grouped areas on the Windows desktop for managing icons, folders, and automation rules, and version 6.20 introduces new interaction options along with fixes that address behavior in both single and multi display setups.

The update's biggest new addition is a "click to open" option for Rollup Fence groups. These groups normally expand when the mouse passes over them, occasionally leading to accidental openings. The feature can now be set to require a click instead, or have the group open only if the pointer pauses briefly over the area, offering a slower hover response.

Firewalla has announced Firewalla Orange, a portable multi-gigabit firewall and WiFi 7 router built to bring Zero Trust protection to networks in homes, offices, and travel setups. It’s the latest product in the company’s range of cybersecurity devices that includes Firewalla Purple and Firewalla Gold SE.

The new product delivers an advanced security stack that includes intrusion prevention, VqLAN microsegmentation, device isolation, GEO-IP filtering, VLAN support, and Active Protect rules that shut down threats in real time. It’s rated for more than 2Gbps of packet processing, so can support cloud services, smart home devices, and remote work activity.

Adobe has launched Photoshop, Adobe Express and Acrobat inside ChatGPT, giving the AI platform’s 800 million weekly users direct access to its most popular creative and productivity tools.

The integration combines Adobe’s image editing knowhow with ChatGPT’s conversational interface, allowing people to edit photos, design content and transform documents simply by describing what they want to do.

Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) has announced the US retail availability of the Raikiri II Xbox Wireless controller, the company’s first Xbox certified wireless gamepad. On sale through Best Buy, it supports Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Windows PCs, and several of Asus' handheld systems including the ROG Ally and Ally X.

The controller uses tunneling magnetoresistance joysticks rather than traditional mechanical designs in order to reduce drift and improve motion accuracy and energy efficiency. It promises a 1000Hz polling rate in both wired and 2.4GHz wireless modes on PC, supported by ROG's SpeedNova wireless technology, which reduces input latency.

Cybersecurity experts are offering warnings about the year ahead, and while they come from different backgrounds and companies, their predictions all point to AI changing the nature of attacks, speeding up intrusions and forcing defenders to rethink how they work.

Most analysts expect 2026 to be the first time that AI-driven incidents outpace what the majority of teams can respond to manually, and some see the biggest changes coming from attackers who use fully autonomous systems.

Kioxia has taken the wraps of the Exceria Pro G2 SSD, a new flagship in its Exceria personal SSD range. The drive targets enthusiasts and professional users who need very high throughput from PCIe 5.0 storage, and uses the the Japanese memory maker’s BiCS Flash TLC 3D memory and an updated performance controller.

The Exceria Pro G2 reaches sequential read speeds of up to 14,900MB/s and write speeds of up to 13,700MB/s, placing it among the fastest consumer SSDs announced to date. The drive also promises solid random read and write performance, reaching up to 2.3m random read IOPS and 1.95m random write IOPS, which helps improve responsiveness when handling large projects, media assets, and modern games.