While the Harry Potter movies released between 2001 and 2011 were made by Warner Bros, and upcoming series is the work of HBO. That means new everything, from the cast to the sets and, yes, even the logo designs. The new symbols for the Hogwarts houses of Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff look very different to those used in the movies. But are they really a glow down?

The movies' take on the Hogwarts house symbols took inspiration from classical family crests, complete with healm, shield and mantle. The HBO Hogwarts designs are simpler and more readable, with larger mascots placed on medieval-looking circles with less fussy ornamentation.

For some readers, modern corporate minimalism has entered the magical realm of Hogwarts. Some called the new designs "basic", "uninspiring" and even "AI-like".

"This franchise has way to big of a following to be cutting corners for cost," one reader complains.

Others picked apart the consistency of the new design language.

"I don't like that the scroll shape goes in a different direction for each animal, and Slytherin looks like a little upside down mushroom on the left bottom 'scroll'," one person wrote. "Us artists like details and none of these details are uniform, the HufflePuff circle is even a different color!"

There were also suggestions that the problem isn't the design per se but HBO's insistence on "remaking something that doesn't need remaking".

But others argue that the new designs are actually more historically accurate to Hogwarts’ founding era.

"According to lore, Hogwarts was founded around 990 AD – the late Anglo-Saxon period in Britain," one reader wrote by email. "Classical heraldry (featuring heater shields, knightly helmets, and elaborate mantling like those in the films) did not exist in the 10th century; it only emerged across Western Europe in the 12th to 14th centuries. In 990 AD, institutional emblems were preserved on round wax seals, carved wooden boss rings, or circular metal brooches."

"While the film crests represented a late-medieval or early-modern interpretation of heraldry, HBO's circular roundels offer a style that feels far more grounded in the Anglo-Saxon origins of Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff. Beyond correcting Ravenclaw’s eagle mascot, the simplified circular framing reflects the exact medium a 10th-century founder would have actually used."

That's a great point, but it also raises a question. Would the Hogwarts houses not have rebranded at least once in over 1,000 years of history?

Another reader has a possible explanation for the longevity of their brand assets: "They are also magic, so they could very well have been charmed to not age and be the very ones used since the founding of the school."

I think that's a nice new contribution to Potter lore.

Now here's the trailer for the series.

Few games remain ingrained in the memory, but the ones that do tend to have some strange hook that refuses to disappear, and for me, Apidya' has always been one of those games because, even after all these years, I can still picture that robotic wasp flying through the undergrowth, shooting insects, fish and all manner of wiggly things crawling out of a decaying rat carcass.

It's an image that stuck, partly because the Amiga was very good at producing this sort of thing in the early '90s (read our retro game console guide), when a developer could take a familiar shoot-'em-up template and dress it up in imaginative new ways, and partly because Apidya' really is quite odd when you step back and look at it. Underneath all that insect life, though, this is a straightforward Gradius-inspired shooter, with waves of enemies coming at you, power-up options running along the bottom of the screen and a steadily expanding arsenal of power shots, split lasers, drones and more being tapped into when you need them.

That basic design still works, and playing Apidya' Special on Switch 2 (it's releasing on Switch), I found myself enjoying the shooting more than I expected, because the remaster offers several ways to take the edge off without ruining the feel. You can extend your lives, continue from where you died and, most usefully, choose to keep your power-ups after losing a life, which means you don't get that familiar old-school shooter experience of making one stupid mistake and then having to fight your way back from practically nothing.

Apidya' Special is pure '90s weirdness

Those new play options make a big impact, because Apidya' still has plenty of those cruel 1990s game design ideas designed to catch you out, including a sewer pipe stage that flips the screen and your controls. It's a weird design decision that feels completely of its time, likely because the Amiga could flip and push pixels around, so the original developer, Kaiko, did it without really thinking about whether it should; ultimately, it adds to what made Apidya memorable in the first place.

The remaster even adds in some new ideas, such as Night Mode and randomised new enemy waves – there's new co-op too – all adding to the sense that this is a release that understands the original's personality.

The pixel art is a big part of that sense of identity, and Apidya' Special gets the remastering job right because it doesn’t overcook the new designs; in fact, it's remade them from the original 1992 Amiga assets and built on a proprietary engine, not Unity or Unreal, including unreleased assets intended for a cancelled 1990s console port. Those original Amiga graphics still hold up, while the updated pixel art gives everything more definition and clarity; the insect designs remain strange, the environments retain that grubby organic quality, and, importantly, the new pixel art, if you flip to modern visuals, doesn't bury the original ideas under layers of effects and unnecessary detail. You can tweak things with CRT shaders, bloom, and authentic scanline simulation too, so there's plenty for retro game fans.

That remaster restraint shows as the game moves away from its early nature-themed stages of grass and rivers and introduces more mechanical designs that feel lifted from R-Type, because retro remasters often keep adding detail until the original's clarity vanishes. Apidya' Special avoids that, keeping the sprites readable and letting the designs do the work, which is especially welcome in the later stages when things become increasingly busy.

But for all the personality in the art and setting, the actual structure of Apidya' rarely strays too far from Konami's Gradius template. You learn enemy patterns, choose when to take a power-up, try to keep your weapon setup intact for the big moments, and while Apidya' throws in enough strange micro-world insect-y ideas to keep things interesting, it never really feels as though it's trying to reinvent the genre.

That isn't necessarily a criticism, because the shooting remains solid and there's a pleasant rhythm to working through the stages, but it does mean the game lives or dies on how much you enjoy that old-school formula, and for me the answer is still mostly yes. The controls feel good, the pace works, and there's enough variation in the weapon system to make the power-ups feel tactical.

Boss encounters are equally nicely pitched, and feel more creative and weird than the usual shooters of the era – whether it’s the massive pike, laser-firing oyster or maggot-infested dead rat, they are odd, even if how you battle them is fairly rudimentary – sit screen-left and shoot. Don’t expect any complex memory tests or staged surprises; what you see is what you get.

That '90s pacing and skill test can mean bosses and some in-stage surprises lead to wild difficulty spikes, where out of the blue the game’s wave design and screen-flipping punish you abruptly. This is where Apidya' Special reveals its age, and it can be disarming to play games from the 90s like this, because they really didn’t hold back. It’s also a reason why the game is fairly short – just five stages that loop (with secret stages too) – because the imbalance means there’s hell to pay, and stages and bosses can be hard going (but you do have the game options to make life easier).

Still, I think that's why this remaster works, because Apidya' Special doesn't need to convince me that Apidya was secretly one of the great lost shooters of the Amiga era. It wasn't – hello SWIV, Disposable Hero, Battle Squadron, Silkworm, Turrican 2 – and pretending otherwise would probably miss the point. It's a very good ‘90s shoot-'em-up, heavily indebted to Konami, with some solid mechanics and a handful of ideas that haven't aged quite as well, but wrapped around all of that is this wonderfully peculiar world that still feels unlike anything else.

There are plenty of technically better shooters from this period, plenty with more demanding bosses and deeper systems, but I don't remember those games in such the same way as the Gradius-clone where you controlled a wasp and battled a praying mantis. Apidya' has always had that going for it, and Apidya' Special understands that its best move is to preserve the weirdness and not mess with the formula – the appeal was always in that bizarre combination of familiar Konami shooting and insect-infested design, and after spending time with it again, I'm glad it's not been tidied up too much.

But AI image generators have been getting progressively better at replicating photorealism, and it's not always so easy to tell that an image is fake, leading to fears about how easily AI can be to spread lies online.

Take the image in the post on X below. There are lots of things wrong with the image. But can you spot them?

At first glance the image above looks like a photo of a mundane everyday scene at a courier officer, which appears to be handling shipment of a 50in TV. There's even a bit of motion blur on one of the person's hands.

"Can you figure out why this picture is not real without using a detector?" was the challenge laid down by AI researcher Henk van Ess. Take a moment to see how many clues you can spot.

Those commenting have noticed many anomalies in the image. Firstly, the TV's measurements. AI image generators might now be able to handle text, but it seems they're not too hot doing conversions between metric and imperial because 50 inches are not the same as 144cm.

Moreover, judging by its relative size compared to the floor tiles and the person in the image, the box wouldn't be large enough to hold a 50in TV (and less a 144cm one). The person also appears to have a third leg, and there are some strange shadows under their left hand.

