For years, smartphone makers have been locked in a race for brighter screens, thinner bezels, and sharper resolutions. Now, it looks like the next battleground could be refresh rates — and things are getting a little absurd.
A new leak suggests OnePlus is exploring a roadmap that could eventually bring 240Hz OLED displays to its flagship phones. That’s a number typically associated with competitive gaming monitors, not devices that spend most of their time scrolling through social media feeds and watching YouTube videos. According to tipster Digital Chat Station, OnePlus is considering a gradual jump through 165Hz and 185Hz panels before ultimately reaching 240Hz in future devices.
The refresh rate race is heating up
Most flagship smartphones today top out at 120Hz, which already feels incredibly smooth for everyday use. Animations are fluid, scrolling feels responsive, and games that support high frame rates look noticeably better. But OnePlus appears interested in pushing beyond what most users would consider necessary.
Recent rumors surrounding the upcoming OnePlus 16 have already hinted at a 165Hz-to-185Hz jump while retaining the company’s preferred 1.5K display resolution. That suggests OnePlus may be prioritizing speed over pixel count, at least for now. It’s not hard to see the appeal. Higher refresh rates can make supported games feel more responsive, especially in fast-paced shooters and racing titles. The challenge is that the benefits become increasingly difficult to notice as the numbers climb.
The real challenge isn’t speed
Getting to 240Hz is one thing; doing it without destroying battery life is another. That’s likely why OnePlus reportedly continues to favor 1.5K panels over sharper 2K displays. Combining ultra-high refresh rates with higher resolutions demands more power, more processing muscle, and more aggressive thermal management.
The company could revisit 2K screens in the future, but only if display technology improves enough to avoid major compromises. For now, the rumored OnePlus 16 is expected to arrive later this year with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chip and a larger silicon-carbon battery, both of which could help support more demanding display hardware. Whether anyone truly needs a 240Hz smartphone screen is another question entirely. But if the leak is accurate, OnePlus seems determined to find out.
Apple is reportedly gearing up for a potentially disruptive shift in how notifications behave in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says internal builds now show incoming alerts sliding in from the left edge of the screen. While that might appear to be a minor visual tweak, it seems to be part of a broader redesign of navigation gestures that could compel long‑time iPhone users to re‑train years of instinctive motions.
The familiar swipe might no longer work as expected
For years, iPhone owners have relied on a simple gesture: swipe down from near the middle of the display to pull down the Notification Center. In iOS 27, that action is slated to open Search or an AI‑driven assistant panel instead. Accessing notifications would require a new motion—swiping down from the left side of the screen. Anyone who has switched to a new smartphone after years on another platform knows how deeply these gestures become ingrained.
Apple’s AI push could be behind the change
The reported redesign hints that Apple wants Search and its AI capabilities to take a much more prominent place in the iPhone experience. Rather than tucking AI tools behind buttons or menus, the company appears to be assigning them one of the most natural gestures on the device, signaling where it sees future user interactions heading.
The animation for notifications also seems crafted to reinforce the new behavior. With alerts now arriving from the{ left side of the screen, the visual cue lines up with the new swipe direction needed to view them. Whether users will welcome the alteration remains to be seen. History shows that even modest tweaks to familiar gestures can provoke strong reactions. If the leak is accurate, iOS 27 may not only look different—it could reshape how millions of people instinctively interact with their iPhones each day.
A New York Times examination of internal documents from lawsuits filed by more than 1,400 school districts against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube shows that these firms deliberately targeted students, even as their own safety teams warned about the damage being caused.
The evidence is stark. Snapchat sent phone alerts to teens during school hours, urging them to post what was happening in their classrooms. A Snapchat strategy memo even labeled classroom phone use as “under the desk” time.
Meta went further, hiring “teen ambassadors” and paying high‑schoolers $45 gift cards plus branded gear to promote Instagram to their peers. TikTok contributed millions to the National PTA, partially to fund school events focused on online safety.
Did the companies know what they were doing? The answer is yes, and that’s why the revelations are so unsettling. TikTok’s safety team had advocated for years to turn off notifications during school hours, but senior leadership rejected the proposal. A TikTok employee wrote in 2022, “Teachers are going to hate it. Kids already have smartphone addiction in class,” referring to a feature that nudged users to post within three minutes. A manager replied, “If we assume teens are going to do this anyway, we’d rather them be here on TikTok.”
