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No, it’s not quite May the 4th. We’re still 19 days away from May 4, 2025, which is known to us in the galaxy and those far, far away as Star Wars Day. Even so, that’s not stopping Lego from ushering in nine – yes, nine – new Star Wars sets.

You’ll soon use Lego Bricks to build everything from the loveable droid Chopper – as seen in Star Wars: Ahsoka and Star Wars Rebels – to a new Ultimate Collector Series that will please any bounty hunter, a fresh ship and, of course, a few sets to thrill those on the dark side.

In addition to loving all sorts of technology and breaking it down for you, I’m a pretty huge Star Wars and Lego fan, so I’ve done the hard work of deciphering Lego’s May 4th, 2025 drop and am sharing my favorite three out of the nine.

Plus, a look at some of the deals you can score when these go up for order in just a few days. And trust me, signing up for the free Lego Insiders rewards program makes a lot of sense – it’ll bring you closer to the force –err, deals.

You can finally build Chopper

(Image credit: Lego)

Kicking things off is the C1-10P Droid, better known as Chopper. This droid will be instantly familiar with its orange top and tan, grey main body, as well as its two main roller wheels. Fans of the Ghost Crew from Star Wars Rebels will know Chopper could have a bit of an attitude. You’ll get to build all of that and even show those emotions with the Lego Star Wars™ Chopper (C1-10P)™ Astromech Droid set.

You’ll build the iconic droid out of 1,039 pieces, and once built, Chopper will be over eight inches tall. This should be a fun one to build, especially while rewatching Star War Rebels on Disney+, one of the best streaming services, and the Chopper Droid set will launch on May 1, 2025, with preorders available right now at $99.99 / £99.99.

The Lego Star Wars Chopper – C1-10P – Astromech Droid set can be ordered now and will ship on May 1, 2025. For $99.99 / £99.99, you'll build the iconic robot out of 1,039 bricks.View Deal

The latest Ultimate Collector Series is a fun one

(Image credit: Lego)

The newest Ultimate Collector Series might not be massive like huge AT-AT or the Millennium Falcon, but this one still looks sharp. Meet the Lego Star Wars Jango Fett’s Firespray-Class Starship, which, like other UCS sets, comes with a display launch and a stand that lets you set the ship upright as if it were in flight or in a landing position. This set is made from 2,970 pieces and arrives on May 1, 2025, for $299.99 / £299.99.

As seen in share photos, you’ll build the interior including the cockpit and there are a lot of moveable details. You also get two minifigures here – Jango Fett and Boba Fett.

The latest ultimate collector series from Lego is an iconic ship that fans of Jango Fett will instantly recognize. It will be up for order on May 1, 2025 for $299.99 / £299.99. View Deal

You could build a U-Wing Starfighter while watching 'Andor'

If you are getting excited for Andor to return to Disney+ or simply a Rebel starship, this one is for you. The new LEGO Star Wars Rebel U-Wing Starfighter is not just a fresh take on the ship, but you also get several Minifigures: Deedra Meero, Cassian Andor, K-2SO, and an ISB Tactical Agent.

This one arrives at 395 pieces for $69.99 / £59.99 and lands on May 1, 2025.

The Star Wars Rebel U-Wing Starfighter will soon be available for preorder from Lego for $69.99 / £59.99.View Deal

Now, if you opt to preorder or order, you will be eligible for a few gifts with purchases if you’re a Lego Insiders member and if you order from Lego directly. If you go for the new Ultimate Collector Series, you’ll score a LEGO Star Wars Jango Fett Starship Keychain if you preorder between May 1 to May 5.

Additionally, during that same period you’ll get a LEGO Star Wars Kamino Training Facility mini set for spending over $160 / £145. Those who spend over $40 / £35 will get a mini build of the iconic Millenium Falcon, and yes this stacks with the more expensive freebie if you get them before supplies run out.

Now, the above three are my favorite, but here’s a look at the other six sets. And if you’re sold on any of these, you can sign up for preorder or in some cases order it right now from Lego’s online store.

Either way, sign up for the Insiders Program to earn points and score freebies.

The rest of the new Lego's Star Wars Day 2025 set

The opening crawl to any Star Wars film might be one of the most iconic starts of any film franchise. And now, you can finally build the iconic Star Wars logo out of Lego bricks, and the design team hid in some fun details.

