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18 Jun 2025

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Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise & Versa boost secure network access
Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has deepened its partnership with Versa to enhance secure network access with expanded Zero Trust and Secure SD-WAN solutions for enterprises.

C-suite split on GenAI as CEOs push ahead & CISOs flag risks
CEOs are eager to boost GenAI investments, while CISOs raise security concerns, revealing a significant divide in C-Suite views on AI adoption in business.

Mammotion adds a robotic pool cleaner to its product line
Mammotion, a major player in the robot lawn mower market, is expanding its product line to include its first robotic pool cleaner. The all-new Mammotion Spino E1 is designed to clean the floor, walls, and waterline of mid-sized pools—up to 1,614 square feet—with four hours of runtime on its 6,000mAh lithium battery. While the bot it out of the water, users will be able to use the Mammotion app to check the bot’s battery level and choose its cleaning mode: All, Floor Only, Wall Only, Max, or Eco (a maintenance mode). When the robot has finished its assigned task, it will park itself at the waterline for easy retrieval. Mammotion The robotic pool cleaner is equipped with twin brushless drive motors and a third motor that produces suction of up to 5,800 gallons per hour. Mammotion says the machine should make easy work of picking up debris ranging from leaves to fine grit, trapping it with a 180-micron filter. The machine can climb up to a 110-degree slope, using its front-mounted scrubbers to scour the surfaces in front of it. The Mammotion Spino E1 is now available for pre-order in the U.S. for $599, a discount from its regular retail price of $799. Pool owners in Europe and the U.K. can pre-order the robotic pool cleaner for the discounted price of €599 or Ł599 respectively, compared to the regular price of €799 or Ł799 respectively. Mammotion says it also plans to roll out pre-order pricing in Canada, Australia, Poland, and Sweden. Pricing for those regions was not immediately available, and Mammotion did not announce availability for any of the markets where it plans to sell the Spino E1. This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robotic pool cleaners. Mammotion CEO Jayden Wei hinted in a press release that the Spino E won’t be Mammotion’s only pool-related offering: “…we’re giving pool owners more time to relax and less time to worry about maintenance,” he said. “This is just the beginning of how we’ll redefine pool care for homes everywhere.”

UK watchdog fines 23andMe for 'profoundly damaging' data breach
The fine comes as the DNA testing firm, which filed for bankruptcy in March, is set to be sold to a new owner.

'You're an adulterer!' - How Kim Woodburn became a one-liner legend
A look back at Woodward's infamous spats and some of the TV star's best - and most scathing - quotes.

Obnoxious GPU prices are pushing PC gamers to the cloud, study claims
One of the most prominent features of this year’s spate of graphics card launches—from both AMD and Nvidia—is the pricing issues they’ve faced. Due to various factors, GPUs that launched at modest MSRPs are selling with price tags several hundred dollars beyond. Though some newer and more affordable cards are bucking the trend, like AMD’s Radeon RX 9060 XT, most gamers are simply being priced out by the latest GPUs. Anyone looking to upgrade is likely having a hard time, and a new study by Liquid Web suggests these prices are sending gamers toward cloud gaming in greater numbers than ever before. Liquid Web (admittedly a cloud hosting company) polled 1,000 gamers of various ages and backgrounds on their recent PC upgrade interests and intentions. Some of the results are quite stark. PC gamers are being priced out Over half of all polled gamers said they had been so affected by price hikes and scalping on GPUs that they’d been forced to delay—or even cancel—their PC upgrading plans altogether. In fact, 43% of respondents said that life expenses (e.g., rent and bills) had forced them to skip graphics card purchases. You have to imagine there’s a lot of crossover there. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition is incredible, but its exorbitant price puts it out of reach of just about everyone.Foundry That’s no surprise considering the sky-high graphics card prices we’re seeing. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 was supposed to sell at $2,000, but it quickly rocketed to over $3,000 at most retailers. Even much-more-affordable cards, like the RTX 5070 Ti and 5070, ended up retailing for hundreds of dollars north of their MSRP in the weeks following launch. The downside of rapidly rising GPU prices isn’t just that PC gamers miss out on next-generation gaming experiences—it disillusions them to the idea of upgrading at all. Among gamers who were ready to upgrade, 39% said they would wait at least another one to two years to upgrade their graphics cards, while a further 37% said they’d run what they have into the ground and only replace it when it dies. Then again, maybe by that time they won’t feel the need to upgrade anymore. Liquid Web’s study also shed insight on gamers switching to cloud gaming, where upgrades aren’t dependent on hardware availability or retail pricing. And there were an impressive number of respondents who were keen on the idea. Will the cloud replace hardware? Cloud gaming has come a long way over the past decade, and today it’s a relatively solid alternative to native play. Geforce Now, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus—they all offer relatively affordable options for playing large libraries of PC and console games without needing to own the proper hardware… or, in some cases, even the games. As of this writing, cloud gaming is far from replacing local gaming. There are a number of factors as to why that is, but for the gamers in this study, it’s mainly due to latency problems. 62% of respondents (mostly Millenial and Gen Z) said they would switch to cloud gaming full-time instead of playing on their own hardware if latency were “eliminated.” Cloud gaming makes gaming anywhere with anything a lot easier.Muha Ajjan / Unsplash Unfortunately, that’s just not going to happen. While modern hardware and networking is fast, there’s just no beating the physical immediacy of local rendering on your own machine. However, when the question was asked more broadly of respondents, a sizeable number (42%) said they’d skip upgrading their graphics cards if “their needs were met” with either cloud gaming or AI upscaling. That’s a much more achievable goal for cloud providers who want to deliver a premium remote gaming experience. Around 20% of Millennial and Gen Z gamers believe that high-end GPUs will become less essential in the next three years because of cloud gaming and the growing improvements to AI upscaling like DLSS and FSR. Meanwhile, nearly 60% who are still holding out for a GPU upgrade to improve their gaming experience. I’m not entirely sold on the idea of AI upscaling being everything, but frame generation has made some impressive leaps lately. If Nvidia keeps its focus on AI and can’t figure out how to keep its GPUs in better stock, we may all be relying on more cloud and AI features before long.