Latest Tech News

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• A new SDR module is coming for Framework 16, fitting the GPU slot
• Designed for C-UAS, it’ll detect, track, and possibly neutralize rogue drones
• It packs serious processing power with custom cooling for FPGA and DSP chips

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We’re big fans of Framework’s modular laptops - as while many notebook makers have shifted towards soldered components, making even simple upgrades all but impossible, Framework’s approach lets you get the laptop you want and make whatever upgrades you need to the hardware.

You can choose the processor, mainboard, RAM, and even components like the webcam, screen, keyboard and expansion cards. The company even offers a RISC-V mainboard, created by DeepComputing, and most recently, Framework announced its Laptop 16 device can now support up to 26TB of superfast Gen4 SSD storage.

In 2024, the company open-sourced 3D CAD designs for its Laptop 16, giving users the ability to 3D print custom components. Over on X, Lukas Henkel at Open Visions, which designs and develops innovative hardware solutions, announced he is taking advantage of this flexibility by making a Software-Defined Radio (SDR) module for a customer in the Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) sector.

(Image credit: Lukas Henkel)

Taking down drones

This new product will fit into the Framework 16 GPU module form factor, resulting in what Henkel describes as a “nice, fully enclosed solution with lots of processing power and a very high-bandwidth link between the radio and the host system.”

In a later post, Henkel explained he needs to “customize the heat pipe and heat spreader for the Framework Laptop SDR module in order to cool both the FPGA and DSP” because the reference implementation is “designed for only a single heat source.” Fortunately, he reports, “the form factor provides enough Z-height for these kinds of modifications.”

Although Henkel doesn’t go into detail about what the SDR module will be used for or how it will work, being in the C-UAS sector, we can assume it will detect, track, and potentially neutralize unauthorized or hostile drones. This kind of technology is often used in military, law enforcement, and security applications, but it's the first time we've seen it being integrated so smartly into a laptop in this way.

I'm developing an SDR module for a customer in the C-UAS sector. The system will fit into the Framework 16 GPU module formfactor resulting in a nice fully enclosed solution with lots of processing power and a very high bandwidth link between the radio and the host system. The… pic.twitter.com/oyHyfjr6GBJanuary 3, 2025

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Latest Tech News

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• South Korea privacy watchdog has temporarily halted downloads of DeepSeek
• DeepSeek is working with authorities to get compliant
• Latest in a series of privacy concerns raised about AI chatbots

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South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has temporarily halted new downloads of Chinese-owned AI chatbot DeepSeek.

Reports from TechCrunch confirm the app is still up and running for those who have already installed it, and that the decision won’t affect usage of the app - but new downloads will be halted until the Chinese firm complies with Korean privacy laws.

South Korea isn’t the first to ban new downloads of the chatbot, with the model disappearing from the Italian App store and Google Play Store in late January 2025 after the country’s data watchdog filed a privacy complaint and asked for information on how DeepSeek handles users’ personal information.

Recurring concerns

DeepSeek has since appointed a local representative to work with authorities in South Korea, but the data protection agency has said it ‘strongly advises’ current users to refrain from entering personal data into DeepSeek until a final decision is made - here’s everything we know so far.

The restriction is temporary whilst the PIPC assesses the use and storage of data by DeepSeek, but the agency confirms the model will be available for download once it is compliant.

The PIPC found DeepSeek had transferred the data of South Korean users to ByteDance - TikTok’s parent company. TikTok, as many will remember well - was briefly banned in the US over privacy and security concerns.

DeepSeek isn’t the first AI model to come under scrutiny for privacy concerns. The nature of Large Language Models is a bit of a privacy minefield since they scrape every corner of the internet for data to train their models - without the consent of the owners/authors/creators of the media they use.

Further than this though, OpenAI has never asked people for permission to use their data, and it’s not possible for a person to get confirmation of what data has been used or stored - or for it to be deleted. This contradicts an important facet of GDPR laws, which protect the right to be forgotten and should guarantee individuals the ability to have their personal data erased upon request.

As the new kid on the block, DeepSeek is in the spotlight for a number of reasons - and there have been legitimate concerns about how the platform collects and stores your personal information like your email address, name, and date of birth, as well as the data you enter into the chatbot, and the technical information of the device you’re using, like IP address, OS, etc.