This fantastic set is up for preorder now at $59.99 / £59.99 from Lego directly.View Deal

Along with the new Ultimate Collector Series set, you can also build Jango Fett's iconic helmet in this set that's built from 616 pieces. It's up for preorder now from Lego.View Deal

Is your allegiance to the dark side? Well, you'll likely want to build Kylo Ren's Helmet. View Deal

Similar to the set the above, Lego's Kylo Ren's Command Shuttle is an excellent one to display. You'll build Ren's iconic ship out of 386 pieces, and it comes with a stand.View Deal

With this set of five BrickHeadz, you'll build Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, General Grievous, Emperor Palpatine, and Mace Windu.View Deal

This is a cool entry into the BrickHeadz lineup. You can build Luke Skywalker as a Rebel Pilot, and it's only $9.99.View Deal

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In what we can only assume is a potential thumb in the eye of Elon Musk, Sam Altman's Open AI is reportedly considering building a social network, possibly inside ChatGPT.

This comes via a new report from The Verge, which claims this week that the social network possibly being built on top of OpenAI's AI services is only in the "early stages." Still, it could set up ChatGPT and other OpenAI platforms for a head-to-head battle with Grok, a generative AI platform built on top of Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter).

There are essentially no details about what this social platform might look like, and OpenAI has little experience with shareable content outside of what its models can generate and what you can see in Sora (the video generation system) of other people's creations.

Take that, X

The fact that this rumor is out there might have little to do with behind-the-scenes development and more to do with Altman's ongoing battle with former partner Musk.

The pair founded OpenAI together before Musk walked away in 2018. He has since criticized and sued OpenAI for, among other things, becoming, in part at least, a for-profit entity (see OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft and the rise of Copilot).

Let's assume for a moment, though, that this is real. Why would OpenAI want to build a social network? In a word: data.

If millions flock to the platform and then start, I guess, sharing AI-generated memes on it, they'll be dropping a ton of rich data into the OpenAI system. If users allow it, future versions of the GPT model could be trained on it. Real data and activities that show how real people think, talk, act, create, etc, can be invaluable to a young generative model.

Social timing is everything

I wonder if this might've made more sense a year or two ago when Musk took over Twitter, transformed it into X, removed many of the protective content guardrails, and turned it into a social media hellscape. It was in that moment that Meta's Threads first rushed in. It was followed in notoriety by Bluesky. Both of them are distributed social networks, meaning no one owns your identity or your data.

Their growth has been remarkable, and it stands in contrast to X's fortunes. Depending on who you talk to, active user growth is stagnant or shrinking. But that doesn't mean the public's appetite for more alternative platforms is growing. Threads' growth has slowed, and Bluesky is relatively small compared to X and Threads.

The action is mostly on image and video-based social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. The Verge report does not mention video, which leads us to assume this could be another micro-blogging-style network – something no one necessarily needs or, perhaps, wants.

Even so, as an opportunity to cause Elon Musk a little more agita, it's probably a worthy trial balloon from Altman.

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Latest Tech News

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• Nvidia confirms it will fully manufacture its AI supercomputers in the United States
• Arizona and Texas to host chip and supercomputer production facilities
• Trump-backed push for onshore tech drives trillions in new investment

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Nvidia has announced it will manufacture its AI supercomputers entirely in the United States.

The company revealed plans to produce $500 billion worth of AI infrastructure in the US over the next four years, building and testing chips in Arizona and assembling AI supercomputers in Texas.

More than a million square feet of new manufacturing space is being developed to support this expansion.

The Trump effect?

Production of Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips has begun at TSMC’s facilities in Phoenix. In Texas, Foxconn and Wistron will handle supercomputer manufacturing in Houston and Dallas, with mass production expected to scale up within 12 to 15 months.

Nvidia is also working with Amkor and SPIL in Arizona to package and test its chips. Together, these facilities form a new supply chain based entirely in the US, something the company has never done before. Will this make a huge difference? Probably not.

According to the The White House, this move is part of a broader trend driven by efforts to bring key tech manufacturing back to American soil.

“It’s the Trump Effect in action,” a White House statement said. “President Donald J. Trump has made U.S.-based chips manufacturing a priority as part of his relentless pursuit of an American manufacturing renaissance, and it’s paying off - with trillions of dollars in new investments secured in the tech sector alone.”

Earlier in 2025, President Trump announced a $500 billion private investment in AI infrastructure led by OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank, called Stargate.

Apple also announced a $500 billion investment, while TSMC committed $100 billion toward domestic chipmaking. The White House noted that onshoring these industries supports American workers, strengthens the economy, and improves national security.

