Latest News

The PlayStation Portable, or the PSP, was discontinued over a decade ago, yet its cultural footprint has never truly vanished. In a surprising twist, fast‑fashion retailer Zara has given the device a new lease on life by releasing a cross‑body bag modeled after the original PSP‑1000.

The Zara PSP Crossbody Bag lives up to its whimsical name – it’s both charming and a bit absurd. The drop arrived without any fanfare or marketing push, but the retro‑gaming community has already spotted it.

What does the bag actually look like?

It’s a compact cross‑body bag whose front panel is a silicone replica of the PSP‑1000, rendered in meticulous detail. The design features embossed buttons, logos on both sides, an analog nub, and a vinyl strip that mimics the iconic 4.3‑inch widescreen screen.

The adjustable shoulder strap also bears PSP branding, complete with the classic triangle, circle, cross, and square symbols. Zara clearly aimed for an authentic look rather than a cheap knock‑off, and the result reflects that intention.

The bag measures 4.3 × 7.9 × 2 inches, includes a main zippered compartment, and is constructed from a polyurethane thermoplastic front with a silicone overlay, plus a polyester shell and lining.

How much does it cost, and where can you buy it?

At present the Zara PSP Crossbody Bag sells for $35.90 in the United States and £19.99 in the United Kingdom, available directly through the brand’s official website and in its stores. It comes only in black.

The product page even displays a trademark symbol, suggesting a licensed arrangement between Zara and Sony, although neither party has officially confirmed the partnership.

Priced at $35.90, it may be one of the most affordable pieces of PSP memorabilia you can own – if the console holds any significance for you.

Oppo has introduced a fresh accessory for its smartphones in China called the Oppo Bubble, and it turns out to be surprisingly adaptable. It works as a selfie‑enhancing tool, a tiny rear‑mounted display, a whimsical phone add‑on, and a generally fun gadget – the kind of thing that would have dominated tech TikTok a few years back.

Unveiled together with the Reno 16 lineup, the Bubble is a small magnetic circular screen that snaps onto the back of compatible Oppo phones. Essentially, it acts as a secondary display that improves selfie composition, which is genuinely useful. It’s lightweight, customizable, and boosts your selfies or group shots thanks to the enhanced rear‑camera view. Normally you’d have to guess the framing with the rear cameras, but this accessory handles that for you.

What can it actually do?

The Oppo Bubble features a circular AMOLED touchscreen capable of showing static wallpapers, live photos, videos, emojis, decorative themes, and carousel‑style media playback. So it’s not limited to just being a selfie helper, although the wireless camera preview is undoubtedly its most practical function.

When attached, users can preview framing, tweak angles, and trigger the shutter remotely. Oppo claims the Bubble supports a wireless live preview from up to 10 meters away, making it handy for tripod work, group photos, or anyone who’s ever endured the awkward “set timer, run into frame, hope for the best” routine.

Useful and still light

The good news is Oppo kept the device slim. The Bubble is about 7 mm thick and weighs roughly 27.5 g, so it won’t turn your phone into a pocket dumbbell. It houses a built‑in 550 mAh battery, pairs without cables, and is automatically detected by compatible Oppo phones when brought nearby.

You can also use it as a standalone hanging display when paired with a suitable protective case. Priced at 499 yuan (around $75) in China, the Bubble currently works with the Oppo Reno 16, Reno 15, Reno 14, Find X8, and Find X9 series.

Given how impressive some of Oppo’s latest flagship cameras are, owners of those phones can get a lot out of accessories like this. Not everyone needs a tiny magnetic selfie screen on the back of their device, but vloggers, selfie enthusiasts, and fans of playful tech will definitely appreciate the novelty.

Back in 2023, Avalanche Studios – known for Mad Max – let fans step back into the wizarding world with Hogwarts Legacy, delivering the iconic school of witchcraft and wizardry in next‑gen visuals.

Now, a fresh rumor hints that the sequel could be edging closer to an official unveiling. Yet, as with many leaks, this one feels more hopeful than concrete.

What’s the buzz about?