Using AI safely

So is DeepSeek safe to use? And can it be used whilst maintaining your privacy? Well there are things you can do to mitigate the risks.

As with all LLMs, if you’re concerned about data privacy, using AI is probably not a good idea. LLMs scrape data from the internet without permission, and will use your interactions to add to the pool of data the model is trained with, and that’s not something you can opt out of, DeepSeek included.

If you’re in South Korea or Italy and still want to download DeepSeek, even the best VPN services will need a little extra help - as they don’t spoof your App store location, so you’ll need to download it from elsewhere. This is something we usually advise against, as it can be a really easy way to be tricked into downloading malware - so do so with caution.

In terms of the cybersecurity risks, there have been reports DeepSeek is ‘incredibly vulnerable’ to attacks, and failed to block any harmful prompts when tested, severely underperforming against its rivals.

You should be wary when using these chatbots - especially on a company device or if you work in an industry that has national security connections - there’s a reason both Australian and Indian government departments have blocked the use of DeepSeek from work devices.

A general rule is that users should be especially careful with the information you give to a chatbot. Don’t enter your health information, financial data, or anything that you wouldn’t want a third party to know. Monitor your accounts for any suspicious activity regularly, and flag anything you see as soon as you see it.

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Latest Tech News

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• Need massive storage? Seagate’s Exos 28TB HDD is the current king
• Recertified models are popping up cheap - but they’re not exactly fresh out the box
• Some might’ve worked hard in crypto farms before, so check before you buy!

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If you’re looking for a high-capacity hard drive, Seagate’s Exos range will definitely appeal to you. The largest internal drive you can buy in retail right now is Seagate's Exos 28TB HDD - when launched in 2024 it overtook the previous record holder, the Western Digital Gold, which maxes out at 24TB.

Seagate doesn’t disclose pricing for the Exos 28TB HDD, but we’ve noticed refurbished versions of the drive on sale for a fraction of what you might expect to pay. This isn’t the first time these cheaper CMR drives have appeared online, and the same warnings we issued about buying them before apply now.

The drives that you’ll find online at the likes of Amazon ($379.99), ServerPartDeals ($364.99), eBay in the UK (£578), as well as other third-party retailers, are all recertified models. That means they are either previously used or customer returns that have been inspected, tested, and restored to full working condition by either Seagate or an authorized third party. In other words, they aren’t brand new, but they have been verified to meet functional standards.

Linked to the Chia scandal?

In the case of Seagate's recertified Exos 28TB, it means you’re getting a tested and refurbished enterprise-grade HDD at a significant discount, but with potentially lower warranty coverage. The drives we’ve found on sale have “Factory Recertified” printed on them, so you know what you’re getting, and (depending on where you buy from) they could come with up to a two-year warranty. That’s interesting, as Seagate does offer an official data sheet for the recertified Exos 28TB drive, which states it only offers a limited six-month warranty.

There’s no question the recertified drives available to buy are attractively priced, and they should be absolutely fine, but if reliability is your top priority, you might be better off picking up a brand-new unit.

Quite where all these recertified drives have come from is something of a mystery, but it wouldn’t surprise us if at least some – if not most – of them originated in China.

Heise.de recently reported a number of its readers had purchased Seagate drives that were supposedly new but had, in fact, been used previously - potentially for thousands of hours. Further digging suggested at least some of the drives originated from Chinese cryptocurrency mining farms that used them to mine Chia several years ago. We’re not suggesting that the recertified Exos 28TB drives have been used for crypto mining, but it’s always a possibility.

When drives are refurbished and factory-certified by Seagate, the Field Accessible Reliability Metrics (FARM) usage time is reset to zero. Heise.de reports that some readers with recertified drives discovered their purchases had been used for at least 15,000 hours, which, as Tom’s Hardware points out, suggests “that these drives were used, refurbished by Seagate, used again, and then resold as freshly refurbished models.”

If you do decide to buy one of the recertified Exos 28TB HDDs, make sure you buy from a reputable reseller, even if it means paying a little extra.

Towards the end of January 2025, Seagate added the 36TB Exos M model to its growing family of data center hard disk drives, making it the largest HDD currently available, albeit not one that you'll be able to buy (for now). Seagate's CEO, Dave Mosley, also revealed at the time that the company had successfully trialed platter capacities of over 6TB, meaning 60TB drives could be on the horizon.