“The engines of the world’s AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said.

"Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency.”

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Latest Tech News

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Monday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Monday, April 14 (game #407).

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #408) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Draft picks

NYT Strands today (game #408) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• STREET
• RISE
• CRACK
• TOWER
• SIRE
• CROW

NYT Strands today (game #408) - hint #3 - spangram letters

How many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 12 letters

NYT Strands today (game #408) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First side: left, 6th row

Last side: right, 4th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #408) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #408, are…

• SOUR
• NITRO
• LAGER
• BOCK
• STOUT
• PORTER
• PILSNER
• SPANGRAM: MICRO BREWERY

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• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 1 hint

---

After fearing that today’s search would have something to do with sports drafts, I was relieved to be on the more solid ground of alcoholic beverages, and beer in particular.

Cunningly, the grid featured the word BEER – but it wasn’t one of the answers. Crafty, crafty…

I did struggle to get going and the word the Hint gave me – SOUR – didn’t help much. It wasn’t until I spotted LAGER that I knew what I was doing. BOCK and NITRO were both new beery words to me, although I’ve seen both incorporated into German beer brands.

All in all, thirsty work.

How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.

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Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Monday, 14 April, game #407)

• IRIS
• DAFFODIL
• TULIP
• HYACINTH
• LILY
• CROCUS
• SPANGRAM: SPRING FLOWERS

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What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

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Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Monday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, April 14 (game #673).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #674) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• BELL
• REFRAIN
• SPEED
• CHORUS
• BRIDGE
• HUBRIS
• DARLING
• HEARTS
• HOOK
• AVOID
• HERO
• CEASE
• SPOONS
• PAN
• ABSTAIN
• TRAGEDY

NYT Connections today (game #674) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: Not involved
• GREEN: Play with a deck
• BLUE: Parts of a classic play
• PURPLE: People in JM Barrie’s classic

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #674) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: DESIST 
• GREEN: CARD GAMES 
• BLUE: ELEMENTS OF GREEK DRAMA 
• PURPLE: SECOND WORDS OF "PETER PAN" CHARACTERS 

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #674) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #674, are…

• YELLOW: DESIST ABSTAIN, AVOID, CEASE, REFRAIN
• GREEN: CARD GAMES BRIDGE, HEARTS, SPEED, SPOONS
• BLUE: ELEMENTS OF GREEK DRAMA CHORUS, HERO, HUBRIS, TRAGEDY
• PURPLE: SECOND WORDS OF "PETER PAN" CHARACTERS BELL, DARLING, HOOK, PAN

---

• My rating: Hard
• My score: Fail

---

I failed completely again, wasting a lot of time barking up the wrong trees.

After getting DESIST fairly easily I struggled with the remaining 12 words. I was convinced there was a group about songwriting with BRIDGE, HOOK and CHORUS all being key elements of a hit tune. Scrambling for the fourth word I included BELL and got the dreaded “groups of four” pop-up.

After another mistake, I switched to collecting a group associated with Peter Pan – PAN and HOOK were locks but I went down a dead-end route and thought we were looking for elements of a particular scene, so I included BELL and BRIDGE, all very tenuous.

With “one away” I really should have got the purple group, but I made the wrong choices and went for HERO and TRAGEDY.

Two defeats in a row is not a good look.

How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.

---

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Monday, 14 April, game #673)

• YELLOW: RESTRICT BLOCK, CHECK, DAM, STOP
• GREEN: TICKETED EVENTS CONCERT, GAME, MOVIE, PLAY
• BLUE: ASSOCIATED WITH THE GAME THE OREGON TRAIL
• DYSENTERY, FORD, HUNT, OXEN
• PURPLE: WHAT "FORD" MIGHT REFER TO ACTOR, CAR, DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT

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What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

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Latest Tech News

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• Researchers from top US universities warn extending pre-training can be detrimental to performance
• Too much pre-training can deliver worse performance due to something akin to the butterfly effect
• The more they are pre-trained, the more they become sensitive to small changes that could disrupt the end result

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Researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton are challenging one of AI development’s accepted core beliefs - that the more pre-training data the better the performance.

As reported by HPCwire, a new paper discuses the concept of “catastrophic overtraining,” whereby extended pre-training can harm a model’s performance after fine-tuning.