The speculation claims that Hogwarts Legacy 2 might be mentioned during Sony’s next State of Play event. The post appears to tease a possible reveal rather than a firm release date – a crucial distinction, since Warner Bros. Games has yet to disclose a launch window, trailer, platform lineup, or any other key details.

The timing is intriguing. Sony has confirmed that its upcoming State of Play will take place on June 2, featuring over an hour of updates, announcements, and gameplay showcases from studios worldwide.

Among the most anticipated announcements is Marvel’s Wolverine, the only major title confirmed so far, leaving ample room for other unannounced, big‑budget projects. While the rumor is exciting for Harry Potter fans, concrete information is still scarce, so the leak may be more noise than substance. Still, hope for a Hogwarts Legacy 2 remains alive.

Why Warner Bros. might already be planning a sequel

A follow‑up to Hogwarts Legacy wouldn’t be shocking. Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels previously told Variety that a successor was one of the company’s top priorities “a couple of years down the road.” This suggests that a second entry in the series is indeed on the horizon, even if a June 2 reveal has not been confirmed.

In short, while the leak could simply be background chatter, the prospect of a new Hogwarts adventure is certainly on Warner Bros.’ long‑term gaming roadmap.

Google’s Quick Share is the kind of feature you don’t think about until the day you need it and your phone simply doesn’t have it. Huawei device owners live in that reality permanently, given that they don’t have access to Google Play services, and so does anyone running the Chinese regional build of Android.

However, a developer with the handle Kyujin-cho just published an open-source Android app called Bada on GitHub that seems to solve exactly this problem. It does so by implementing Google’s own Quick Share protocol from scratch, circumventing the lack of Google Play Services.

What does Bada actually do?

Once Bada is installed on a device that lacks Quick Share, it becomes fully interoperable with any Quick Share‑equipped Android device nearby on the same Wi‑Fi network. The same four‑digit PIN confirmation process that users already know shows up on both the sending and receiving sides.

Using the app, people can send files from any Android app (via the system share sheet), receive files to a specific folder, and even send entire folders, with the directory structure intact. Like Quick Share, the app supports Wi‑Fi LAN as the transfer route, with BLE‑based identification for devices running on stock Android and Samsung’s One UI.

Testing has already confirmed that Bada works with Galaxy S26 Ultra and Z Fold 7 over BLE GATT bootstrap. NearDrop on macOS and Quick Share on Windows are listed as targets; however, they remain untested.

Should you actually use it right now?

According to Android Authority’s hands‑on testing, the app experience isn’t exactly seamless when sharing files from a Quick Share device to a Bada device. Windows transfers completely failed.

The project sits at 10 GitHub stars and one fork, which is still early‑project territory by all means. The codebase is open‑source, meaning anyone with the technical know‑how can verify what it’s actually doing with their files.

The app itself confirms that transfers still use Quick Share’s encryption method. The developer explicitly targets interoperability with NearDrop and Windows Quick Share for the near future.

In my opinion, Bada won’t replace Quick Share for most people, but for Huawei users, along with the Chinese Android users Google quietly left behind, or for any other Android user whose phone doesn’t ship with Quick Share out of the box, it’s the closest thing to a real solution anyone has bothered to build.

I wrote this entire article while seated on an airplane experiencing unusually high turbulence. The software I used to spell-check and grammatically sanitize the draft was built at an airport. The language engine is running entirely on my Mac, fully offline, fixing all my typos and removing the double spaces while I mash the keyboard and sip a sugar-bomb coffee. 

Also, I don’t know how to code. I didn’t write a single line of code, and yet, the Mac software I am using right now looks classier and feels snappier than Grammarly ever did. Grammarly, if you don’t know, is one of the most popular apps for spelling and grammar checking on the planet. So, how did I do it? I asked Claude. I narrated my wish, it asked my preferences, and in less than 30 minutes, I built myself a no-internet Grammarly replacement while also avoiding the “yet-another-subscription” curse.

The first version runs as its own website in a browser tab without any internet connection. The second version lives as a Chrome extension, and works just fine when the device is offline. And finally, I went ahead and created myself a full-fledged Mac app that lives as a menu bar utility. I had half a dozen people test these across Mac and Windows machines. They were pretty impressed by the speed and accuracy of the tool.