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Latest Tech News

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• A report claims that Apple has stumbled with Siri’s big AI rollout
• The company is apparently facing ‘engineering problems’ and bugs
• Ironing all this out may mean the revamped Siri doesn’t make the seemingly intended cut for iOS 18.4

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Apple is reportedly struggling with its much-awaited major revamp of Siri and may have to push back the upgrade until iOS 18.5 in May.

That's according to seasoned Apple watcher Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, who claims "engineering problems and software bugs" may further delay the overhaul, which was set to give the assistant more far-reaching AI powers driven by Apple Intelligence.

If you cast your mind back to WWDC 2024, Apple revealed a huge AI upgrade for Siri, some of which came into play last year, but other more complex abilities are still in the works.

Citing "people with knowledge of the matter", Gurman reports that this functionality is proving more difficult to implement than expected and that some of these in-depth features are apparently not working consistently enough. That includes some of the more impressive powers demonstrated by Apple previously, such as having Siri scour across emails and text messages to find a relative’s flight and lunch reservation plans, to pick a specific example highlighted by Gurman.

More broadly, Gurman’s sources paint a picture of Apple’s engineers “racing” to finish these AI features. The original plan was supposedly to launch the upgraded Siri in iOS 18.4 – an update rumored for April 2025 (the beta should be imminent, in fact) – but now, that might be pushed back to May (in iOS 18.5 seemingly), or even later.

Some, or all, of these heavyweight AI powers for Siri might be held back, so we could potentially see a smattering of new abilities in iOS 18.4 – but it’s sounding very up in the air still, especially considering this is a relatively close timeframe now.

Gurman also theorizes that another option for Apple could be to include the new AI features for Siri in iOS 18.4, but switched off by default – presumably a ‘use at your own risk’ kind of scenario. Apple might then choose to fully enable them (by default) in the next release of iOS, when any final gremlins are ironed out, presumably.

One way or another, it sounds like Siri getting fully upgraded with all the AI features Apple promised is looking a shakier prospect in the nearer-term – assuming Gurman's sources are accurate, of course.

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(Image credit: Future)

Analysis: Apple device owners are running thin on patience

What are these AI powers, you might be wondering? To recap on the WWDC reveal, they include some major pieces of the puzzle to really power up Siri, including awareness of what’s on the screen of the device (to use this info in context, when interacting with the user), and deeper integration with apps to facilitate better control over this software.

A more personal experience and a whole bunch of new tricks should be possible, including the ability described by Gurman above pertaining to the relative’s reservation plans.

The problem is that some Apple fans are increasingly eager to actually try out some of the compelling features for Siri that were demonstrated by Apple the best part of a year ago now. Just in the past week, we've written about how the iOS 18.4 beta promises to include the Siri upgrade we've been waiting for and that iOS 18.4 could be the biggest iPhone upgrade ever.

So far, we’ve been treated to a smart new interface for the assistant, and those ChatGPT chops, but there’s nothing that heralds the arrival of the all-new, much more powerful AI that we were promised by Apple at its big developer conference last year.

The danger is that if iOS 18.4 turns up, and Siri is again left standing still on the AI front, people will start to lose patience here. And not only that, but a sluggish deployment of these AI features will reinforce the impression of Apple as lagging behind the rest of the tech industry in the artificial intelligence field.

To be fair to Apple, when it revealed Siri’s new AI functionality at WWDC last year, for the more complex features, the company didn’t promise anything in terms of delivery beyond a rollout over the course of 2025.

That tentativeness may itself have been a hint that Apple wasn’t confident in a delivery timeframe, and realized the complexity of actually implementing all this stuff so it works well.

As ever, this is just chatter from the rumor mill, so take it with some skepticism, although Gurman is certainly one of the more reliable journalists out there when it comes to insider info from Apple. We'll presumably find out soon, with a new iPhone tipped for release next week and possibly some iOS news around the same time.

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Latest Tech News

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• HP’s $4299 EliteBook X G1a packs 128GB RAM, Ryzen AI 9, and Radeon 890M
• Offers AI-ready power, security features, and enough memory for massive models
• It's a Windows powerhouse for those who don't want a Mac

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HP has quietly introduced a new $4299 laptop that comes with a whopping 128GB of LPDDR5x-8533 RAM.

