Category: 4. Technology

Over the last month, I’ve been using and testing the Satechi 67W Slim Wall Charger, which bears an unusual distinction among almost all travel chargers on the market, in that it doesn’t look absolutely diabolical.

This Actually Pretty Nice-Looking™ wall charger is a charger intended for on-the-go users who need to charge up more than one (but fewer than three) devices at any given time.

Satechi have earned my personal trust with excellent computer and tech accessories in the last few years, not least with the fantastic (and not entirely hideous) Thunderbolt 4 dock that is celebrating its two-year anniversary as a mainstay on my desk this month, so when I needed a new lightweight portable charger, the chance to try out this fetching little wall charger magically appeared in my inbox.

It does look good, yeah

While most chargers, portable or not, look like someone just carved a slot into a hastily manufactured, this Satechi charger is a pleasing rounded rectangle that will sit nice and flush against the wall you plug it into, with two USB-C slots on the underside (so the cables stream down along the wall rather than jutting straight out into the room). Despite that location, they’re easy to reach in order to plug and unplug your phone, smartwatch or any other device you need to juice up.

It’s neatly proportioned too, measuring 3.15 x 2.04 x 0.68 inches, and weighing only 90 grams. There are three colours available as well: a finely textured Black, a near-white Sand or a faded-pink Desert Rose. While all the variants look nicer than your regular grey/black charger, the Desert Rose stands out for me with its striking but classy colour choice.

But is it any good, then?

More often than not, I’ve found, to my abject disappointment, that when a product arrives with an eye-catching design element, the internal performance often struggles to match the first impression, leaving you with a tinge of sourness whenever you see it.

Not so much here.

The Satechi 67W Slim Wall Charger offers, as the more hawk-eyed among you may have guessed already, 67 watts of power via its two USB-C ports on the bottom.

There is a caveat, though. If you connect only one device, it will provide a maximum power delivery of 67W regardless of which port you choose, but if you need to charge two devices, the left-hand one (as you look at it) will max out at 45W and the right-hand one will top out at a mere 20W, enough for juicing up your smartwatch or headphones (or recharging your phone overnight), but far from enough to keep your laptop topped up while working on it. It’s enough for a MacBook Air, but you’ll be pushing it a little with a MacBook Pro or an ASUS ProArt…

While many laptops outside the gaming and studio space will be fine with 67W charging capacity (as long as you don’t need to charge your phone at the same time), this does mark the Satechi Slim Wall Charger out as a slightly more casual-use device than bespoke pro chargers and hubs.

Wait, there’s a deal on it?

As I write this post on Labor Day morning, I have found out that it’s discounted by a full quarter of its MSRP on Amazon in the US. The regular price for this nifty and pretty charger is $59.99, but right now the Satechi OnTheGo 67W Slim Wall Charger can be had for only $44.99, which makes this an excellent purchase for style-conscious travelling creatives.

With artificial intelligence systems getting better day by day, the raging question in the AI community has been whether the new models will soon be able to surpass humans at most tasks we do today or attain a state of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, while steering clear of the term AGI, believes that the current AI models may already have surpassed humans in most day-to-day tasks, with a few caveats.

In an episode of the Moonshot Podcast, Dean says that the current models are “better than the average person at most tasks” that do not require physical activity.

“Most people are not that good at a random task if you ask them to do that they’ve never done before, and you know some of the models we have today are actually pretty reasonable at most things.”

“You know, they will fail at a lot of things; they’re not human expert level in some things, so that’s a very different definition and being better than the world expert at every single task,” Dean cautioned.

The host then asked Dean how far away the current models are from making breakthroughs faster than humans. To which Dean replied, “We’re actually probably already you know close to that in some domains, and I think we’re going to broaden out that set of domains.”

“There will be a lot of domains where automated search and computation actually can accelerate progress — scientific progress, engineering progress,” he said. “All these things I think are going to be important for advancing what we as people can do over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years,” he added.