Looking more closely, there are some perspective errors too. There's something pretty funky going on with the of tiling on the floor in the background. And on the box itself, the edges of the AirPlay/Home labels don’t follow the same vanishing point as the cardboard they’re supposedly printed on – another sign of AI image generation (or some bad Photoshop).

Someone also finds it suspect that this kind of box would be printed with spot colour and CMYK. It's even more suspicious that there's no brand logo on the image of the TV.

And speaking of logos, graphic design nerds like me will also notice that the 'X' of FedEx should be touching the 'E' to form the famous hidden arrow in the logo.

Henk, the original poster, wrote the people-research chapter of the Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting and teaches workshops on verification and AI-assisted research. He also created the Image Whisperer tool, which is designed to help identify AI images.

In an apparent disregard for intellectual property rules (and previous complaints from Japan over unauthorised use of Nintendo IPs like Mario), it even used the Pac-Man, Xbox and Sega logos to promote the games. Alas, less than a week later, one title has been removed, leaving only four of the original five. It seems that the Tetris Company's complaint have carried weight.

When the White House launched Arcade.gov last Wednesday, some people wondered if it was intentionally trying to get sued. Sure enough, The Tetris Company published a statement on its account on X the very next day. It clarified that it was not involved in the creation of the 'Build the Wall' game, and added: "P.P.S. We take copyright infringement very seriously".

Build the Wall was basically Tetris but with a xenophobic back story and some pretty shoddy programming. “Protect the border from the coming horde" the tagline wrote. But the game didn't work properly.

The games that remain on the site include 'Rio Run', a grim reimagining of Snakes where border czar Tom Homan leads a line of illegal immigrants in orange jumpsuits, and Duck Hunt-like 'Trump Savings Tycoon', whose description says "Fill your Kids' Trump Accounts".

Despite the 'America first' rhetoric, the White House social media team seems to have a bit of an obsession with Japanese video game and anime characters. Previous examples include using the Pokémon theme on footage of ICE raids. But its disregard for intellectual property is likely to be worrying American companies too due to its AI-driven free for all.

While big game developers like Nintendo have a reputation for being litigious, most have adopted a surprisingly cowardly silence so far, perhaps worried about getting dragged into debates around politics. Tetris appears to have shown that a company can take a stance and make the message hit home.

I'm talking about the new UGREEN Master Home Agent, which is a local intelligence device that combines local computing, storage, and AI control all in one chunky unit. It's powered by the impressive NVIDIA Jetson Thor robotics platform and will act as a hub for smart home control by responding to natural language.

But what exactly does a Home Agent do? As someone relatively unfamiliar with this territory, I like to think of it as a super-powered Alexa. Essentially, an AI assistant you can communicate with using voice commands and delegate tasks to, like opening the (smart) curtains and controlling devices such as security cameras, smart speakers and digital photo frames.

The pricey $20K Master Agent was met with baffled laughter in the audience when unveiled at the company's showcase, but thankfully, there are two other iterations of UGREEN's Home Agent with slightly more realistic price brackets.

The HA100 model is priced at $1,799, whereas the HA100 Pro is slightly more advanced with a price tag of $5,999. This still seems like an extortionate amount of money for a company claiming to be accessible for everyday consumers, but I guess this is an extraordinary product aimed at premium households needing beefy security.

Other products announced by UGREEN at its showcase event in Berlin included 3 security cameras: the SynCare Indoor Cam ID500 Pro, the SynCare PoE Cam OD600 Pro, and the SynCare Battery Cam OD800 Pro. New additions to the ecosystem also included a UGREEN Gallery E-Paper Smart Frame, plus a Smart Speaker for "Uliya" (try asking a small child to pronounce this correctly).

The other standout product was UGREEN's new MagFlow Pro Magnetic Power Bank with liquid cooling, making it the world's first Qi2 power bank with this technology. Take a look at my video below to catch all of the UGREEN highlights from IFA 2026.

Video: Highlights from IFA with UGREEN

The main selling point of UGREEN's latest tech, and a big spotlight at IFA this year, has been on local AI technology. This prioritises user privacy and requires no internet or cloud-based software to operate, meaning your data, files, and media are stored and safeguarded securely, for your eyes only.

While I think UGREEN's new local AI agent hubs are exciting, I'd say this launch gives the impression that advanced privacy and security at this level is a luxury, as opposed to an accessible necessity for everyday consumers. In any case, the home agent era has arrived and will certainly appeal to a minority.

While there are no strict rules for creating the best movie posters, Diggers' stylised compositions and quirky typography have already earned the film some serious praise – until the latest poster dropped. If you're prone to perfectionism, I'd look away now.

The poster in question features a collage-style image of the near-unrecognisable Cruise against a coloured background. His strange, wide-legged stance and the poster's mix of warm colours and monochrome give it an unconventional retro appeal that shines in its boldness. So what's the issue? Take a look at Cruise's right leg and notice the colour blocking compared to the other side. That's right, folks, we have some asymmetrical sinning going on.

Naturally, it didn't go unnoticed by critics who sounded off on X. "All love but this not being green is pissing me tf off," one X user shared, gesturing to the colour blunder. "I didn't even notice it, and now I'm wondering how I'll sleep tonight... thanks, I guess," one disturbed commenter replied, while another added, "That tiny orange patch is doing an unreasonable amount of emotional damage."

I want to give the benefit of the doubt and say the stylistic decision was a conscious one, and not simply a bodged design. Given the rustic, asymmetric nature of the film's logo, the poster's imperfect design could reflect that. "You're not paying attention to the gesture of the pose, the nuance of spirit. You're too graphic design coded. You need to be more nature coded," one X user countered. "Your idea ruins the balance and the feeling of motion of the background. Let the pros do the job," another wrote.

For more poster design news, check out the Enola Holmes 3 poster that was accused of being AI slop thanks to its countless flaws or take a look at why horror movie poster design has a problem.

Personally, I think the new The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake looks gorgeous, but it also looks very different from the N64 original, with rebuilt environments, much more detailed materials, modern lighting, a free camera and redesigned character models. Naturally, that’s how things should be for a Switch 2 remake of a classic retro game. During this week’s Nintendo Direct reveal, Nintendo producer Eiji Aonuma called it a “faithful interpretation using modern technologies”.

The big reaction from fans who’ve been longing for the return of Ocarina of Time? It looks like an Unreal Engine fan project. That's not necessarily an insult, either, although quite a few people are definitely using it as one.

On Reddit, one fan wrote: “Honestly, I’m not a big fan of how it looks. It looks like a fan project made in Unreal Engine 5 to me,” reads one reaction to the new trailer.

Another fan immediately pushed back, arguing: “We've seen OoT fan remakes in UE5. None of them looked close to this good.”

Ocarina of Time a UE5 fan remake?

I think that’s a better way to look at the comparison. Nobody seriously thinks Nintendo just took somebody's Unreal project and shipped it; the comparison is really about modern game engines: realistic materials, volumetric lighting, soft shadows, detailed vegetation, and all the other bits of rendering wizardry we've got used to seeing in high-end Unreal demos.

Ocarina of Time is absolutely loaded with that stuff now, and while that gives it a new lease of life, it can massage out some of the original’s quirks and personality, or at least, that’s how some fans feel. The problem, for some fans, is what happens when that modern rendering wraps around those very familiar Nintendo character designs.

Young Link in particular has become the focal point of the complaints, with one Reddit reaction saying: “Link looks like one of those creepy dolls. The environment looks great, but the faces are just not working for me.”

You can see why the face is causing so much discussion. Nintendo hasn't turned Link into some completely new interpretation of the character; it appears to have retained the proportions and familiar shapes of the N64 version while giving him dramatically more realistic skin, hair, eyes and lighting. It’s a modern update that can work beautifully in one shot and then look strangely uncanny in the next.

There's a similar complaint about the game's characters more generally, with one fan saying the overall style is working for them but that the faces feel “almost mask-like”.

The other reaction to Ocarina of Time's remake

But here's the other half of the story, and it's a pretty important one because there are plenty of Zelda fans who absolutely love what Nintendo is doing, and after seeing more and more of the remake, I’m sitting comfortably in the ‘I love it’ camp.