Solving my problems, or taming my vices

Over the past couple of weeks, I have dipped my toes (the whole feet, my arm, and my neck) into the app and software development world. My first experiment was a Mac app that used the motion sensors fitted inside the AirPods Pro to track my posture. Essentially, the app identifies a healthy posture, and every time I slouch or hunch forward, it sends a warning. The app worked fully offline, and all the processing happens entirely on my Mac. 

I did it all without even seeing the underlying code. 

For my next adventure, I thought of building something that can liberate me from the hassle of being perennially online. Since my job as an editor involves writing all day, Grammarly is nothing short of a lifeline, despite some of its shady shenanigans recently. I have often lost chunks of text in the Grammarly iPad app because the cloud sync didn’t work. On the days when I am carrying my trusty Mac, finding a stable internet connection becomes a constant headache. 

All I want is to sit in peace, write a few articles, and have a reliable grammar-checking tool do its magic as I furiously speed through a laptop’s mushy keyboard. But that’s not the only issue. Staying connected to the internet (while it does its job as a Chrome extension in Google Docs) also means an endless stream of distracting apps. And yeah, it’s just one browser tab to take you from a strictly-for-work Google Search and deep into a doomscrolling bender on X, YouTube, or any other digital vice.  

I am still in disbelief. 

But why, you might ask? First, because I can finally build my own software tailored to my specific needs. Second, I am tired of the privacy compromises. Of course, not having to pay for yet another app is a huge incentive. But above all, it’s the realization of being in control of your daily workflow (or at least a part of it) that really inspires me, and I am not stopping anytime soon. 

How was the process?  

I’ll let the picture below do the talking. I fired up the Claude mobile app on an Android tablet to build a piece of software for the Mac. And in the very first attempt, my Grammarly alternative built by Claude worked perfectly. Actually, I built three. One of them runs fully offline, the other one requires an internet connection, while the third one is a proper macOS app that lives as a menu bar utility.

The latter combines the concept of note-taking and grammar correction into a single tool, complete with a one-click Apple Notes export facility. This one required me to fire up Xcode and build a dedicated app icon, too, which Claude was happy to do. But here is the broad reality. The barrier for “building” products has never been easier, and it has never been more versatile. A year ago, if you told me that I would make such a powerful macOS tool on an Android tablet, without writing a line of code, I would’ve laughed out loud in your face. 

When I launched Claude, I simply narrated my requirements. Claude suggested three routes for building my own offline Grammar checker, and I picked the one that worked without an internet connection, ran with minimal issues, and above all, must be snappy. I initially wanted to use Apple’s on-device foundational models (shipped with Apple Intelligence). It worked, but it was pretty slow. Claude recommended that I go with the Harper engine by Automattic. Initially, the tool, which I named InkWell, required an internet connection.  

The whole package came in at less than 10 megabytes in size. But I wanted something that can work without an internet connection. Claude suggested that it can actually integrate the Harper engine within the file package so that the tool (now called Quill) won’t require an internet connection at all. The only downside? The file size swells to 25 megabytes. The AI’s storage space concern was almost laughable. We live in an age where even basic calculator apps hog hundreds of megabytes in local storage, so 25MB was next to nothing.

The bigger AI dilemma

So, I have been using Grammarly for years now, but in the past couple of years, as the company has increasingly leaned into AI, some of the suggestions and grammar recommendations have turned out to be utterly vexing. And in a fair number of cases, I have also noticed that Grammarly does a downright shoddy job with even the most basic kind of spell checks.

Harper avoids the verbose recommendations and increasingly AI-fied language suggestions that you would get from the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini. It’s a tool that doesn’t rely on token-based linguistic predictions, but more on hard-coded language and grammar rules. This is exactly what I want.

I want an AI to catch a wrong spelling, or an incoherent tense here and there. That’s all. I don’t want (and would never take) an AI’s recommendation to change my voice. Harper, however, is not perfect, and so are the tools I built using the namesake engine. For example, when I check this sentence, “My name John. What your name? What day today,” the Harper engine flags it as perfectly fine. But these errors are sporadic.