The one area that Jeff Dean won’t talk about:

Dean, however, chose to stay clear of the AGI debate, in part because the term does not have any clear definition within the field of artificial intelligence.

“The reason I tend to steer away from AGI conversations is lots of people have very different definitions of it and the difficulty of the problem varies by like factors of a trillion.”

Dean’s boss and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is more optimistic about AGI and claimed in a recent interview with WIRED that the breakthrough would be achieved in the next 5-10 years.

The recent Windows 11 security update didn’t cause those SSD failures, according to Microsoft (via BleepingComputer). But the root cause is still unknown.

Users began reporting their SSDs and HDDs getting bricked soon after installing a Windows update (KB5063878), released by Microsoft on Aug. 12. The issue was first noticed by Japanese users who reported failed and corrupted drives when working with large files or lots of files on SSDs that were over 60 percent full and had the new update installed. Users reported problems with SSD drives from brands including Corsair, Phison, Fikwot, Maxio, and others.

Microsoft investigated the issue and said they were unable to reproduce the issue, finding no link between between the Windows 11 update and the bricked drives. “After thorough investigation, Microsoft has found no connection between the August 2025 Windows security update and the types of hard drive failures reported on social media,” said Microsoft said in an update to the service alert reported by Bleeping Computer.

Microsoft worked with controller-maker Phison to investigate why SSDs with their chips failed. Phison also said it was unable to reproduce any issues, but “continues to closely monitor the situation in collaboration with our industry partners,” in a statement to Neowin.

Until the root cause is determined, Phison advised users to use a heatsink or thermal pad to prevent the device from overheating during long, power-heavy sessions. Additionally, a Phison spokesperson told BleepingComputer that users with over 60 percent storage used should “avoid downloading, copying, or writing large files” that are in the tens of gigabytes.

When Apple’s Vision Pro arrived last year, it was hailed as a glimpse into the future of mixed reality. But its high price and heavy build drew criticism.

Now, Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has stepped into the arena with its own answer — the Vivo Vision — a headset that looks strikingly familiar, but comes with some important differences.

Unveiled during Vivo’s 30th anniversary event, the Vivo Vision Discovery Edition shares the sleek design and gesture-based interface of Apple’s headset. Yet it weighs only 398 grams, roughly a third lighter than its American rival, and is also expected to cost about one third of the price. That difference alone may draw many curious users.

It is a familiar strategy for Chinese hardware makers: offering high specifications at lower prices to beat the competition.

The headset features two micro-OLED displays with a combined 8K resolution, designed to produce sharp, cinema-like visuals. It runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 2 platform, which delivers more powerful graphics and faster processing than its predecessor.

Eye tracking and fingertip gesture recognition allow users to control the system without physical controllers, while strap options offer flexibility for comfort.

If the suggested price of around 10,000 yuan (roughly £1,100) holds true, the Vivo Vision would significantly undercut Apple’s Vision Pro, which starts at nearly 30,000 yuan in mainland China.

Samsung’s latest foldables have only been on shelves for a month, but one is already picking up an unwelcome bit of déjà vu from last year’s Z Fold 6. As Android Authority drew our attention to, multiple Galaxy Z Fold 7 owners are reporting that the paint — or more accurately, the anodized finish — is chipping off their $2,000-plus devices. And in most cases, they swear it’s not from drops or abuse.

A curious case of chipped paint

Suspiciously similar to last year’s

This is what the edge of the Blue Shadow model should look like with no flaking paint.

Reports started surfacing on Reddit nearly three weeks ago. Multiple posts and comments have emerged containing photos of the aluminum frame showing flakes of missing finish near the power button, around the USB-C port, and along the side rails. One owner, who claims to have “babied my phone the day I purchased it,” said the coating started peeling despite only ever using Samsung’s 25W charger and a high-quality case. Another said they woke up to what looked like a speck of lint, only to discover it was a bare patch of aluminum after the finish chipped away further.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The Fold 6 had a nearly identical controversy last year. That prompted Samsung to issue support documentation suggesting poorly grounded third-party chargers could degrade the anodization on its foldables. The company recommended using only first-party power bricks, warning that current leakage from non-OEM chargers might corrode the protective surface.