One of the most popular reactions to the remake says on the forum: “It is exactly what I predicted, exactly what I wanted, and is the best-case scenario for this remake. Absolutely glorious. Immediate preorder.”

That's a completely different reading of the same footage revealed at the Direct. For these fans, Nintendo hasn't lost the plot at all, and instead there’s a feeling the developer has finally been able to realise the kind of realistic fantasy world Ocarina of Time was attempting to create back in 1998, only this time without the N64 having to render it all through a few blurry textures and a heroic amount of fog.

That's why the environments are getting so much praise, and for me this has been the real star of the remake – beautiful, detailed, pastel-hued grassy fantasy. One current discussion on Reddit describes the remake as “technically incredible”, specifically praising its vegetation, materials and shader work, while still questioning some of the lighting and character rendering.

There’s a good argument here too, as Ocarina of Time wasn't Wind Waker, and it wasn't trying to be a cel-shaded, stylised cartoon, and it wasn't built around deliberately exaggerated character proportions in the same way some later Zelda games were. Nintendo was trying to make Hyrule feel like a convincing 3D fantasy world; it just happened to do that on hardware that couldn’t totally match the ambition. The remake is attempting to make the original vision a reality.

There's also a funny generational thing happening here. Fans who grew up with Ocarina of Time often remember wanting Zelda to look more realistic, more cinematic and more technically impressive, while younger players have grown up with Nintendo's much more stylised approach and aren't necessarily convinced that realism automatically makes Zelda look better.

Which means Nintendo has somehow managed to create a remake that gives one group of fans exactly what they always wanted while giving another group something that feels slightly off. But that's a good place for an Ocarina of Time remake to be, because the environments look spectacular, the original visual ambition is much easier to see, and Nintendo has clearly put an enormous amount of work into rebuilding Hyrule rather than simply giving the N64 game a lick of high-resolution paint.

Nintendo is getting the balance right

I'm less convinced by some of the faces, particularly Young Link, but that's also the bit I'd expect Nintendo to spend the next few months polishing, tweaking and generally trying to make everybody stop staring at his slightly unsettling eyes.

So no, Zelda fans aren't all saying the remake looks bad. They're all saying it looks different, and that difference has split the audience pretty neatly between people seeing the Ocarina of Time they've always imagined and those seeing a very expensive Unreal Engine demo (they’re wrong).

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time launches exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5, 2026.

As well as traditional separates, there are now portable Bluetooth CD players designed for desktop use, and they can be a great, stylish addition to an office or home entertainment setup.

Take the Syitren R300 CD player, which is reduced from $109.99 to $89.99 at Amazon. Available in white or black and brown, it has a retro vibe, yet looks sleek and sophisticated with an aesthetic that leans into the look of some vinyl players. Also supporting mp3, you simply connect it to a speaker or headphones via Bluetooth.

For more options, see our roundup of CD player deals below. If you need something to listen on, see our guide to the best Bluetooth headphones for audiophiles.

Apparently, it'll come in white and dark blue, is loaded with a A20 Pro chip and it will run apps parallel to each other on the main screen. Most key for creatives is that it will reportedly have support for the Apple Pencil stylus – a brilliant decision from Apple.

For those interested in photography, it'll have two 48 MP rear cameras, and then a 12 MP front-facing camera for video calls. Price? From $2,000 to $3,000 (ouch!).

Follow along with all the news today on our Apple event live blog.

And what will it look like?

It was reported yesterday by our neighbour site T3 that accessories brand ESR had published photos of the iPhone Ultra as part of ads on its X feed, joining Spigen and Dbrand in openly showcasing the design. This morning, another brand has done exactly the same thing.

I opened Instagram to find ads from one of my favourite accessories brands, Burga. The images shows some gorgeous cases, complete with the iPhone Ultra. Did the ads team hit "schedule" a day early?

This phone is likely to be a dummy unit, which we have seen online before, but it gives a good sense of what the foldable will look like if you haven't seen it yet. Even better, it shows the ingenuity of the cases Burga has created to fit the folding phone. See the images below.

It's striking to see two separate accessories brands leak in this way, even with plenty of leakers already sharing design snippets in recent weeks, including the colourways for the iPhone 18 range.

Apple may not be happy about brands jumping the gun on their marketing. Cases and covers are typically approved under strict NDAs precisely so they don't reveal hardware before Apple does – but given the dummy units are already out there, this doesn't feel like a huge deal. Either way, for now, the leaks only build the anticipation for what Apple has planned later today.

Thankfully, a new IC travel card mascot is set to take its place – and even better, it's up to the general public to decide who takes the crown. Three adorable little guys are in the running, but given the penguin's 25-year legacy, some fans aren't being so welcoming to the newcomers. Like it or not, mascots are back, and it's time to embrace some fresh faces.

The lineup consists of a squirrel, a rabbit, and what I can only describe as an indistinct, mouselike creature. Each design has its own quirky charm, although I find myself drawn to the doughy innocence of the rabbit, especially in his signature Superman pose.

But the lil' fellas didn't appeal to everyone, particularly fans on Reddit. "What in the Corporate Memphis is this?" one user wrote, sparking a sea of criticism from Penguin purists. "I’m in awe. These are absolutely terrible," one naysayer commented, while another added, "Babe, wake up. New nightmare fuel just dropped."

Does the squirrel sort of remind me of the Scratch logo cat? Yes. Is the mouse-beast's nervous face rubbing off on me and making me slightly anxious? Yes. And why does he have a little guy in his purse? I may never know. But to me, there's something endearing about these strange creatures, and I, for one, believe they all make wonderful successors to the Suica Penguin.

More than an IC card mascot, the Suica Penguin has become a part of Japanese culture, appearing on merchandise and beloved by many. While its retirement will be a cause of grief for many, a brand refresh is well overdue.

It's worth noting that the internet is always pretty resistant to change – you only have to look at the response to Spotify's disco logo or the dreaded Cracker Barrel debacle to see just how bad the criticism can be. If you'd like to have your say, voting is now open on the JR East website.

Due for release in spring 2027 (on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC), Alien Deathstorm bills itself as a horror-FPS, and a sci-fi element could be added to that mix, since it is set in a future in which mankind has colonised other planets. Its action takes place in an off-world colony where things have started to go horribly wrong: an extreme weather event threatens physical damage, and aliens have invaded. The game’s protagonist is an engineer dispatched to fix broken systems while taking out any aliens that hinder those efforts.

Hands-on with Alien Deathstorm

Alien Deathstorm made its first appearance at Gamescom 2026, happily in playable form: I was able to work my way through a 30-minute demo level, providing a tantalising taste of the game. Aesthetically, it may not have been entirely representative, since the level was set in a nuclear power station which had to be brought online. Plus, its action took place at night and in the middle of a raging storm.

This combined to create a great Alien/Aliens-style atmosphere, with a dark, industrial colour palette and underlit areas punctuated by emergency lights – I soon discovered that when under attack by aliens in dark areas, I could throw a flare onto the ground to be able to see them better. Atmospherically, the emphasis was on the game’s horror side, with aliens appearing from darkness providing plenty of jump-scares. Noticeably excellent sound design meant I could often hear them approaching before glimpsing them.

And the weather played into that: in the open air, a constant rainstorm, with accompanying howling wind, ramped up the sense of dread and meant it was a relief to get inside – shades of John Carpenter’s The Thing there, except with snow replaced by a downpour. I soon discovered that Alien Deathstorm even has a move in which I could wipe my character’s helmet-visor – necessary when taking out aliens with melee weapons in front of my face, but also sometimes due to the sheer volume of rainwater accumulating.

So, in the case of Alien Deathstorm, Rebellion has abandoned any form of stylisation (such as, say, Atomfall’s 1950s-style art direction) in favour of realism. While the demo’s nuclear reactor setting was moderately high-tech in places, it felt contemporary rather than futuristic, industrial rather than cyberpunk.

Slick shooting and dangerous aliens

Guided by a remote handler with a Scottish accent (it wouldn’t be a Rebellion game without some British cue, and the game’s foregrounding of the weather could be characterised as another one of those), I started to work my way through the reactor.

It was in pretty bad shape, with some outside walls ripped open to the elements. The first aliens I encountered resembled giant spiders: fast-moving, they came at my face, but I could dispatch them with a single well-timed melee attack. I was equipped with a pistol (with unlimited ammo), an SMG and a shotgun, all of which felt fabulous: the shotgun took eight shells before needing to reload, and the SMG had a satisfyingly high fire rate and pinpoint accuracy.

