Category: 4. Technology

Announced earlier this year at NAMM 2025, Melbourne Instruments’ Roto-Control is a MIDI controller with a difference.

Equipped with eight motorized knobs – first seen on the company’s NINA synth – that instantly recall parameter values when opening new projects or plugins, Roto-Control also offered Ableton Live integration straight out of the box.

If you’ve been reading Bring A Loupe with regularity during my tenure, you would already know my affinity for gilt-dialed Tudor Submariners. As with the Rolex Sub, there is a deep and nerdy history to explore when it comes to those offered by Tudor throughout the vintage period. In the 1960s, while Rolex’s Subs featured dials with a deep gloss, now known simply as “gilt” dials, their Tudor contemporaries offered a different finish — matte gilt. The text and chapter ring tone are the same, but the black of the dial is softer, making for a distinctly different look in the metal. Some collectors have begun to shy away from Rolex gilt dials, fearing fragility and scratches on the gloss surface. With the Tudors, there is less to worry about.

It is finally July, which as well as a heatwave in our native shores, also brings a fresh entry into our regular Pick of the Month column.

Here, we once again detail all the products to earn five-star ratings from our team of hi-fi and home cinema experts over the past month.

Proving that it’s not just Intel CPUs that get included in bundle bargains these days, Newegg has a fantastic AMD Ryzen 7800X3D deal going at the moment, which not only enables you to pick up this chip for just $369.99 ($80 lower than Newegg’s list price), but you also get a free 1TB Team Group SSD with it. It’s a decent PCIe 4.0 drive as well, which is faster than older PCIe 3.0 drives, and way quicker than older SATA SSDs.

Importantly, you also get one of our favorite processors in this bundle. We gave this chip a score of 9/10 in our AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D review when it was released, and while it’s since been superseded by the new 9800X3D, the cheaper price of the 7800X3D means it still has a strong place on our guide to buying the best gaming CPU. That’s all thanks to this CPU’s huge slice of AMD 3D V-cache that sits on top of the CPU cores, and massively improves gaming performance.

We’ve seen the price of this chip fluctuate a fair bit over the last few months. Following a supply shortage after the launch of the new AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, we saw prices of over $500 being listed for the 7800X3D earlier this year. We’ve since seen it drop as low as $358.59 since then, but $369.99 is still an excellent price for such a capable chip.

Its eight Zen 4 cores are more than enough for gaming, and while the clock speed is a little low at 5GHz, the huge amount of cache makes up for this massively. By effectively having a massive 96MB of L3 cache available, you massively reduce the likelihood of cache misses, which means the CPU is less likely to have to page your slower system memory for data.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D might be quicker, with its 5.2GHz clock speed and faster Zen 5 architecture, but it also costs over $100 more, and the 7800X3D is still a great CPU. In fact, this is the chip we use to test all the GPUs in our guide to buying the best graphics card.

Meanwhile, the SSD on offer is a Team Group MP44L, which uses the 4x PCIe 4.0 interface and can read at up to 5,000MB/s, with a top sequential write pace of 4,500MB/s. While those speeds aren’t going to rival the PCIe 5.0 drives on our guide to buying the best gaming SSD, they’re still nearly 10x the speed of a SATA drive. Besides, you really can’t complain when you’re getting a PCIe 4.0 drive for free – it’s going for $62.99 on Newegg now if you buy it separately.

If you want to take advantage of this deal, you just need to click on this link here to take you to Newegg, and then make sure the “Add Free Gift Offer to Cart” box is ticked. You’ll need to be quick, though, as it’s listed as a limited offer.

If you’re thinking of building a new rig with this bundle, check out our best gaming motherboard guide to find a decent AM5 board to house your CPU and SSD, as well as our newly updated guide to buying the best CPU cooler for your needs. If you’re looking for a great budget cooler, we’ve tested the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120SE ARGB on the 7800X3D, and it works fine, while also looking good for just $39.99.

Google is now offering compensation to Pixel 6a users facing battery-related issues. As part of its new Battery Performance Programme, the company is giving customers the option to either get their phone battery replaced for free or claim a cash or store credit payout. The move comes after complaints of overheating and battery performance concerns linked to the Pixel 6a.

To prevent further battery-related problems, Google will push a mandatory Android 16 update to all Pixel 6a devices. This update is aimed at improving battery efficiency and reducing overheating risks. While free battery replacement at authorised centres was already available, Google has now added more support choices for users who prefer to move on from the device.