The researchers compared two versions of the OLMo-1B model, one trained on 2.3 trillion tokens and another on 3 trillion. Despite the larger training set, the more extensively trained model reportedly performed up to 3% worse on benchmarks like AlpacaEval and ARC.

Reaching the inflection point

This performance drop, the study claims, is linked to a phenomenon called “progressive sensitivity.”

As the token count increases, the model becomes more fragile. Even small tweaks, like adjustments during fine-tuning, or the introduction of noise, can reverse earlier gains.

The authors demonstrated this by injecting Gaussian noise into pre-trained models, noting that performance degraded more sharply the longer the model was trained.

The point where this additional training starts to degrade performance is called the “inflection point.”

Once reached, the benefits of training start to become outweighed by the risk of internal instability. The study found that this tipping point often occurs beyond 2.5 trillion tokens in smaller models, like OLMo-1B.

“Catastrophic overtraining may be inevitable... especially when the pre-training and fine-tuning tasks are misaligned,” the authors warn in their paper, which you can access through the arXiv pre-print server.

While the researchers are not suggesting an end to pre-training, they do feel that developers should consider just how much pre-training is enough. As the paper concludes, “Our findings call for a renewed focus on model scaling that considers the entire training pipeline.”

For AI developers chasing scale, the message seems clear: sometimes, less really is more.

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Latest Tech News

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• Certain electronics gadgets are now exempt from certain tariffs
• Phones, laptops, and processors all get a reprieve – which includes China
• It's still not clear what will happen next with electronics pricing

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There's a new twist in the US tariff trade war: Phones, computers, semiconductors and various other electronics are now exempt from punishing import tariffs, which have shot up to 145% for China and are typically now 10% as a baseline for other countries.

The news was reported by the Associated Press and others, and while it's still early to say what the full impact will be, it does ease the pressure on companies who mostly manufacture their gadgets outside of the US – including Apple, Dell, Nvidia, and Samsung.

US President Donald Trump introduced a raft of tariffs for goods imported to the US at the start of the month, and markets have been in chaos ever since. Earlier this week, a lot of those tariff hikes above the 10% baseline were paused – but not for China, which raised its own tariffs in turn.

This new exclusion policy does cover China, and mentions smartphones, laptops, hard drives, computer processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors. Most companies that deal in electronics will be breathing a sigh of relief, though some device categories apparently aren't covered, including video games consoles.

What happens next?

The move might not be enough to open up Switch 2 pre-orders in the US (Image credit: Future/Nintendo)

It's been difficult to predict the moves the US government has made in respect to tariffs in recent days, and that hasn't changed. This latest move should mean gadget pricing settles down for consumers, but it's impossible to be certain.

Bloomberg reports that the new exclusion policy could be a precursor to a whole separate tariff focused specifically on electronics. For now, the world is waiting to see how the 90-day pause on many of Trump's tariffs plays out.

As a US company which assembles almost all of its goods overseas, including in China, Apple has been in the spotlight during all of this tariff uncertainty: there have even been suggestions of Apple factories in the US and reports of iPhone panic-buying ahead of potential price rises.

Apple is one of the companies that it seems will benefit the most, though the move may not be enough to open up Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders in the US, which have been delayed. Consoles like the Switch 2 aren't mentioned in the new exemptions, though the previous 90-day pause should mean more stock can be moved to the United States.

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I love coffee, but I also love my sleep, so after about 2pm I always switch to decaf to avoid being kept awake at night. It works well, but opting for decaf generally means you miss out on some of the more unusual flavors around – like the double-fermented passionfruit beans I got from my local coffee roaster recently, or Nespresso's white chocolate and strawberry coffee pods, which are an unlikely but delicious combination of flavors.

My Speciality Coffee Association (SCA) instructor calls it 'cheating coffee', but when it tastes this good, who cares?

Thankfully, just as alcohol-free beer is now mainstream and varied, we're starting to see roasters and manufacturers start to get more creative with decaf – and Nespresso's new Sweet Vanilla Decaffeinato pods are so comforting, they might just become my new favorite bedtime drink.

The Sweet Vanilla Decaffeinato pods work in any Neespresso Vertuo machine (Image credit: Future)

Coffee beans can have notes of vanilla by themselves, depending on the variety and the roast, and when extracted correctly (a tricky process to get right), coffee does have a natural sweetness. However, it's quite subtle, and if you want something more dessert-like, a coffee with added flavor is the way forward.