I had to use a few medical injectors to restore health: while not particularly robust, the aliens were fast, dealt a lot of damage, and moved with a pleasing unpredictability. Before long, I started to encounter an altogether more dangerous class of aliens: large, anthropomorphic, and powerful, with dreadlock-like cranial protrusions that made them slightly reminiscent of the Predator. For those, the shotgun came in handy, especially when the SMG ran out of ammo.

Major puzzle-solving and 3D printing

As I moved around the multi-level reactor, skirting locked doors and working out how to reach my destination via alternative routes, I found some useful machines, most notably Item Stations, which let me 3D-print ammo and medical injectors. The rooms were dotted with crates holding useful resources and occasionally blueprints which, via a Workbench, let me customise my weapons, initially adding ammo capacity to the SMG and shotgun. Rebellion explained that it has gone to town with the weapon customisation, to the extent that the automatic rifle, for example, can be turned into something more akin to either a high-capacity LMG or a sniper rifle – letting players equip themselves according to their preferred play-style.

My peregrinations through the nuclear reactor felt first-principles. In one of the first rooms I entered, I accessed a computer which let me download a map of the facility for the first time, and only when I reached an area entitled Core Control was I able to tap into the reactor’s systems and determine what was specifically wrong with it.

A trip through the room containing the reactor core itself triggered a more determined onslaught from both types of aliens, and as I progressed through the level, they would attack in increasing numbers.

Now armed with a clear objective to sort out the reactor’s venting system, which was malfunctioning, I climbed to the top of the facility, where a gas-flare was visible, and into the middle of an extended period of environmental puzzling in which I had to descend to ground level to switch off a particular venting array, before returning to the top to reboot the system (a zip-line allowed me to zoom back up to the roof).

Now, after hammering in two pressure-pins with melee attacks, I could reinitiate the flarestack by turning the valve – a process which would take a certain amount of time and during which, unsurprisingly, I came under attack from a horde of aliens. And that’s where my time on the demo ran out.

A believable but atmospheric horror-FPS

Having merely played through one of Alien Deathstorm’s levels, it’s impossible to discern how representative it may be of the game as a whole, but I can draw certain conclusions. Atmospherically, it emulates classic films like Alien and The Thing. Its believable, near-future setting and use, for example, of virtual 3D printing in place of crafting adds an unusual air of realism to a game that could easily have succumbed to all manner of sci-fi cliches.

Its determination to use a protagonist who demonstrably isn’t superhuman smacks of survival-horror, yet it also has a super-slick first-person shooter engine. And I found myself really getting into character as an engineer: Alien Deathstorm didn’t do much hand-holding, but I enjoyed figuring out its puzzles, which were grounded in common sense and context. In that respect, it was agreeably reminiscent of something like Half-Life, and if it ends up anywhere near as good as Half-Life, while endowed with thoroughly modern production values, it will be very hard to ignore.

Alien Deathstorm releases for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2027.

This was a task that I really enjoyed, but it was made in a short amount of time, like two or three days. When we first started working on Witchspire, our team was three concept artists, and we were focused on environments. Every day we were doing different speed paintings, so it could be one, two or three maximum environments per day.

They are super quick, and it was very hard in the beginning. But with time we learned how to be quicker in the process and more efficient. And my establishing painting is one of the pictures that started resonating with the artists’ vision and the team. So we just decided to keep it, and it felt very satisfying as it was one of the first pieces that I created.

Then, at the end of the process, we have the final render where this is all animated. The VFX is flowing from their bodies, and all of that is coming together. I don’t know how many creatures I’ve counted, but this has happened for, at the very least, 50 creatures who had an initial concept, and then iterations, before we eventually landed on an approved creature design.

It’s been like a pipeline where, as soon as one step is done, as soon as concept artists are happy, you’re moving on to blocking them out and getting them in-engine. As soon as the 3D art is done, you’re rigging that, and then you’re jumping onto animating it. And to work with so many creatures, you definitely have to have a pipeline in place where that handoff goes quickly.

Louis: What I liked about the process that we used in the team was the back and forth between 2D and 3D, regarding, for example, a house and its architecture. It all starts with a sketch that’s not detailed at all, just to have the feeling of it. It then gets implemented into the game, and a 3D artist modernises it, but it still lacks various details. If it feels good with a very minimal approach, the artists are then asked to do a paintover of it.

They’ll take a screenshot of this 3D model and then refine it, either with a line art or painting, to add more details. Potentially, it can go back and forth a lot of times like this, which is super cool.

One of the things that I pushed for was, “Let’s make sure that these feel more like real creatures that you could find in a forest.” The second one was, “Add more detail.” We’re not going for realism, but we want to make sure that they have a certain level of detail where they’re not going to be these flat, simple shapes.

These are wonderful, but that’s not what we wanted to do. And that I’m very proud of, and I’m very thankful for the artists’ work. We’ve done a lot of work building this world, and my hope is that we get to expand that.

I would like to see which parts could continue, be it in another game or other media. We’ve put a lot of groundwork into this, and I think it’s something that truly resonates with people. I hope that we get to see more of it.

One brand nailing the brief is luxury Spanish fashion house Loewe, with its subtly genius new logo sandals. Before I give too much away, take a look for yourself and see if you can spot the logo – I promise once you see it, you won't be able to unsee it.

The crafty design features on Loewe's new Type Fussbett sandal, which evolved from the simple design of an everyday buckle. What has historically been an object of function is transformed into a feature accessory, forming the Loewe name across the shoe. It's a subtle yet clever flourish that proves how quiet luxury has usurped loud branding and garish logos.

Despite the clever design, the sandals seemed to divide fans, with one writing, "I would buy them simply for the creativity in that hardware," while another undecided commenter wrote, "they’re ugly, but the concept is so gaggy that I rounded back to loving them." Another shared a similar sentiment, writing, "Kinda ugly, kinda chic, kinda quirky. Love it," while one fan commented, "Whoever thought of this one needed a cute lil bonus on that check."

For more logo design inspiration, check out how this counter-fashion brand logo cleverly uses negative space or take a look at the best fashion logos.

With an emerald and gold finish, the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 finally gives us a more exciting look for the latest console. And it makes standard black Switch 2 look even more drab by comparison. Is it worth the slight price hike? Judge for yourself.

• US: preorder console for $519.99 at Nintendo
• US: preorder console for $519.99 at Best Buy
• UK: preorder for £429.99 at Nintendo

As well as the console, there will be a Zelda anniversary edition Switch 2 Pro Controller, available with or without a display stand, and there's also a case with screen protector. All of them feature a golden Triforce emblem as a design centerpiece.

The console has some lovely details, like the gold accents around the thumbsticks and the subtle triangular motifs. The design makes it truly look like a collector-worthy edition.

Dedicated Zelda fans have reacted positively, saying the console feels like a proper tribute to the franchise’s 40th anniversary this year. I personally like it a lot more than the 2023 Zelda Tears of the Kingdom edition of the Switch OLED.

The big question is how much it will cost. The standard Switch 2 retails at $499 in the US following a price hike earlier in the year (thanks, Donald). Some fans fear the special-edition will get a further mark up, but Nintendo hasn't confirmed this. Pre-orders have yet to open, but keep an eye on the Nintendo store.

Yuta ONE is very active on social media, sharing work updates and tips, and he's been offering free fonts to attract more followers. The latest giveway of around 200 OTF files is to celebrate the artist reaching 170,000 followers on X, but you'll need to be quick because it runs until 9 September until midnight in Japan.

Yuta ONE discovered street art as an inline skater and began teaching himself graffiti and calligraphy and later typography – mainly black letter typefaces. He's known for artwork such as the title logo and jacket illustration for Tokoyami Towa's SM4SH IT UP single.

The free font pack covers a range of styles, including futuristic looks as well as graffiti and gothic fonts. You can download it free font pack via Booth here.

Yuta ONE says that the giveaway will be extended, with another 11 unpublished fonts added, if the follower count reaches 190,000 before it lapses. There's also talk of a photo in a micro bikini at 200K.