According to details shared by the company, affected users who don’t want to go for a battery replacement can opt for a trade-in offer. Under this, Pixel 6a users can receive $100 (around Rs 8,500) as direct cash or choose to get $150 (approximately Rs 12,800) as a Google Store credit code. This store credit can be used towards buying a new Pixel phone. The final value in local currency will be based on the day’s exchange rate, and Google has mentioned that cash payouts may not be available in all regions, depending on local rules.

For handling payments, Google is working with Payoneer, a third-party financial platform. To process the money, users might need to share personal details like identification numbers, this will depend on the rules of the country the user is in. For example, users in the US may be asked to share their Social Security Number, while other regions may require alternate ID proof.

To know if they are eligible, Pixel 6a users must visit a dedicated eligibility page set up by Google. They’ll be required to enter their email address linked to the device and the IMEI number of the phone. In case someone is helping a family member or friend with the process, they can submit the details using another email ID, although Google has warned that it might ask for more information in some cases for verification.

Once eligibility is confirmed, users can go ahead and choose whether they want the free battery service or claim compensation. This move from Google gives users flexibility and support, especially those using older units or planning an upgrade. The combination of a required software update and hardware support shows that the company is taking battery issues on the Pixel 6a seriously while giving affected customers practical solutions.

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We’ve scoured the internet for July 4 camera deals ahead of the Amazon Prime Day sales, taking place July 8-11 this year. There are some great offers to be had from top brands such as Canon, Sony and Nikon and more.

With our experienced reviewers having tested and reviewed these models (or their predecessors or successors), we can say with confidence that these cameras are worth the investment. What’s even better, you can grab them now for a reduced price.

Cruise robotaxis are back on the road… well, kind of. Though General Motors pulled the plug on its self-driving taxi business last year, the automaker has been quietly repurposing a few of the vehicles as it seeks to develop new driver-assistance technologies.

This week, WIRED spotted a GM Bolt electric hatchback on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and later saw a similar vehicle on Interstate 880 near Oakland. In each instance, the car was being driven by a human. But it held equipment on the roof such as lidar sensors that resembled the setup from the Cruise ride-hailing system. The vehicle had “Mint” written on the hood, but didn’t include any visually apparent Cruise branding.

GM spokesperson Chaiti Sen confirms to WIRED that the company is indeed “using a limited number of Cruise Bolt vehicles on select highways in Michigan, Texas and Bay Area for testing with trained drivers to further develop simulation models and advanced driver assistance systems.” She adds, “This is internal testing and does not involve public passengers.”

GM removed the orange-and-white Cruise logo from the cars’ sides after it took full ownership of the unit in February, she says. The recent activity began in Michigan and Texas in February and the San Francisco Bay Area-region in mid-April, Sen says. Cruise had named each vehicle in its fleet, and Sen confirmed that “Mint” has been among the vehicles newly active in the Bay Area.

The testing shows for the first time how GM is beginning to give a second life to a fleet of no less than hundreds of vehicles left over from a costly project that ran aground.

GM initially acquired a majority stake in San Francisco-based Cruise in 2016, and invested more than $8 billion into developing a robotaxi service. The operation was off to a fast start and eyeing a rapid expansion until October 2023, when a Cruise vehicle struck a pedestrian in San Francisco who had just been hit by a human-driven vehicle.

In the aftermath of the incident, Cruise misled state regulators, lost a key permit, halted operations, and laid off a quarter of its workers.

After some attempts to restart the business, GM announced this past December that the experiment would be cancelled altogether. At the time, GM CEO Mary Barra told analysts that running a robotaxi fleet was an expensive distraction from the business of making cars.

But the technology behind Cruise is helping improve the roughly 7-year-old Super Cruise system found in some GM cars. It aims to help drivers stay in and change lanes, or apply the emergency brake without needing to use their hands.

Several automakers are racing to develop cars that offload an increasing amount of driving tasks to computers. GM claims about 60 percent of its 360,000 Super Cruise customers regularly make use of the capability.

In the US, the robotaxi industry has been dominated by Waymo, though Elon Musk’s Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox are among those continuing to try to catch up.

GM’s repurposed Bolts blend into San Francisco-area roads, on which cars with heavy-duty computer gear attached to roof, back, and sides have become commonplace. They include not only companies testing sensors and algorithms, but also map providers collecting data and hobbyists attempting to upgrade their personal rides.