Decaffeinated coffee is made by removing the caffeine from green (unroasted ) coffee beans by dissolving it in water. There are a few different ways to achieve this, and Nespresso uses two different methods. The first involves simply soaking the beans in hot water to dissolve the caffeine (known as the Swiss water process). This process leaves behind no residue that could alter the taste and character of the coffee

The second method (the carbon dioxide process) is more efficient. Again, it involves soaking the beans in water to make them porous, but this time the soaked beans are placed in a pressurized container and exposed to CO2, which dissolves the caffeine.

Once caffeine has been extracted from the beans, it can be re-used to make high-caffeine drinks like Nespresso's energy-boosting functional coffees.

The vanilla flavor works well with barista oat milk (Image credit: Future)

After loading a pod into my Nespresso Vertuo Pop (one of the best Nespresso machines around if you need something compact) and hitting the brew button, I was left with a cup full of creamy decaf coffee with a generous layer of foam.

It's delicious by itself, and the added flavor doesn't overpower the taste of the beans, but I enjoy a milky bedtime drink and vanilla typically works well with dairy, so I was keen to see how it would hold up as a white coffee.

The Sweet Vanilla Decaffeinato pods are mug-sized, meaning they'll fill a 230ml mug, but I still had room for a little caramel-flavored barista oat milk, or regular dairy milk. The flavors both combine very nicely, though regular milk would work best if you don't have a particularly sweet tooth.

Hopefully we'll see even more decaf options soon – cheating or otherwise.

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As someone who's covered Apple for almost a quarter of a century, this Apple Intelligence Siri chapter is by far its most confounding one. We're now just two months away from the next Apple developer's conference, and it will likely mark an ignominious anniversary for Apple's artificial intelligence efforts.

Apple's uncharacteristic failure to deliver on a product promise has shocked many fans. Ever since the company announced it would not deliver some of the promised Siri enhancements this year, I, for one, have been wondering how we got here.

Now, a new report paints a surprising picture of rival AI factions or rather two teams with divergent strategies that somehow led to flashy demos and some unfulfilled promises.

Not everything in The Information's report on the Apple Siri debacle is surprising. I've been writing for some time about how Apple's usually laudable adherence to privacy principles hamstrung its Siri efforts.

However, The Information's claim that Apple's AI lead John Giannandrea and Craig Federighi (Apple's software engineering head) were in some fashion acting at cross purposes is unexpected.

Giannandrea's slow and steady approach and Apple's insistence on using its own models as opposed to, say, OpenAI's GPT LLMs was in stark contrast to the obvious excitement Federighi's Intelligent Systems team had for experimenting with and possibly using third-party models.

Two visions, no clarity

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

Internal battles are not unheard of in companies of all sizes, but they usually don't play out on a public stage at Apple. As The Information tells it, the Apple Intelligence demos I saw last June at WWDC may have broken what I thought was a cardinal rule for Apple: never announce technology that you can't demo live, at least in some fashion.

When Apple stunned WWDC 2023 with the new Apple Vision Pro, it followed later that afternoon by inviting a handful of journalists (including me) for hands-on demos. The pricey mixed reality headset wasn't done, but it was still functional enough to blow our collective minds.

In the case of Apple's Intelligence, though, our post-event demos were limited (Siri was no smarter). It seems that not only were many of the best bits not finished, but Apple may have shown them off in the pre-tapped keynote without giving the main Apple AI team in charge of Siri a full heads-up.

Doing so obviously put Apple in a tough spot. The pre-tapped WWDC video showed us a responsive and aware Siri capable of looking into your iPhone, its apps, and your information to take action on your behalf. Apple then promised we'd see it sometime that year.

Even after Apple delivered the iPhone 16 with iOS 18 and the first blush of Apple Intelligence (a new look, writing tools, Image Playground, Genmojis), most assumed it was just a matter of time before Siri got its major intelligence glow-up.

Half baked

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

By possibly demonstrating technology that was not ready or even fully programmed to run on any Apple Intelligence-ready iPhone, Apple may have set itself or, at least the Siri team, up for failure.

Apple hasn't spoken on the record about this beyond the initial announcement of the delay. News that Apple Intelligence is now reportedly under Craig Federighi's leadership is further proof that perhaps Apple realizes it chose the wrong path.

Federighi's team, according to The Information, is much more open to integrating third-party LLMs. It's a good strategy not only because it will help Apple's AI efforts get back on track but also because it's the same strategy employed by most of its AI competitors, at least those who are not at heart AI companies.