The EliteBook X G1a (or, to give it its full name, the HP EliteBook X G1a 14 inch Notebook Next Gen AI PC Wolf Pro Security Edition) is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 processor featuring 12 cores and 24 threads with a maximum boost clock of 5.1 GHz.

It includes AMD Radeon 890M graphics and a 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe TLC SSD. This makes it powerful enough for even the most intensive tasks, like running a 70B-120B parameter LLM locally.

(Image credit: HP)

Solid choice for Windows users

The 14-inch laptop has a 2.8K OLED touchscreen with 100 percent sRGB color accuracy, IPS technology, BrightView, and a brightness rating of 400 nits. It also features HP Eye Ease for reduced blue light exposure. Audio is handled by Poly Studio, with quad stereo speakers that include discrete amplifiers, along with integrated dual-array microphones.

Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, two Thunderbolt 4 ports with USB-C at 40Gbps, one USB Type-C at 10Gbps, an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB Type-A port, and a headphone/microphone combo.

As you can guess from its name, it comes with HP Wolf Pro Security Edition (for three years), with security features such as HP Sure Platform, HP Tamper Lock, and a fingerprint sensor.

The system is powered by a 74.5Wh battery and comes with a 100W USB-C slim adapter. The chassis measures 12.29 x 8.45 x 0.36 inches at the front and 0.52 inches at the rear, with a starting weight of 3.3 pounds.

One of the key challenges in AI computing, and large-scale data processing in general, is having enough memory to keep up with the increasing demands of complex models. Most consumer laptops max out at 64GB RAM, often pushing users toward workstations. HP’s portable powerhouse addresses this gap while looking good doing it.

With its 128GB of fast memory, a capable processor, and speedy storage, HP’s new laptop looks to be a solid rival for Apple’s highest-end 14-inch MacBook Pro. While I personally think Apple’s product just about wins the battle, the EliteBook X G1a will be a great choice for anyone who prefers Windows.

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Latest Tech News

Year in and year out, increasingly more people worldwide turn to VPN software to claim back their privacy online and bypass internet geo-restrictions. Not all services are made equal, though. Now, Obscura VPN, a new provider on the market, has thrown a challenge to the whole industry and promises to "set the standard for the next generation of VPNs."

Obscura VPN officially launched on February 11, 2025, and essentially vows to do two things better than its competitors: to be "private by design" and "outsmart internet restrictions."

The VPN is only available for macOS at the time of writing. Support for other platforms is set to be added in the future.

Two VPNs, better than one?

According to Obscura VPN's founder, Carl Dong, today's VPN industry comes with some considerable flaws, the biggest being around providers' trust.

In a blogpost he said: "Fundamentally, the biggest flaw of existing VPN companies is that they act as your primary man-in-the-middle – seeing both your personal info (connecting IP, email, billing address, etc.) and your browsing history."

In Dong's opinion, not even no-log VPNs are a complete solution as, even a provider that keeps true to its promise, "can suffer a security breach and be compromised."

We asked Dong for more clarifications on these points as well as for his take on independent no-log audits but are still awaiting a response at the time of publication.

What's important to know for now is that Obscura VPN decided to take a different route to be more "private by design." VPN traffic gets rerouted through two different hops. Yet, unlike traditional multi-hop VPNs, each of these servers are managed independently by two different VPN providers.

Today we are announcing a partnership with Obscura VPN, a newly launched two-party VPN service that uses our WireGuard VPN servers as its “exit hop”. Read more here: https://t.co/BxWn9hOuh5February 11, 2025

To do so, Obscura VPN has partnered with one of the most secure VPNs on the market, Mullvad VPN.

Obscura's servers act as the entry hop that encrypts your internet connection via the WireGuard protocol for later relaying it to Mullvad-operated exit servers. It's then the second VPN provider (Mullvad) that technically connects you to the internet.

"This splits 'who you are' from 'what you do,' meaning neither party can tie your identity to your browsing," Dong explains.

Obscura VPN claims, in fact, that it can never decrypt your traffic. On its side, Mullvad should not be able to see your personal information linked with your account, either.