Google was not blameless either. A 2020 internal memo stated that “investing in schools helps onboard kids into Google’s ecosystem,” and YouTube managers were aware that the algorithm was serving off‑topic videos to students during class time.
What’s next? All four companies recently settled with Breathitt County Schools, a small Kentucky district of roughly 1,500 students, for $27 million. However, that is likely only the start. The upcoming case involves Tucson Unified School District, which is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
Cornell Law professor Alexandra Lahav described the litigation as “massive, massive lawsuits” that could ultimately cost these corporations billions. The companies argue that the pandemic and other factors are to blame for the teen mental‑health crisis, and that parents and schools also share responsibility. Whether a court will concur is a separate question.
Even if a court awards a billion dollars, that sum is a drop in the bucket for these firms, which can easily absorb it while generating 100 times that amount in a single year. Unless criminal charges are pursued for plainly harming children and students, and strict legislation is enacted, such practices are unlikely to cease anytime soon.
Small AI models just received an unexpected boost from a classic board game. MIT researchers set up a Battleship‑style environment to see if AI agents could become better at gathering information before taking a turn. The outcome was a dramatic rise in performance for compact systems, including one model that went from rarely beating humans to winning the majority of games after the researchers altered its board‑search strategy.
This improvement targets a major flaw in today’s AI agents: they are often tasked with problems whose answers depend on details they haven’t yet obtained. MIT’s findings suggest that smarter question planning can make a low‑cost model act far more competently.
How much smarter did it get?
MIT’s experiment used a Battleship variant driven by natural‑language queries. One AI acted as the teammate tasked with locating hidden ships, while another had full board visibility and provided answers.
The most striking gain came from Llama 4 Scout. Initially, the smaller model defeated human opponents in only 8 % of games. After the researchers introduced a more deliberate inference method, its win rate jumped to 82 %, outpacing a larger frontier model while costing roughly 1 % of the expense.
That metric matters for anyone watching AI costs. The model didn’t win by becoming larger; it won by asking sharper questions and extracting more value from each response.
Why does Battleship help AI learn?
Battleship serves as an ideal test because it forces an AI to operate with incomplete information. It can’t see the entire board, so every query must narrow the search space and set up the next move.
This mirrors real‑world AI tools. A support bot, research assistant, or planning agent often needs to ask follow‑up questions before it can help. When that step fails, the model may miss crucial details, repeat itself, or issue premature recommendations.
The MIT approach puts pressure on that weak point by measuring whether an agent can collect the right data before delivering an answer.
Where could this go next?
The tougher question is whether the same technique works outside of games. Battleship is a controlled environment, making scoring easier than evaluating open‑ended agent workflows in search, customer service, or workplace software.
Nevertheless, the trend is worth watching. If smaller models learn to pose better questions before acting, companies could deploy cheaper AI tools that feel more capable in everyday tasks.
The next milestone will be transferring the skill from a game board to real‑world work. Tasks with vague instructions, missing files, and hurried users will pose a far greater challenge.
Valve has announced that Steam Machine will ship this summer, finally giving PC gamers a concrete launch window for its SteamOS living‑room PC. The missing piece is still the price, and that’s the detail many buyers need before they can decide whether it fits their setup.
The update arrived as Valve broadened its Verified program to include Steam Machine and Steam Frame. For Steam Machine, games will be evaluated for default controller support, default graphics settings, and how well they run without manual tweaks. Valve says the hardware is roughly six times as powerful as the Steam Deck, while still running SteamOS, the Steam interface, and Proton.
**How your library will look**
Steam Machine Verified should feel familiar if you’ve used the Steam Deck. The requirements are almost identical, so you’ll get a clearer indication of whether a game is ready for TV play before you spend time adjusting controls or graphics settings.
Valve already has a solid foundation for that work. Tens of thousands of titles have passed Steam Deck verification, and Valve is testing Steam Machine support for games that missed Deck performance targets because of CPU or GPU limits. On stronger hardware, some of those games could meet the new bar without developers changing anything.
**Why the price gap lingers**
The summer timing makes Steam Machine more concrete, but the missing price keeps the comparison unfinished. Buyers still don’t know whether Valve’s living‑room PC will be priced closer to a Steam Deck, a gaming laptop, or a compact Windows gaming PC.
That comparison goes beyond raw performance. Valve must demonstrate that a TV‑connected SteamOS PC can make PC gaming easier in the living room than the options people can already buy. Verified labels should reduce setup uncertainty, but price will decide whether that convenience looks worth paying for.