An AI laptop lets you take advantage of today's AI-assisted creative tools which run locally rather than in the cloud (denoising, upscaling, auto-rotoscoping, motion tracking), without draining the energy of the CPU and GPU. If you already have our list of laptops for graphic design bookmarked, this is the specialised, more demanding tier above it.

Our overall pick for the best AI laptop for motion design and VFX is the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (M5 Max, 2026), thanks to its combo of raw multi-core power, a hugely capable GPU and Apple's most advanced Neural Engine yet. We've also included alternatives if you're specifically looking for a Windows laptop or a workstation, while there's also a budget option if you're funds are more limited.

Best overall

If you're running demanding motion graphics or VFX software, the more powerful the machine, the faster and smoother everything will go. And the MacBook Pro with M5 Max is built for exactly this kind of work.

Its 18-core CPU pairs Performance and Efficiency cores with a beefed-up GPU, and each GPU core now carries its own Neural Accelerator, so AI-assisted tasks in Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Cinema 4D can run locally without waiting on the cloud. As a result, VFX previews render quickly, with graphics performance up around 50% on the previous M4 Pro and M4 Max generation, and DaVinci Resolve Studio rendering as much as five times faster.

With up to 128GB of unified memory and 4TB of storage, this super-powerful laptop is able to deal with enormous project files without complaint, and there's also excellent battery life alongside all that power. It is, however, very expensive: a fully-specced M5 Max configuration runs into five figures; something you might find that galling, given that Apple still hasn't brought OLED or a touchscreen to the Pro line. For anyone serious about motion graphics or VFX who can stomach the cost, though, this may well be an investment in time and efficiency that pays off in the long term.

Read our full review of the MacBook Pro with M5 Max

Best Windows AI laptop

If you want a Windows laptop, the ASUS ProArt P16 is the closest thing to a MacBook Pro rival built specifically for motion work. Its RTX 5070 GPU marks a huge step up from the previous model, offering a 25-28% jump in graphics performance, and Premiere Pro, Photoshop and generative AI tools all run smoothly even with feature-heavy files. Its AMD XDNA NPU, rated up to 50 TOPS, also handles a lot of the on-device AI legwork in ASUS' own Creator Hub tools, keeping tasks like sketch enhancement and image generation off the GPU so it's free for rendering.

The 3K OLED touchscreen, meanwhile, measured close to full DCI-P3 coverage with excellent colour accuracy, making it a strong option for artists who want hands-on, stylus-driven control over their work. (Apple, let's not forget, still hasn't given us a touchscreen.)

The trade-offs are noise and heat under sustained rendering loads, plus a proprietary charging port that locks you into ASUS' own cables. Plus, as you might expect, it's pretty darned expensive. With all that in mind, though, we still rate this as the best all-round Windows AI latop for creatives working in motion graphics and VFX today.

Read our full review of the ASUS ProArt P16.

Best budget option

For motion design and VFX professionals on a tighter budget, the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 proves that even an entry-level discrete GPU makes a big difference over relying on a CPU's integrated graphics. Its RTX 5050 handles Photoshop and everyday 2D creative work comfortably, and it isn't bad at 3D and AI-assisted apps either, even if it drops behind pricier machines once you move into heavier video editing in Premiere Pro. Its NPU is modest next to the other machines here though, rated at just 16 TOPS, so it's the GPU rather than on-device AI that's doing most of the heavy lifting.

The screen is bright and covers sRGB in full but falls short of the wider DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB gamuts that serious colour work benefits from. For that reason, this laptop is better suited for layout, compositing and general motion graphics than colour-critical grading. Battery life, meanwhile, is a surprise for a gaming laptop, delivering nearly eight hours in everyday use. It's not the best AI laptop for motion graphics and VFX work, but it is an affordable entry point when a full workstation-grade GPU is out of reach.

Read our full review of the ASUS TUF Gaming A16.

Best workstation

Value power over portability? The Legion Pro 7 is the closest thing here to a desktop workstation you can close and carry. Its RTX 5090 GPU comfortably outpaces every other laptop on this list for rendering and 3D work, and it can demanding both creative and gaming workloads without breaking a sweat.

Its Intel AI Boost NPU plays a smaller role than the GPU in day-to-day use here, but it still helps to offload lighter background AI tasks. The 16-inch OLED display covers the full DCI-P3 colour space, so it's accurate enough for serious photo and colour work alongside VFX previews.

The compromises are the ones you'd expect from a machine this powerful: it's bulky, heavy, and battery life away from the mains is limited, especially once the GPU is under load. There's also no SD card slot, an odd omission for a laptop aimed partly at creatives. But for studios or freelancers who need workstation-class performance in a portable shell, it's our top recommendation.

Read our full review of the Lenovo Legion 7 Pro.

FAQs

And, well, it looks like Nintendo has been busy. The remake is getting a pretty serious visual overhaul, with Hyrule rebuilt in much greater detail, Link looking considerably more expressive, and the whole thing sitting somewhere between the familiar look of Ocarina of Time and the more polished fantasy style we've come to expect from modern Zelda games, which should put to rest any feelings that this remake won't meet expectations.

The big thing is that Nintendo doesn't appear to be treating this as a quick lick of paint. The environments have been rebuilt with modern materials and lighting; there's a free camera, and Link has more freedom of movement, including jumping, diving, and rolling around Hyrule rather than relying entirely on the movement rules that worked on the N64.

The Ocarina remake feels ambitious

This approach makes sense because Ocarina of Time is now 28 years old, and while its design still holds up remarkably well, some of the elements around it definitely belong to another era. Nintendo is being careful about how far it takes those changes, though. The remake is still very much Ocarina of Time, rather than Nintendo taking the original and trying to turn it into another Breath of the Wild.

During Nintendo's Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct, Eiji Aonuma described it as a "faithful interpretation using modern technologies", which is the right approach for a game this beloved. Change too little, and you end up with something that feels like an expensive texture pack; change too much, and somebody, somewhere, will be outside Nintendo HQ with a very angry sign.

More interesting changes are tucked away in there too. The ocarina, for example, gets a new modern twist. Instead of simply remembering the button combinations for each song, Switch 2 players can apparently hum, sing or play the notes into the console's microphone, with Link then playing the tune if he knows it. Nintendo is also adding a "threads of time" system to help with navigation, while time itself continues to pass as you explore towns and the wider world.

Then there's Link himself, who has had the sort of glow-up you'd expect after nearly three decades. The new model has much more detail in his clothing, face, and equipment, but Nintendo has kept the familiar silhouette and overall character design intact, which will probably matter more to fans than whether every individual texture is technically impressive.

That's the tightrope Nintendo is walking with the Ocarina of Time remake, because people don't necessarily remember what the N64 version actually looked like. We remember how it felt, and that emotional connection shapes what we imagine it looked like.

For anyone who played it in 1998, that blocky little version of Hyrule has probably been receiving a free internal remaster every time you think about it. Your brain fills in the missing detail, the lighting, the scale, the atmosphere, all of it. So Nintendo isn't really competing with a 28-year-old game here; it's competing with people's memories of it.

The first teaser for the remake, shown back in June, gave us only a brief look at young Link, so this is the first time we've really seen the broader visual direction. And from what Nintendo has shown, it looks considerably more ambitious than a simple HD conversion.

Whether all those changes work once we're actually holding the controller is another question, but at least Nintendo seems to understand that remaking Ocarina of Time isn't about making everything shiny and calling it a day. It's about figuring out which bits need dragging into 2026 and which bits you absolutely leave alone.

We'll find out when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5.

But although Blender can be used for texturing, most 3D artists I speak to use Adobe Substance 3D Painter. It's faster, more specialised and better integrated into professional pipelines. However, a new Substance 3D Painter alternative is showing a lot of promise. Open-source ArmorPaint is lightweight and now available for whatever platform you might want to work on.

Developed by Lubos Lenco and the team behind the open-source game engine Armory3D, ArmorPaint has been in early access for eight years. Version 1.0 has finally been released into the wild, and it's available to download for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS and Android (the latter two being experimental for now).

The app allows real-time texture painting in a path-traced 3D viewport and can be used to generate PBR texture maps ready for use in the best 3D modelling software, animation software or game engines as PNG, JPEG or EXR at up to 32-bit colour depth. Assets can be brought in via the usual formats or as Blender scene files, and materials can be created via a node-based material editor or by importing PBR texture maps.