On the positive side, the Harper engine takes only 20 milliseconds to identify mistakes and make language suggestions. “Harper combines lightning-fast performance with a privacy-first design, ensuring all processing happens locally on your device to keep user data completely private. It’s also completely open source,” says Automattic, the company which acquired Harper in 2024.

Those are meaningful perks, and the fact that it can run it within such a small package and without any internet connection is a massive sigh of relief. Of course, building a tool in three different functional flavors, and without writing any code, is the biggest takeaway here. Claude is putting the power in the hands of an avereage computer user like me, and you. Naturally, I can’t wait to embark on my next personal app project with it

Pope Leo XIV signed his inaugural encyclical on May 15, marking the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum. Titled Magnifica humanitas, the document was released on May 25 and tackles one of the era’s most pressing issues: artificial intelligence and its effects on humanity.

The central message is not an opposition to technology. The Pope stresses that technology is neither a threat nor inherently evil, but it is never neutral because it reflects the values of its creators, funders, and controllers. This is where the discussion becomes crucial.

Is AI turning into a tool for the elite?

A large portion of the encyclical addresses the concentration of AI power in the hands of a few. Pope Leo XIV cautions that this could widen the divide between those who benefit from the digital revolution and those left behind. He calls for ethical standards shaped by shared principles of social justice rather than a small group of decision‑makers.

He also condemns the use of AI in warfare, stating that no algorithm can render war morally acceptable. He argues that AI makes conflict faster, more impersonal, and lowers the threshold for resorting to violence, which does not constitute genuine progress.

The timing of the encyclical is striking. In July 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded contracts to Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI to embed cutting‑edge AI into military operations, from battlefield decision‑making to classified intelligence systems. Anthropic withdrew from its agreement in early 2026 over concerns about autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, leading to a ban by the Trump administration. OpenAI quickly stepped in, signing its own Pentagon deal, which sparked a massive backlash from users and resulted in widespread app uninstallations.

By April 2026, the Pentagon had secured new classified AI contracts with OpenAI, Google, and others. It is evident that the Pope is displeased with these developments and is indirectly urging the U.S. government to cease employing AI in warfare.

What path does the Pope propose?

The heart of the encyclical is the call for technology to serve humanity, not the reverse. He advocates for stronger labor protections, transparency in communication, renewed focus on education, and legal frameworks that hold AI developers accountable. He highlights migrants, workers in hazardous conditions, and abuse victims as groups that require our empathy and protection. Ultimately, Magnifica humanitas reminds us that, regardless of technological advancement, true progress remains a human measure.

If you’ve ever tried to reserve a room online and felt uneasy about the AI chatbot offering assistance, you’re not imagining it. A recent study from Texas A&M’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences confirms that hotel‑booking bots are genuinely unsettling users, and this anxiety is actually reducing bookings.

What makes hotel chatbots feel creepy?

Researchers surveyed 340 adults in the UK who had used chatbots for hotel reservations and identified three primary drivers of the “ick” factor: inaccuracy, deceptive behavior, and intrusiveness. Inaccuracy was by far the biggest culprit, provoking a negative reaction more than four times stronger than the other issues.

Errors include quoting the wrong room rates, botching cancellation policies, or simply ignoring user questions. This discomfort isn’t just a feeling—it slashed users’ willingness to continue the conversation by nearly 38 % and almost doubled the likelihood that they would postpone or abandon the booking altogether.

The study also highlighted the “uncanny valley” effect, where a bot’s attempts to sound human become even more unsettling when it fails to act like one. Lead researcher Babak Taheri summed it up, noting that when a human‑like system doesn’t behave accordingly, it triggers a reaction deeper than mere disappointment.

A simple fix hotels are overlooking

The good news is that the researchers identified an easy remedy that many hotels are ignoring. When a chatbot openly states that it’s an AI, users become considerably more forgiving of its mistakes. A straightforward introduction such as “Hi, I’m your AI assistant” can go a long way.

They also advise making it simpler for users to reach a real person for complex queries and investing in improving the AI so it can reliably handle basic tasks without stumbling.