Additionally, Obscura VPN doesn't require your name, email, phone address, or any credit card info to sign up, reducing the amount of users' data collected.

A new censorship-resistant tech

As previously mentioned, Obscura VPN also promises to be better than its competitors in bypassing censorship and evading VPN blocks. To achieve that, it employs QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections), a newer internet protocol designed for maximum security and speed.

According to Dong, QUIC is better than current VPN obfuscation technologies as it blends with normal internet traffic while avoiding performance issues that might affect TCP (transmission control protocol) connections.

Beyond the technicalities, many VPN providers keep investing in their censorship-resistant features to stay ahead of the game against ever-sophisticated censors' tactics.

NordVPN, for example, has recently released its new censorship-resistant NordWhisper protocol that uses web tunnel technology designed to mimic normal web traffic. Proton VPN also unveiled a few major updates to its service over the summer to double down on its fight against censorship, including expanding support for its very own Stealth VPN protocol on Windows.

While only time will tell if Obscura VPN can really outsmart tough censorship better than its competitors, it's definitely interesting to see yet another solution developing in this space.

Today is the day: Obscura VPN is NOW AVAILABLE!@obscuravpn is the first VPN that:- CAN'T log your activity by design- Outsmarts network filtersWe believe Obscura sets the standard for a new generation of VPNs, and hope you’ll check it out!👇 Links + more in thread pic.twitter.com/biQBwXhAvmFebruary 11, 2025

Currently, Obscura VPN only offers its provider as a Mac VPN – this means if you're using different devices you'll need to wait a bit longer before you can test it out.

The server network is quite slim, too, when compared to other VPN providers. These include a few locations between Canada and the US, some European countries (France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the UK), and less than a handful in Asia (Japan, Singapore, and Turkey). Again, the team is said to be working to add more locations soon.

You can subscribe at a discounted rate right now of $6 per month, instead of the regular cost of $8.

While it's too early to say if Obscura will eventually gain its spot among the best VPN apps, it's worth mentioning that the software is fully open-source. This means that anyone with some technical knowledge will be able to lift up the hood and take a look at its code to see if it really does what it claims to.

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Latest Tech News

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• Google Maps is testing the rollout of more incident reports
• These are weather-related options such as ‘flooded road’ or ‘low visibility’
• The growing library of incidents is a source of annoyance for some drivers

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Google Maps is introducing new incident reporting options, fresh additions that pertain to weather-related conditions.

Android Police spotted these new kinds of report, and they include the likes of ‘flooded road’ for when there’s been a huge deluge of rain, or ‘low visibility’ for when it gets foggy. And indeed ‘unplowed road’ for when, well, you should probably turn around and find a plowed road that’s not wheel-deep in snow.

The site noticed these new options in Google Maps for Android Auto first off, and then in the iPhone app.

The not-so-great news for those keen on being able to benefit from a wider variety of untoward happenings being reported is that these new introductions have not yet made it to the Android version of Google Maps.

However, it surely won’t be long before the ability to report a flooded or snowed-up road arrives on Android.

Is an ever-growing library of incidents a good thing?

(Image credit: Future)

This is a continued expansion of the reporting of incidents in Google Maps, on top of clearly-labeled Waze reports being piped through alongside native reports since last year. There’s already a wide range of incidents that can be flagged, such as road traffic accidents, stalled cars, lanes being closed, speed traps, and so on.

Sometimes, these kind of alerts can be very useful, of course, and plenty of folks are grateful to have been warned of an incoming thorny issue on the road ahead.

However, not everyone is keen on being subject to more and more of these reports being highlighted in Google Maps – with complaints about them being too frequent only likely to multiply, as Google further expands the library of incidents that can be reported.

The problem is compounded by errant reports – incidents that aren’t there, or were resolved some time back – and there being no easy way to switch off said reports.

It looks like this is a road Google is insisting on driving down, though, despite the ‘stop’ signs being waved by some of the drivers who use its navigation app.

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Latest Tech News

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• Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University published research that says AI is causing “the deterioration of cognitive faculties”
• The study involved 319 people who use AI tools at work at least once per week
• The survey-based study opens the door to deeper research into AI side effects

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Brain rot is usually associated with endless doom scrolling of low-quality online content, but a new Microsoft Research study suggests that overusing AI might be causing “the deterioration of cognitive faculties.” Oh no.