However, the latest complaints complicate that narrative. Several users say they only used Samsung’s official charger, while others point out that the anodized layer shouldn’t fail under normal circumstances at all. One particularly detailed comment argued that the aluminum wasn’t treated properly during manufacturing, meaning the finish simply wasn’t bonded to the frame the way it should have been.

What’s being done about the finicky anodization?

Most reports center on Blue Shadow, with few on Jetblack, and seemingly none on Silver Shadow.

Samsung’s customer service responses seem mixed. A few users report being told cosmetic damage isn’t covered under warranty since it doesn’t affect performance. Others, like a Z Fold 7 buyer in Denmark, say Samsung arranged a pickup to evaluate whether the defect qualifies for repair or replacement. In at least one case, a service center escalated the issue to corporate for review.

Still, for a phone that starts at over $2,000, spontaneous paint flaking is more than a minor annoyance. It’s a quality control problem. It also risks undermining confidence in Samsung’s premium foldables at a time when Chinese brands are heating up the competition.

We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment and will update if the company provides an official response. In the meantime, if you’re the proud owner of a new Z Fold 7, try not to get caught up staring too closely at the frame.

Apple’s iPad Air M3 tablet is the latest iPad Air model, and it’s currently on sale at a record low price of $449. This Labor Day, Amazon has slashed the new iPad Air M3 to its lowest price yet — and we don’t expect it to go much lower any time soon. The iPad Air M3 ranks as the best tablet for students, which makes it a perfect buy for back-to-school season. While Apple products are known to carry hefty price tags, you don’t have to worry about paying full price on this one.

Amazon is now offering the entry-level 128GB 11-inch M3 iPad Air for just $449, down from the usual $599. That’s a respectable $150 discount on any of the available colors. Need a bigger display? The same $150 discount applies to the 13-inch model as well — although it’s a 19% reduction rather than 25% — with all the colors on sale. Both Walmart and Best Buy are currently matching Amazon’s prices with all colors marked down.

The latest iPad Air comes with the fast M3 chip, so it won’t struggle to play all the latest games or run the most capable apps. It features a gorgeous Liquid Retina display in 11- and 13-inch size options, just like the eye-wateringly priced M4 iPad Pro.

Other specs worth noting include fast Wi-Fi 6E support for streaming content and downloading apps, while storage options go all the way to 1TB. To learn more, check out our full review of the iPad Air M3.

Need to take your iPad on the road? Models with cellular connectivity are also offered with a $50 discount.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

Why this deal matters

This is the best iPad Air that Apple has ever made, and it’s a very viable alternative to the iPad Pro for people who want a great tablet without spending laptop-like sums of cash. It comes in multiple colors and will be a great tablet for years to come. It’s unlikely to be cheaper than this for a while, so make sure to take advantage of it while you can.

Microsoft has responded to reports that a recent Windows 11 security update has caused gaming SSDs to fail. According to the company, a “thorough investigation” left the company in no doubt that its recent KB5063878 security update isn’t the cause behind these mysterious drive failures.

Despite those earlier Windows 11 SSD failure reports, Microsoft hasn’t been able to replicate the issue on its own Windows 11 PCs. That leaves plenty of unanswered questions, especially with regards to identifying the cause behind the issue. While plenty of drives have so far not been listed as affected, such as Samsung 990 Pro and WD Black SN7100 that you can find on our best gaming SSD guide, there’s still cause for concern until the reason for the problem is resolved.

Microsoft issued this news via a statement made in a service update, and since reported by Tom’s Hardware. The statement confirmed that the company found “no connection” between the KB5063878 update in August and the “types of hard drive failures reported on social media.” Despite working with hardware manufacturers, it hasn’t been able to replicate the issue itself, either.

This error causes some gaming SSDs to disappear from Windows during periods of heavy data writes. Restarting your PC does, in most cases, cause the drive to reappear, although not in every instance, and with data loss almost guaranteed to occur due to the drive’s sudden disappearance.