This research arrives at a pivotal moment, as AI‑driven travel booking is currently the hottest trend in tech. Google has recently added AI trip planning to Search, and Uber has launched hotel bookings through Expedia within its app.

Huawei has revealed what it sees as a new path forward for advanced chips. At the 2026 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems in Shanghai, Huawei’s He Tingbo introduced the company’s Tau Scaling Law, a new semiconductor principle that Huawei says can guide chip development as traditional Moore’s Law runs into physical and economic limits.

The company says future high-end chips designed under this approach could reach transistor density equivalent to 14 angstroms, or 1.4nm, by 2031.

How Huawei is changing the chip game

1.4nm sounds pretty impressive, but the keyword here is equivalent. Huawei is not saying it has suddenly gained access to the most advanced chipmaking tools in the world, and the company has yet to provide any independent performance data. As of right now, China’s most advanced chipmaking capability is still widely viewed as being around 7nm (like the one powering Huawei’s tri-fold phone). However, the company’s plan is to chase performance through system-level efficiency rather than relying solely on smaller transistors.

Tau Scaling focuses on cutting the time it takes signals and data to move through chips and computing systems, with Huawei’s new LogicFolding architecture. The tech basically shortens critical-path wiring, reduces signal-propagation load, and improves both transistor density and circuit performance.

Which chips will test this first?

HiSilicon, Huawei’s chip subsidiary, is set to use this tech for its latest generation of Kirin chips. These are scheduled to debut in fall 2026 with the new LogicFolding tech. The company also claims it has designed and mass-produced 381 chips over the past six years based on Tau Scaling, covering areas such as smartphones and AI computing.

Aside from this, the company also plans to apply LogicFolding to the Ascend AI chips by 2030, along with large AI clusters used in data centers. While the 1.4nm is headline-grabbing, the Ascend chips carry a larger weight. With Chinese companies looking for alternatives to Nvidia hardware, which is restricted in the region, Huawei’s AI chips are becoming more important. Reuters also notes that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said the company had “largely conceded” China’s AI chip market to Huawei.

As the US export controls have limited Chinese access to advanced lithography equipment and other critical semiconductor technologies, making conventional progress toward frontier nodes much harder. TSMC currently uses 2nm technology and plans 1.4nm mass production in 2028, while Huawei is trying to reach comparable density through a different design route. So the company is clearly not waiting for Moore’s Law or easing of US restrictions to decide how far its chips can go.

China has launched a national programme that will assign every humanoid robot manufactured in the country a unique digital identity code, effectively a citizen ID, but for bipedal machines (those that can balance and walk/run on two legs). 

The initiative, called the Humanoid Full Lifecycle Management Service Platform, was announced on Friday. It is led by the Humanoid Robotics and Embodied Intelligence Standardization committee, which is under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (via South China Morning Post).

What does a robot ID actually look like?

The machine codes are structured in four parts. While a two-digit national code tracks international shipments and sales, a four-digit manufacturer code keeps a record of the firm that manufactured it.

Then there’s a six-digit product model code that identifies the robot type, along with a 17-digit serial code distinguishing individual units from one another. The purpose is to follow the humanoid robots from the production through its entire working life, all the way to recycling.

The guidelines cover everyone involved in the supply chain, from manufacturers, service providers, sellers, end users, to the recycling facilities. The new system should also accelerate the deployment of humanoid robots in a regulated manner, wherein the manufacturing firm could be held accountable for any malfunctions. 

Why is China doing this now?

According to January research from IDC (as mentioned in the report), the global humanoid robot market expanded 508% just last year, with around 18,000 units shipped globally, with the Chinese vendors leading that growth.

China already has over 100 humanoid manufacturers, and more than 28,000 robots across 200 models have already been assigned a digital ID before the public announcement of the Humanoid Full Lifecycle Management Service Platform.

Yu Xiuming, deputy head at the China Electronics Standardization Institute, said the system is designed to address core issues around safety, oversight, and governance. China’s humanoid industry is moving faster than the regulation framework, and the ID system is less a surveillance move and more an industrial infrastructure play, the kind of standardisation required before global scaling.