The app has a custom-built 3D engine and 2D drawing system and supports ray tracing via Direct3D 12, Vulkan, Metal, and WebGPU graphics interfaces. Recent updates have added Decimate, Smooth, Bevel, and Subdivide modifiers for mesh editing, a basic UV map editor, Neural Nodes for generative AI features, photo-to-material generation, skinning animation playback and support for tween animations.

A code rewrite in C allows interactive painting on bigger 3D assets, with more texture layers at higher resolution. A clean up of the codebase has also slashed the program's size. Armory's team says it could now fit on two 1.44MB floppy disks.

On desktop, it runs as a sub- 10MB portable application with no installation and near-instant start up (you might want one of the best laptops for 3D modelling or the best graphics cards). There are also plugins for Blender, Unity and Unreal Engine.

See the videos below for walk through on some of the recent updates. You can download the free texture painting software from ArmorPaint.org.

In many ways it's a very 'digital' style, and one I've drawn inspiration from when using the best digital art software. Musil works quickly, does relatively little blending, builds his paintings up in layers, and lets the brushwork remain part of the finished image – Musil has talked about his process in more detail on his website.

This is a useful workflow for digital artists to ‘steal’ because we've got an almost ridiculous number of ways to smooth, correct and polish everything… so let's do the opposite; let's try and keep things simple. It's something I do when reviewing the best drawing tablets: to test and have fun. Below, I go into a little detail on Musil's work and how you can draw inspiration from it (he also runs classes).

01. Don't start on white

Musil uses a warm orange-gold ground as the starting point for his paintings, using Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold mixed with glazing medium. You can adapt that idea digitally in about ten seconds by creating a layer underneath everything else and filling it with a warm ochre, orange or reddish brown. You don't need to cover it completely later, either; let little bits peek through between your strokes. This is lovely to do in Procreate (read our Procreate tutorials), or even in ArtRage using the Roller, which can pick out the grain in the digital paper, and it's easy to use to create a texture to paint over.

Sometimes in Rebelle I'll add paint directly into this 'wash' layer, using a dirty brush and letting the colours mix live and see what happens. I love to keep all the mess and abstraction in digital paintings, largely because I'm doing this for myself and having fun; there's no commercial goal.

It gives the whole painting a shared warmth and, perhaps more importantly, gets rid of that slightly clinical feeling you can get when every digital painting starts life on a perfectly white canvas.

02. Start with fewer colours

One interesting thing about Musil's process is how little he seems to need in terms of palette. He's talked about moving away from buying lots of different colours and instead mixing what he needs, even mentioning in the Ampersand blog how all those unused green paints sit around because he prefers mixing his greens from yellow and black.

You can replicate that idea very easily in Photoshop, Rebelle or Procreate – read our Procreate art secrets guide to how to easily set up a limited palette. Before you start, choose maybe five or six colours and stick with them. Pick a dark, a light, a warm colour, a cool colour, an accent, and something somewhere in the middle. If you're using reference photos, you can turn the colours into a simplified palette.

Then make the rest by changing the value and temperature of those colours rather than opening the picker every 30 seconds. It sounds restrictive, and it is, which is exactly why it's useful. You'll probably find that the colours start balancing and working with each other much more naturally.

03. Stop blending everything

Digital painting makes blending very easy, so we tend to do it whether the painting needs it or not. You paint two colours next to each other, grab a soft brush, smooth the transition, zoom in, smooth it again, and keep at it until all the personality is wiped away, or at least I do.

Musil's process is the opposite: he starts with big strokes and broad areas, then gradually works toward the details, rather than trying to make every transition perfectly smooth from the beginning.

Grab a reasonably opaque brush, make the sky with a handful of strokes, block in your trees as shapes, throw the highlights over the top, and resist the urge to polish every join and blend edges. Then zoom out to 25% or 50%; all those slightly scruffy marks start to work together.

04. Make your brush strokes meaningful

Ensuring each brush mark means something is another good habit to adopt. Don't think of a brush stroke as simply the thing that puts paint on the canvas, and instead think about what the stroke is doing. A long horizontal mark can describe water, while a vertical one can help sell a tree trunk, and diagonal strokes can lead the eye into a landscape. Short, broken marks can suggest foliage without forcing you to paint every leaf.

Musil's brushwork has this sense of direction, so the marks aren't simply texture sprinkled over a finished painting; they're helping construct the image. You’ll want a good drawing tablet to get the most out of this technique, as you’ll ideally need to adjust the brush mark by rolling the stylus in your fingers (Apple Pencil Pro and the best iPad for drawing are great here), but you don't need to download some enormous 300-brush pack to achieve Musil's look and feel.

A basic textured, opaque brush will do; then change the size, pressure, and direction, and let the marks vary. The important bit is resisting the urge to tidy them all afterwards. Also try using layers, and build up blocks of brushstrokes and colour from dark to light.

Try it yourself: give yourself 10 minutes and five colours.

Fill the canvas with a warm ground, block out the biggest shapes with a large brush, add another layer of chunky strokes, change the direction of those strokes to follow the forms and then, right at the end, add a handful of smaller marks.

Now stop, and don't do the usual thing of zooming in looking for problems. Don't start cleaning edges and don't add 14 new colours because you suddenly decide the sky needs a slightly different blue.

Zoom out and look at the painting as a whole. If the big shapes work, the colours hang together, and your brush marks have a bit of energy, you've probably got a more interesting image than you would after three hours of smoothing and fiddling.

With digital art software, we have endless brushes, infinite colours, and layers you can edit and tweak, so giving yourself fewer choices can actually make painting more interesting. That's been my overall take after looking at Musil's approach and adapting parts of it to digital painting.

So when NVIDIA demoed a local AI agent running on an RTX Spark‑powered laptop — pitched explicitly as your personal chief of staff — the promise landed squarely in that pain point. A machine that reads your inbox, understands your calendar, pulls your decks, tracks your projects, and tells you what actually matters today? That’s not a productivity tool. That’s a fantasy.

But the demo showed something more interesting: not the fantasy, but the tension between what’s possible, what’s plausible, and what’s still very much PowerPoint‑stage ambition.

The pitch: your workday, decoded by a local model

The presenter started with a familiar scene: the morning email flood, the overlapping meetings, the multitasking spiral. Then came the pitch: an AI agent running locally on an RTX Spark laptop, with full access to your Google Workspace. Calendar, Gmail, Drive, Slides, Sheets, Docs. All of it.

The agent’s job?

Tell you your top priorities. Summarise what’s done and what’s next. Pull the right files. Read the right threads. Offer to take work off your plate.

In other words: the assistant that actually does the assistant part.

And to its credit, the demo made that vision feel tangible. The agent pulled an executive‑review deck, scanned email threads, and started assembling a concise briefing. It even offered follow‑up actions; the sort of nudges that normally require a human who’s been paying attention.

This wasn’t a chatbot. It was a workflow engine with opinions, apparently.

Where the demo shined... and where it wobbled

The strengths were clear:

Concise prioritisation: The agent didn’t ramble. It delivered a tight list of what mattered today.

Cross‑workspace synthesis: It pulled from Gmail and Drive like a seasoned project manager.

Project tracking: For the sprawling RTX Spark campaign, it navigated workstreams and lanes with surprising confidence.

But then came the wobble, the kind that instantly reminds you this is still early‑stage tech. Mid‑brief, the agent stalled. Just… stopped. With the star of the show stuck in a doom loop, the presenter shrugged, reran the request, and moved on.

It wasn’t catastrophic, but it was telling. Especially when paired with the admission that the presenter doesn’t use the agent day‑to‑day because their work laptop doesn’t have an RTX GPU (or indeed RTX Spark, which still hasn't been released commercially... or even given an estimated price range).

There has been no formal reliability testing, and there are still no firm benchmarks. So this was very much a capability showcase, not a validated product.

In other words: impressive demo, unproven reality.

Can you trust AI with your workday?

I found myself compelled to raise my hand and ask:

How reliable is this thing? Does it actually do the work, or does it take shortcuts to finish the task?

It’s a fair concern. Agents are notorious for skipping steps, hallucinating summaries, or confidently presenting half‑truths as gospel. And when your “chief of staff” is pulling from your inbox and your decks, accuracy isn’t optional; it’s the whole job.