As we reported at the time, initial data suggested that gaming SSDs with Phison data controllers were seemingly the most affected. Phison was unable to replicate the issue either, however, while other reports suggested that SSDs using rival chips were also seemingly affected.

As of now, there’s no clear answer as to what might be causing this issue. If you’re running Windows 11, keep an eye on your SSD health, especially when you’re writing a lot of data to it, such as when you’re installing a new game. If you’re worried, make sure to keep your important data backed up using cloud storage or by using an external hard drive to avoid data loss that you can’t recover from.

You can check out our choice of the best external gaming SSD if you want to grab a fast and portable drive to keep your data on hand.

Having trouble with your gaming PC? If you’ve been affected by this issue and you believe you know why, feel free to start a conversation in our Discord server with staff and other readers.

Pseudonymous maker “borpendy” has created a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5-powered dual-screen handheld inspired by, and capable of emulating, Nintendo’s classic DS — with modern dual-analog-stick control and twin touchscreen displays.

“The DSpi is a Dual Screen Linux handheld powered by a Rasberry Pi Compute Module 5, designed primarily for [Nintendo] DS emulation,” borpendy explains of the gadget. “The device features a 5000mAh battery, [Microsoft] Xbox-pattern controller with dual analog sticks, dual 480p [MIPI] DSI [Display Serial Interface] touchscreens, stereo speakers, and a DAC [Digital to Analog Converter] + headphone amp.”

The design of the device, installed in a custom-built 3D-printed housing, roughly mimic’s Nintendo’s DS, the first in its family of dual-screen clamshell handhelds and originally launched in 2004. Where the Nintendo DS had only one resistive touchscreen and one non-touchscreen, though, the DSpi has dual capacitive touchscreens — no stylus required.

Inside the housing is a custom carrier board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, the computer-on-module variant of the popular Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer. It’s connected to the two 800×480 IPS displays over MIPI DSI, with stereo speakers driven over I2S via a pair of Analog Devices MAX98357 amplifiers. The headphone output uses a Texas Instruments PCM5102 digital to analog converter and a dedicated Diodes Incorporated PAM8908 headphone amplifier. There’s a TI BQ25890 battery management chip for the 5Ah battery, and the Xbox-inspired dual-analog control system is driven by a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller.

The DSpi isn’t borpendy’s only plan for a Raspberry Pi portable: the maker is working on a more modular design comprised of a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 carrier that connects to daughterboards adapting it to a range of formats including a DSpi successor, a larger dual-7″-display handheld, a “controller-sized PC” with HDMI video output but no on-board display, and a laptop-size cyberdeck with a final form factor yet to be determined.

Borpendy has released design files, 3D print files, firmware, and the promise of operating system images to follow on GitHub under an unspecified license, but warns that “this is still a mostly experimental project, and could still use a lot of work — especially on the software side in improving the user experience.”

The Cyberpunk 2077 team is teasing something for this Thursday, 4th September.

A rather mysterious post has popped up on social media from President Rosalind Myers (that is to say, Cyberpunk 2077’s president of the New United States of America and former CEO of Militech).

“Our great nation is once again facing a mounting cybersecurity threat – from those who hide in the shadows, too cowardly to publicly proclaim their beliefs, who are viciously determined to tear down our flag and the values it upholds,” the post begins. “I will not accept this, and I know you won’t either.”

The Cyberpunk 2077 directive then asks netrunners brave enough (so, you and me) to “join our efforts” to overcome “this grave threat”.

The message from the president closes with the call to “take our recruitment test” and “prove yourself” by serving the NUSA. It doesn’t actually have a link or anything to take you to a recruitment test, though, but given it is all predated as a note from 4th September, I am going to say this will change on Thursday. I wonder if the threat is Team Cherry… (I jest of course).

Some in the comments have suggested a new game plus mode could be on its way, while others are hoping for more content for Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC. What do you hope the Cyberpunk 2077 team is teasing?

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