Performed in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, the study – titled The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers – asked 319 participants who use “GenAI tools at work at least once per week” (such as Gemini, ChatGPT, CoPilot) to judge how AI usage at work was affecting their critical thinking skills.

It found that “while GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving.” The study added that people's jobs are becoming less about solving problems and more about making sure the AI has correctly solved the problem – morphing our work from “task execution to task stewardship” – which led people to feel like their ability to think critically isn’t as sharp as it was before they started using AI.

Is it time to panic? Not quite yet

AI might still be a help not a hindrance (Image credit: Pixabay)

Seeing the headlines and reading the study it can feel like it’s time to pull the big AI lever and shut it all down for good in order to save our brains from being irreparably damaged by a tool that may be hurting us more than it’s helping us. But while the study certainly highlights challenges we desperately need to tackle in the AI space – ultimately the relationship between humans and AI we should be cultivating – it’s not quite as dire as it seems.

That’s because the study focuses on how AI users perceive AI usage is affecting their critical thinking. While the study uses a survey to quantify these feelings it comes down to how people feel and, more importantly, it doesn’t create a true quantitative comparison between frequent AI users and people who never or rarely use the AI.

While people who use AI a lot may feel they’re less capable of critical thinking it could be that because they’re not as distracted by less difficult tasks they can more easily tackle challenging ones thanks to AI’s help – or it could be there’s been no change in their critical thinking skills. But to measure actual changes in critical thinking we’d need a study with quantitative tests that compare different groups' ability (groups decided based on their AI usage) to complete tasks – including a control who never uses AI for work.

Until we have that kind of study it’s impossible to judge if AI really is making us dumber. However, that doesn’t mean we should just dismiss this Microsoft research.

Make AI work for you (Image credit: Shutterstock/SomYuZu)

Firstly, using this study as inspiration for a more quantitative study like the one I’ve described would be a fantastic next step. Secondly, while the participants' feelings may or may not represent factual reality, they represent reality for the people in this study – and they shouldn’t be dismissed.

If people feel like they’re simply AI stewards rather than performing meaningful work that could lead to dissatisfaction in their job. Some psychologists believe dissatisfaction with how we spend our time scrolling is the root cause of the social media brain rot experience (via the BBC). A similar sense of meaninglessness could be causing AI users’ similar brain deterioration feelings at work.

With AI becoming more prevalent we’ll need to work out how best to fight back feelings of deterioration, but a good first step will always be some self-care. Be that finding a new job that stimulates us, taking up a hobby that we can devote our freed-up brain power towards, or some other strategy that works best for you.

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Latest Tech News

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• Sony has seemingly removed a number of "spam" PS4 and PS5 games from the PS Store
• This follows recent comments made by developers criticizing the
  "slop" games featured on the digital storefront
• Developer RandomSpin has had most of its games removed, including Bodycam Shooter, Supermarket Simulator Pro, and more

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It looks like Sony may have quietly removed a number of "spam" shovelware games from its PlayStation Store.

This comes after a recent investigation from IGN which featured interviews from developers criticizing the lack of quality control across the PlayStation Store and the Nintendo eShop in comparison to the Xbox store, as well as the never-ending list of "spam" and "slop" games, and poor discoverability.

Now, a number of these low-quality PS4 and PS5 games have seemingly disappeared from the digital storefront (via True Trophies).

Over on PSNProfiles, players have found evidence to suggest that developer RandomSpin - which released over 40 titles in just 2024 alone - has had most of its games removed, including Bodycam Shooter, Supermarket Simulator Pro, Backrooms Brotherhood, and Backrooms Inside The Escape.

These titles in particular all seemed to use recycled assets, along with AI-generated images, to copy other popular games currently available, like Reissad Studio's Bodycam or Supermarket Simulator from Nokta Games.

It's unclear if the sudden delisting of these games was made by Sony as a result of the recent criticism, and it could be purely coincidental. Sony hasn't commented on the removal at this time.

In other news, Sony has announced that its first State of Play livestream of 2025 will air this week on February 12, 2025. The showcase will run for 40+ minutes and offer "news and updates on great games coming to PS5", which hopefully means we'll learn the release dates for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yōtei.

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