The presenter’s answer? Essentially: We don’t know yet.

That’s not a deal‑breaker in itself. This is early tech, after all, but it’s the difference between a cool demo and something you’d trust with your caffeine-deprived Monday morning.

Running locally on an RTX GPU is a genuinely compelling angle:

Privacy: Your emails and documents never leave the device.

Latency: No cloud round‑trips.

Offline capability: Your chief of staff works even when your Wi‑Fi doesn’t.

Customisation: You can tune the model to your preferences.

But local also means:

Hardware dependency: No RTX hardware, no agent.

Maintenance overhead: Updates, model management, security: all local. With the hardware, software and electricity costs that entails.

Enterprise headaches: IT departments love centralisation; this is the opposite.

There's a definite trade‑off: privacy and speed versus accessibility and scalability.

If NVIDIA can deliver reliability, this kind of agent could be transformative:

Executive prep is easier: Instant briefs, deck pulls, and meeting context.

Project orchestration is smoother: Automated chasing, summarising, and nudging.

Inbox triage is handled for you: Prioritisation based on actual relevance, not timestamps.

Real calendar intelligence: Conflict resolution, prep summaries, and proactive planning.

This isn’t about replacing humans. It’s about removing the glue‑work, the tedious admin that eats half the workday.

But that future depends on some important elements: Transparent source citations, error recovery when tasks stall, guardrails against shortcut‑taking, benchmarks that prove reliability under load, and user studies that show real productivity gains.

And as of right now, those pieces aren’t in place.

A promising vision with homework left to do

The demo was compelling — not because it was flawless, but because it showed a direction that actually makes sense. A local AI agent that understands your workday, respects your data, and handles the boring parts? That’s a future worth rooting for.

But the gaps were impossible to ignore: No reliability data, no accuracy benchmarks, no real‑world usage, and a mid‑demo stall that felt a little too on‑the‑nose.

This isn’t a chief of staff yet. It’s an intern with immense potential; but it's one who still occasionally freezes mid‑task and needs you to repeat the instructions.

If NVIDIA can close the reliability gap, this could become one of the most practical uses of local AI we’ve seen. Until then, it’s a promising prototype with a lot of homework left.

Attempting to prove why "it's over for Hollywood," one confident X user shared an AI-generated short emulating New York City in 1993, and while many praised the 'authentic' look, others soon noticed the hallmarks of AI slop. The technology may be getting more refined, but it seems we've got a ways to go before we can shake the notion that AI filmmaking is a gimmick.

"If this is the level of AI creations, then it's over for Hollywood and big production houses," claimed X user @john_my07, sharing an AI-generated video of early 90s NYC emulating the look of an HD camera. With warm, hazy colour grading and ambient city humdrum, it almost feels authentic, but there's an undeniable roboticness that gives it that soulless AI feel.

The usual suspects are present, of course. Extra fingers and gibberish signage are key markers of AI slop. Pedestrians walk in an orderly hive, doppelgängers walk side by side, and bodies merge straight into moving traffic, but the worst offence has to be the dual Empire State Buildings. "Not the Empire State Trade Centre," one commenter responded. "Every single one of these videos is always like 'look what AI can do!' And it’s just derivative of a movie a human being made," another scathingly added.

While it's easy to get swept up in AI existentialism when we see the technology evolving so rapidly with seemingly no way to counter it, it's worth remembering that a large majority still crave analogue creativity. With AI creating a divide among creatives across the industry, design instinct and experience matter more than ever. Despite the torrents of slop, human creativity is still invaluable and vital to the creative sphere.

These true wireless stereo (TWS) buds deliver a well-balanced tuning that offers a thick-sounding lower end, keeps things relatively neutral in the midrange, and adds a touch of spice up top. It offers a far more balanced approach to tuning than 90% of the TWS out there, and at the new price, I think this is one of the better deals in audio right now.

Of course, if you want to explore more over-ear wireless headphones, I've got you covered. But if it's really earphones you're after, I highly recommend the Status Pro X.

Status Audio's Pro X deep dive

At the heart of the Status Audio Pro X is a triple-driver configuration, combining a 12mm dynamic driver for deep sub-bass with dual Knowles balanced armatures for highs and mids. the resulting tuning is best described as balanced, with a weighty sub bass being partnered with splashes of high end, but with a rich midrange presence making this an engaging V-shape sound signature.

When put head-to-head with mainstream heavyweights like the Sony WF-1000XM5, the Pro X provides a noticeably more organised sound profile with impressive instrument separation – things are less stuffy and the bass bleeds less into the lower mids.

So it's perfect, right?! Well, no, and while the hybrid active noise cancellation reaches up to 52dB and handles steady low-frequency background drone well, it still trails the market-leading ANC found on the Apple AirPods Pro 2 (currently down to $199), especially when dealing with high-wind noise.

The companion smartphone app, while offering a customisable 8-band EQ, also feels slightly less refined than Sony's polished ecosystem. Nevertheless, for music lovers prioritising the best sound possible, I think the Pro X remains a standout choice.

Apple's 'Surprise and Shine' event has come to a close, and it delivered on most of our expectations. We were introduced to the new iPhone range, which comprises the foldable iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, but no update to the basic iPhone.

The Cupertino tech giant also revealed the AirPods 5, Apple Watch 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 along with upgraded Siri and other software updates. You can watch the event below or catch up on all the main announcements in our summary.

Preorders

• Preorder Apple Watch Series 12 at Apple
• Preorder AirPods 5 at Apple
• iPhone 18 Pro/Pro Max preorders start on 12 September
• iPhone Duo preorders start on 16 October

Watch the Apple event

You can replay the entire Apple event below or scroll down to a summary of the main announcements, including iPhone Duo details, and our rolling updates.

Apple Surprise and Shine main announcements

• iPhone Duo: Apple's first foldable phone has a wide notebook-style design and is the thinnest iPhone yet when open.
• It has an A20 Pro chip, 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR main display, 5.4-inch outer display and 48MP Fusion main camera. Apple Pencil USB-C support is planned later in the year. Two colours will be available: Star White and Night Sky (very dark blue).
• Pricing starts at $1,999 for the 256GB model. Preorders start on 16 October for a 23 October release.
• iPhone 18 Pro & iPhone 18 Pro Max also have the new A20 Pro processor and 48MP variable-aperture main camera with physical aperture blades.
• The Dynamic Island on the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max is slimmer in size but can show up to three Live Activities.
• The iPhone 18 Pro colours are Burgundy and Glacier.
• iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and iPhone 18 Pro Max at $1,299. Preorders open on Saturday 12 September for a 18 September release.
• Apple's also launching an iPhone leasing programme in the US.
• AirPods 5 are said to offer richer sound and 50% more active noise cancellation than the previous generation, plus a more durable rain-proof design. The price is $129, or $149 for a model with a touch sensitive stem. Preorders are open on the Apple website.
• Apple Watch Series 12 (from $399) and Apple Watch Ultra 4 (from $499) will both feature new Apple silicon and improved sensors, including a new Health Sensing System with expanded electrode surface area and larger, more efficient LEDs. Preorders are open.
• Siri Recaps can provide daily summaries and remind you of appointments or other commitments by using your Apple Watch microphone, GPS, and other sensors to build an overview of what happened during your day.

The M56C treads a very fine line for Sihoo: it's one of its cheapest chairs ($180 / £140), and it trims back the extras as much as possible to keep the price low. You won't find an adjustable lumbar support or flip-up armrests here, the assembly process is convoluted, and there are times when it reminds you just how cheap it is.

While the M56C won't be gaining a place in our round-up of the best office chairs for back pain, it's an intriguing option that could find a home in certain situations.

Comfort & ergonomics

After many years of examining office chairs, I’ve found that they fall into roughly two camps: they’re either springy and energetic or plush and laid-back. Usually, cheaper chairs come in at the bouncier end, rebounding to your movements like a trampoline, but the M56C is surprisingly plush: you sink into its memory-foam cushion as you sit on it, and the supportive mesh has more give than other chairs. This is no bad thing, and it makes it feel like it’s much more expensive than its price tag and build might suggest.

Sihoo has pared back the adjustability to the bare minimum, though, adopting a universal approach that means anyone can sit on it — that is, if you’re 5’ 2” to 6’ 2”. At 6’ 4”, I’m just about out of Sihoo’s recommendations, but at its maximum extension and angle, the headrest aligned with the top of my neck (as it should), and the armrests never felt too high for my noodly limbs.