**When buyers get the rest**
Valve has also added Steam Machine and Steam Frame tabs to the Partner Dashboard, where some games already have Verified results for the new devices. That gives developers more guidance before launch, but it isn’t the full consumer reveal yet.
For now, you shouldn’t allocate budget for Steam Machine until Valve shares the remaining hardware details. Price is the big unknown, but final availability timing and configuration options will also shape whether it’s a smart upgrade or a wait‑and‑see PC gaming box.
Fake reviews pose a serious problem for shoppers on the web. If you’ve ever purchased an item based on glowing feedback only to receive a sub‑par product, you’ve experienced the issue firsthand. A recent study in the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology introduces an AI‑driven system that not only spots counterfeit reviews but also maps their propagation.
Why current solutions fall short
Most existing detection tools concentrate solely on the textual content of a review. This worked for a time, but fraudsters have become more sophisticated, pairing well‑crafted prose with deceptive images to make their posts appear genuine. Text‑only approaches struggle to catch this blend, creating challenges for both consumers and honest merchants.
Multi‑signal approach
The researchers tackled the issue by creating a system that evaluates several cues simultaneously. It processes the review text using two techniques—a convolutional neural network for text and pre‑trained language models—to capture both surface patterns and deeper semantics. It also examines reviewer behavior, noting that fake accounts often use default avatars and auto‑generated usernames, whereas real users tend to personalize their profiles.
Can AI also detect bogus images?
The short answer is yes. Review images are examined separately with a residual network, a deep‑learning architecture commonly applied to visual data. After gathering all the signals, the system fuses them to decide whether a review is legitimate.
When a review is flagged as fake, a Transformer model is activated to trace its origin and follow how far it has spread across the network.
Results
Experiments on a large JD.com dataset showed the model achieved a detection accuracy of 94.2% and a tracing accuracy of 93.5%, surpassing all compared baseline methods. Such performance could eventually lead to fewer deceptive reviews and more trustworthy ratings for shoppers.
Contactless payments are great, but have you ever paid for your coffee with a magic wand?
Cash App, the digital payments service run by Block, has just launched the Cash App Wand – a pearlescent, star-shaped, NFC-enabled keychain accessory that lets you tap to pay at any contactless terminal. Yes, it is a real product that costs $25, and it is available right now for Cash App Card holders to buy in the app.
The Cash App Wand is the first product under a new hardware line called Cash App Tags. Tags are NFC-enabled physical devices that require no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection to function. To set one up, you simply hold it to the back of your phone, and it links directly to your Cash App account.
After that, it works exactly like a debit card, except it clips onto your keychain or handbag like a charm bracelet. Block’s hardware lead Thomas Templeton says the whole idea is to make payments feel visible, fun, and expressive again.
He points out that digital payments have made buying things almost invisible, and even Cash App’s own cards spend 90% of their time sitting in people’s pockets. Cash App wants the wand to be the first thing you reach for when it is time to pay.
This is just the beginning of Cash App Tags
The wand is the first of many quirky tap-to-pay hardware designs coming down the line. Limited runs of new Cash App Tag designs will drop to Cash App cardholders in the coming weeks, with general availability opening up later this summer.
Whether you need a wand to pay for your morning coffee or just want to feel like a wizard at the checkout counter, Cash App has you covered.
OnePlus may be planning one of its earliest flagship launches yet. A new leak from Digital Chat Station claims the OnePlus 16 could arrive in September. If accurate, that would place the phone in the same launch window typically dominated by Apple’s annual iPhone announcements, with the iPhone 18 series also expected around that time.
The rumored September date likely refers to a China launch rather than an immediate global rollout. Based on OnePlus’ recent release pattern, international markets such as India and Europe could see the device shortly afterward, potentially within the following month.
Is OnePlus done waiting for the usual flagship season?
A September launch would not come out of nowhere. OnePlus has steadily moved its flagship releases earlier over the past few generations, with the OnePlus 11 arriving in China in January 2023, the OnePlus 12 in December 2023, and the OnePlus 13 in October 2024.
That trend continued with the OnePlus 15, which launched in China in October 2025 before reaching global markets a month later. If the latest leak is accurate, shifting the OnePlus 16 to September would be the next logical step in that strategy.
An earlier debut would place OnePlus closer to Apple’s annual iPhone launch window and give it a chance to capture attention before the Android flagship calendar becomes crowded. To make that move count, however, the OnePlus 16 will need compelling hardware, and the early rumors suggest OnePlus is aiming high.
