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28 Aug 2025   
  
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Enhanced Games file $800 million lawsuit against critics
Enhanced Games President Aron D'Souza insisted the lawsuit was not a publicity stunt. 
© 2025 Stuff.co.nz 3:15am 

Logitech’s MX Master 4 is getting haptic feedback, according to leaks
Logitech looks about ready to launch the MX Master 4, the next generation of its popular flagship mouse series, as German news site WinFuture has reportedly obtained leaked details for the MX Master 4 (spotted by The Verge). Up until now, we’ve only seen speculative details based on a European registered design. The feature we’re most excited about is haptic feedback, which can provide vibrations when you perform certain actions like switching computers, adjusting the cursor, or changing settings. The haptic feedback will be customizable in terms of both intensity and usage. The MX Master 4 also gets a new menu called “Action Ring” for quick shortcuts, and it’ll also be updated with silent clicks (similar to what we’ve seen in the MX Master 3S). The design is reminiscent of previous models, but with a more durable and slightly textured surface and transparent main buttons. Battery life and DPI remain unchanged. Logitech’s MX Master 4 is expected launch on September 30th at a price point of €129.99 (approximately $150 USD). Further reading: Our favorite wireless mice, rated 
© 2025 PC World 2:45am 

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Drives, images, and virtual disks: A guide to storage terms & concepts
The term hard drive refers to the actual storage medium — either in the classic sense with rotating magnetic discs (HDD) or as a modern SSD with flash memory. The term drive refers to the electronics and technology that handle reading and writing on these storage devices. In practice, both are usually combined in one device. Even SSDs without mechanical parts are still referred to as “drives.” Partitions are logical subdivisions of a data carrier. They organize the memory, but are initially empty and unusable. Only when a partition is formatted and assigned a file system does it become a volume. This appears in the operating system as an independent drive with a letter such as “C:” or “D:.” A hard drive can contain multiple partitions and, therefore, multiple volumes. You’ll often encounter storage-related terms—like in Windows Disk Management, where you can view both drives and their partitions.IDG Virtual hard disks, such as those used in virtualization programs like VirtualBox or VMware, are files that behave like real data carriers. Virtual partitions are also possible, for example, when several physical areas are combined into one logical storage. This technology is often used in Linux. An image is a complete copy of a volume — including all data, file systems, and boot information. Images are used to back up or restore a system. To access an image, it must be mounted with special software. macOS uses so-called containers with the APFS file system. These containers hold multiple volumes that dynamically share storage space, offering more flexibility than classic partitions, whose sizes are fixed. Containers allow for more efficient use of available memory. In short: hard disks and drives refer to physical components, while partitions and volumes are logical units for organizing the storage. Images are used for backup, and containers enable flexible storage management. Making a clear distinction between the terms helps you work more precisely and protect data more effectively. 
© 2025 PC World 2:45am 

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Everyone should know which passwords suck. Do you?
You probably already know that a password like 123456 is bad. It’s so simple and predictable that even other humans can easily guess it. But do you know all the other passwords that are just as weak? AI search analytics firm Peec AI recently looked at a small portion of stolen password data, dating from 2019 until now. And while its analysis yielded similar results to what security researchers have already uncovered from far larger amounts of data, the findings proved the point: people really suck at creating their own passwords. In Peec AI’s slim data set of about 100 million unique passwords, common themes we’ve seen time and time again popped up once more: Simple number strings: 123456 is always a top weak password—about 6.6 million in this data slice. Trailing behind is 123456789 at 2.2 million, with 111111 coming in at almost one million. Easily guessed: Password, qwerty, and abc123 all came close to one million uses each. Common names: English language speakers leaned most on familiar names, with this data’s top 10 coming in as Michael, Daniel, Ashley, Jessica, Charlie, Jordan, Michelle, Thomas, Nicole, and Andrew. Four-digit years: 2013, 2010, and 1986 appeared the most frequently, with years in the 1980 range the most popular. Millennials likely haven’t changed old, outdated habits of adding a memorable number string to strengthen passwords. Sports: People love football, baseball, and soccer. Soccer teams in particular get tapped for password duty: Liverpool, Chelsea, and Barcelona cropped up as often as 70,000 times. Band names: Apparently this set of hacked accounts had a lot of blink-182 fans (84,000!). People’s tastes run the gamut, though, because Justin Bieber made this particular list. Fictional characters: DC fans have strong representation in this data set, with Superman appearing 86,900 times. Batman came in second with over 50,000 uses. Seasons: Everyone’s favorite time of year is apparently summer. This chart shows how a fast consumer-grade PC could crack a password. Dedicated hackers can choose to devote more resources to their efforts.Hive Systems Guessable and known passwords can be cracked fast by a computer, sometimes instantly if they’re particularly weak—and pretty much everything in the list above is. And usually, most people who use 123456 or michael will reuse passwords, which leaves them vulnerable to credential stuffing attacks, too. (That is, when an attacker will try your leaked or stolen username and password on other services.) Security experts (and yours truly) recommend unique, random passwords for this reason. Ideally, you want a mix of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Switch to this style of password, and even a shorter eight-character one theoretically would force a hacker to spend years attempting to crack it. Keeping track of unique strong passwords for dozens (or hundreds) of accounts is difficult, which is why a password manager comes in clutch. Different types exist, ranging from the simple but convenient services built into Google and Apple’s ecosystems, cloud-based providers like Dashlane and Bitwarden, and local apps that store an encrypted vault with all your details to a single device. A password manager may sound less secure to some ears, but trust me—it’s a heck of a lot more secure than guessable words, phrases, or number strings as passwords. Even if they’re not common ones or the exact types found on this list, you’re still scraping the bottom of the security barrel. 
© 2025 PC World 3:05am 

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