Late in the game, Amazon relied on Perplexity's Claude AI models to build its own Nova system. Samsung has leaned heavily on Google Gemini to develop its own models. As we well know, Microsoft made a big bet on OpenAI's GPT models to power Bing AI and then Copilot to build its own Microsoft AI models.

Siri will rise

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

This, folks, is the way in. Sure, it's maybe less predictable and, possibly, rock-solid secure than Apple's initial strategy, but most of these companies are racing ahead while iPhone fans wait for Apple to get its act together.

Federighi (and Vision Pro lead Mike Walker) taking over is good news, but much of Apple's future success in the AI space will depend on Apple CEO Tim Cook's leadership.

This failure happened under his watch, possibly because he trusted the team to get the job done and has been adamant about sticking to Apple's secure and private approach. Now Cook has to find a new plan and, with Federighi, identify a clear path that gets you the smarter Siri you want in 2026, if not sooner.

I've seen Apple do amazing things in the past, and honestly, I'm confident it'll do it again here.

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Latest Tech News

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• Immutable backup storage is the best ransomware protection
• Research shows backups are almost always targeted in ransomware attacks
• Ransomware is on the rise already in 2025

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Ransomware attacks in the first quarter of 2025 set new records, up by 84% in the same period of 2024.

Moreover, ransomware is often talked about as an attack that businesses should expect to be hit by, with two-thirds of organizations experiencing an attack in the last two years.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, as new research from backup storage provider Object First shows that 81% of IT decision makers agree that immutable backup storage is the best ransomware protection.

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Segmentation, zero trust, and immutable storage

While having a 3-2-1 backup strategy is a start when it comes to ransomware protection, the Object First research also reveals that 96% of organizations who have suffered a ransomware attack in the last two years saw their data backups targeted as part of at least one attack, with one in ten seeing their backup storage targeted in every attack.

While there is a general consensus that immutable backup storage is probably the best way to protect against ransomware, only 59% of organizations actually deploy this form of storage, and only 58% have multiple copies of their data in separate locations. In addition to this, 61% of respondents believe that IT security hardening offers enough protection against ransomware attacks.

Object First recommends that businesses adopt a breach mentality, and couple this with Zero Trust principles and immutable backup storage. To do this, businesses should segment their networks to minimize the potential blast radius of an attack, alongside using authentication mechanisms for log-ins such as multi-factor authentication and identity access management practices. Moreover, each user should only have access to the files and applications they need for their specific workload.

Immutable backup storage helps protect against ransomware attacks by storing data in a way that it cannot be modified or deleted. Traditionally, these have been hard drives or other storage mediums that are used to back up data and then stored in an ‘air-gapped’ environment that has no connection to the outside world. However, with cloud services booming, immutable cloud storage is now also an option.

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Latest Tech News

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• Google unveils combined security suite at Cloud Next 25
• Google Unified Security brings together all its top safety tools
• Threat Intelligence from Mandiant will help your business spot threats before they strike

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Google Cloud has unveiled a new unified security platform designed to take the stress out of keeping your business safe from the latest threats.

The company has unveiled Google Unified Security, affectionately known as GUS, at its Google Cloud Next 25 event in Las Vegas, promising a major step forward in threat detection and mitigation.

Unsurprisingly, Google Unified Security will be outfitted with the company's latest AI tools and services to maximize the options available to customers.

Google Unified Security

The launch of Google Unified Security comes as businesses around the globe face what the company calls a "new era of security and privacy".

The company says that as a business grows, its infrastructure inevitably becomes more complex, expanding the possible attack surface, and increasing the need for a unified security platform, as separate and disconnected security tools can leave data fragmented, as well as opening firms up to attack.

Customers will be able to use Google Unified Security to access a single interface for all their data, offering improving visibility, detection and response capabilities.

The company promises the latest Google Threat Intelligence findings will be made available to users, and Gemini will of course also be present to offer advice and guidance.

Users will be able to access telemetry and other data from Chrome Enterprise to ensure they stay safe from possible threats, which can be monitored from Security Command Center.

Employees can also benefit from new phishing protections in Chrome Enterprise Premium, with employers able to add their own branding and corporate assets in order to boost identification.

Google's Security Operations platform is also getting a boost thanks to new data pipeline management capabilities, helping users manage scale and reduce costs, while the new Mandiant Threat Defense service gives in-depth detection and response capabilities to all the latest threats.

Google Unified Security is rolling out now.

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