Could the 200MP telephoto camera be the standout upgrade?
Reports also point to a 240Hz OLED display, while the battery could reach around 9,000mAh, potentially making it one of the largest capacities seen in a mainstream flagship phone.
The camera setup could be the more interesting part. The phone is tipped to include a 50MP main camera and a 200MP telephoto camera. If that leak holds, the telephoto sensor should help with sharper zoom shots and stronger portrait photography. Longer focal lengths can create more background compression, which helps separate the subject from the scene in a cleaner, more natural way.
For now, this is just a leak. But if the OnePlus 16 launches in September, it could put the brand in front of shoppers already focused on Apple’s iPhone event and position it as an attractive Android alternative.
Verum Finance has announced the launch of a new financial application that allows users to manage their money directly within the secure Verum Messenger ecosystem.
The project has already attracted attention from major media outlets. A dedicated feature was published by Forbes Türkiye, while one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, MEXC, covered the launch. Yahoo Finance had previously reported on the evolution of Verum Messenger into a comprehensive financial ecosystem.
What Verum Finance Offers
Verum Finance transforms a messenger into a complete financial platform. Users can:
• Manage their balance and top up using bank cards or USDT • Send money instantly to other Verum users • Issue and use debit cards, including Apple Pay support • Exchange assets and withdraw funds • Access all these services without installing separate banking applications
A strong emphasis is placed on privacy. The platform offers registration without a phone number or email address, end-to-end encryption, and full user control over personal data.
Recognition from Forbes Türkiye
In a dedicated article, Forbes Türkiye highlighted Verum Finance as a notable example of modern privacy-driven fintech. The publication emphasized the growing trend of financial services moving from standalone banking applications into unified messaging ecosystems — a model that has proven successful in Asia through platforms such as WeChat and Alipay and is now expanding globally.
Support from the Crypto Community
Alongside the Forbes Türkiye coverage, news about the launch of Verum Finance was also featured by MEXC, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges. This reflects growing interest in the project from both traditional business media and the cryptocurrency community.
A Strategic Vision
“We are building more than a payments application and more than a messenger. Verum is a unified secure ecosystem where communication, finance, and privacy tools work together,” the company stated.
Verum Finance is now available for iPhone and iPad users. The application complements Verum Messenger, which offers anonymous chats, voice and video calls, VPN services, eSIM connectivity, and other tools designed to enhance digital freedom.
Corsair unveiled the Nightsword v2 Wireless SD Stream Deck gaming mouse at Computex 2026. This right‑handed wireless mouse includes a dedicated Stream Deck launch button, and because Corsair owns Elgato, the integration is done in‑house rather than through a third‑party partnership. The mouse brings Elgato’s shortcut system directly to the device, allowing gamers, streamers and creators to fire app, game and workflow commands without needing a separate desktop panel.
**Stream Deck controls are now under your thumb**
The Nightsword v2 Wireless SD appears as a device inside the Stream Deck app. After pairing, users can map Stream Deck actions to any mouse button and open virtual Stream Deck menus via the dedicated launch button. Once configured, shortcuts can be set for Discord, mic muting, audio levels, game launches, app switching, or multi‑step macros. In‑game, these shortcuts can handle commands, emotes or repetitive actions, while for streaming or productivity they cut down the clicks required to mute a mic, launch a tool, or hop between frequently used applications. The mouse also accesses plugins and profiles from the Elgato Marketplace, giving creators more flexibility to craft app‑specific controls beyond basic button remapping.
**The mouse still packs serious gaming hardware**
Beyond the Stream Deck button, the Nightsword v2 Wireless SD is built as a high‑performance gaming mouse. It features an ergonomic right‑handed shape, a sculpted thumb rest, 11 programmable buttons and three‑zone RGB lighting, weighing just 89 g. The device uses Corsair’s Marksman S optical sensor with DPI ranging from 100 to 33,000 in 1‑DPI steps, optical switches rated for up to 100 million clicks, and supports an 8,000 Hz polling rate. Connectivity options include 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth 5.2 + LE, and wired USB. Battery life reaches up to 170 hours on 2.4 GHz with RGB off at 1,000 Hz polling, or 47 hours at 8,000 Hz polling; with lighting on, Corsair lists up to 42 hours at 1,000 Hz and 25.5 hours at 8,000 Hz. Bluetooth mode offers up to 164 hours without backlighting.
The Nightsword v2 Wireless SD is priced at $129.99 and is currently available through Corsair’s official website.