Adjustability is not a priority — the M56C keeps things cheap and universal, making it a good chair to share. The headrest is the most movable thing here, clicking into position vertically and angling through 45 degrees. The armrests only move up and down, but they do lock into place securely. The backrest reclines and locks from 110 to 125 degrees, which isn’t a huge amount, but enough to make it feel slightly more comfortable.

The chair is comfortable in places, with the seat pad being particularly cushioned and enveloping, and the non-adjustable sprung lumbar support proving just right. However, there are some areas that feel distinctly unrefined. While most armrests are made of foam, the M56C’s seem to be hollow plastic with very little give, which can be hell on bony elbows. And if you lean far back into the chair and the mesh hits the plastic support, digging into your back uncomfortably.

The initial plushness of the M56C declines as the day goes on. It’s a chair that's suited to short bursts of work or quick meetings over day-long sessions.

Design & aesthetics

Do you like your chairs to be black? Well, you’re in luck! The M56C is available in black, and black only. It is the most common colour for office chairs; it doesn’t stain and it slots in effortlessly, but I do like to see a range of at least one other colourway. I may be a little biased here because it’s hard to photograph black chairs without them looking like amorphous blobs.

Colour (or lack thereof) aside, the M56C is a conventional chair that doesn’t look too chunky or squat like some more ergonomic chairs. It lacks the structured grace of Sihoo’s M18, but the mesh fabric always has a certain airiness that doesn’t look quite as oppressive as alternatives. Even in black.

Specs

Assembly

Hoo-wee! The assembly process for Sihoo chairs is usually fairly straightforward, but the M56C proved to be surprisingly complicated. There are a lot more parts here, which presumably keeps the whole thing cheaper and more compact when boxed up, but it also adds a few more steps to the build.

It could be simple to put together if it weren’t for the dodgy manual and the bolts being supplied in plastic bags rather than a labelled blister pack. There are mislabelled steps, very similar-looking bolts, and a reference to a component that looks completely different in real life. I guessed my way through the assembly process and it felt like I arrived at the finished chair through coincidence rather than following instructions.

Price & value

The M56C is priced at around $180, though I've seen it sell for a few dollars cheaper. The closest comparison here is Sihoo’s own M18 ($159), which has become our absolute favourite budget office chair. They’re (unsurprisingly) similar chairs, but the M18 gets so much right that the M56C doesn’t quite land: straightforward assembly, a one-piece backrest without hard edges, and an adjustable lumbar support that’s actually one of the industry’s best.

Sihoo’s M59AS ($239) is also similar, with an exciting springiness and flip-up armrests for active people who frequently switch between tasks.

Moving up the scale, Boulies EP200 ($279.99) and Branch Ergonomic Chair ($339) are pricier, but add style and more adjustments, so you can feel supported for longer sessions.

Should you buy?

The M56C is a misstep from the usually reliable Sihoo, leaning too far into low-budget construction and missing the mark in terms of comfort, with hard armrests and stiff plastic supports making it uncomfortable for longer sessions.

It’s still a good-looking chair, and its one-size-fits-all approach, comfortable cushion and low price make it a good choice for kitting out a meeting room where people don’t have to sit for too long. For everywhere else, Sihoo’s M18 still rules the roost.

The presenter — Rick, armed with two identical Surface laptops and a healthy dose of confidence — showed Blender’s Cycles viewport running DLSS 4.5 side‑by‑side with OIDN and OptiX. The claim was simple: DLSS 4.5 delivers “instant feedback,” while the traditional denoisers make you wait for the image to resolve.

If you’ve ever nudged a light in Cycles and watched your scene dissolve into a grainy snowstorm before slowly reassembling itself, you know exactly why this matters.

But as with all things AI‑accelerated, the promise comes with caveats — and creatives are right to keep one eyebrow raised.

The demo: two laptops, one message: speed wins

Rick’s setup was straightforward: we had Blender’s default OIDN on one laptop, with OptiX on the same hardware, while we got DLSS 4.5 with ray reconstruction on the other.

OIDN is the reliable workhorse. OptiX is the NVIDIA‑optimised speedster. But DLSS 4.5? It was pitched as a different beast entirely: not just denoising, but reconstructing ray‑traced detail using a learned model, complete with super resolution and a mysterious “transformer version 2” under the hood.

The viewport looked smoother. More stable. Less like a flickering cloud of noise pretending to be your scene. And crucially: changes appeared (nearly) immediately.

For look‑dev artists, lighting TDs, and anyone who spends their day nudging sliders and rotating HDRIs, that responsiveness is gold. Creative flow thrives on immediacy. Every second spent waiting for samples to accumulate is a second where your idea cools off.

Why this matters: creative flow is not a luxury

We talk a lot about render times, but not enough about iteration times. The viewport is where ideas form — where you experiment, break things, fix them, and try again. When that loop is slow, creativity suffers.

DLSS 4.5’s pitch is essentially: What if Cycles felt less like a path tracer and more like a real‑time engine while you’re working?

That’s a big deal, not because it replaces artistry, but because it removes friction. And friction is the enemy of bold creative decisions.

If DLSS 4.5 genuinely delivers smoother previews without compromising the accuracy artists rely on, it could meaningfully change how fast teams iterate, review, and approve work. But — and this is where I have to put my editorial hat on — speed is not the only metric that matters.

Faster isn't always better

Artists have learned to be wary of AI‑powered “enhancements,” because they often come with trade‑offs that only show up once you’re knee‑deep in a production scene.

Some open questions:

Does DLSS 4.5 stay faithful enough for lighting and shading decisions?

Instant feedback is great, but not if it lies to you.

How does it handle thin geometry, fine textures, or low‑sample chaos?

Denoisers love to hallucinate detail. Reconstruction models sometimes hallucinate too much.

Will it behave consistently across stylised, NPR, or heavily composited scenes?

Blender artists don’t all work in photorealism.

Is this NVIDIA‑only acceleration going to widen the hardware divide?

OIDN works everywhere. DLSS does not.

And then there’s the bigger industry concern:

Does faster iteration become an excuse for tighter deadlines and smaller teams?

Technology that empowers creatives can also be weaponised against them. We’ve seen it before.

The tech context: DLSS isn't just a denoiser any more

DLSS 4.5 with ray reconstruction isn’t simply “OptiX but faster.” It’s a learned model that replaces parts of the denoising and temporal filtering pipeline entirely. In theory, that means better stability, cleaner glossy reflections, fewer temporal artefacts, and more detail retention in low‑sample previews

If Blender 5.3 integrates this cleanly, it could become the default viewport experience for RTX users. Not because it’s flashy, but because it’s useful.

But usefulness depends on trust. And trust requires independent benchmarks, not a controlled demo with unknown scene complexity.

Great for RTX users, [shrug emoji] for everyone else

Let’s be honest: this is an NVIDIA‑only party.

OIDN remains the cross‑vendor baseline. OptiX is NVIDIA‑optimised but still broadly accessible. DLSS 4.5, however, is locked to RTX hardware.

If Blender’s viewport experience becomes significantly better on NVIDIA GPUs, that’s great for RTX users, but it risks creating a two‑tier creative ecosystem unless AMD and open‑source alternatives catch up with their own reconstruction models.

Blender has always been a champion of accessibility. DLSS integration will need to be handled carefully to avoid fragmenting the user base.

DLSS 4.5’s ray reconstruction looks like one of the rare AI‑accelerated features that actually respects the creative process. It doesn’t try to automate artistry. It doesn’t replace human judgement. It just makes the viewport less annoying.

That’s a win.

But creatives are right to be cautious. Faster previews don’t automatically mean better decisions. And AI‑powered reconstruction models can be unpredictable in ways that only show up after hours of work.

The promise is real, and the potential is exciting. But like with AI video enhancements, the industry must resist the temptation to treat speed as a substitute for craft, or as a justification for squeezing artists harder.

If DLSS 4.5 lands cleanly in Blender 5.3, it could become one of the most meaningful quality‑of‑life upgrades Cycles has seen in years. Just don’t let the marketing gloss distract from the need for rigorous testing, cross‑vendor parity, and respect for the creative labour this tech is supposed to support.