Mozilla has published today the final builds of the Firefox 148 open-source web browser ahead of its official unveiling on February 24th, 2026, so it’s time to take a look at the new features and improvements.
The 7.0 merge window
closed on February 22 with 11,588 non-merge commits total,
3,893 of which came in after
the article covering the first half of the merge
window. The changes in the second half were weighted toward bug fixes over
new features, which is usual. There were still a handful of surprises, however, including
89 separate tiny code-cleanup changes from different people for the rtl8723bs
driver, a number that
surprised
Greg Kroah-Hartman. It’s unusual for a WiFi-chip driver to receive that much
attention, especially a staging driver that is not yet ready for general use.
Piece by Piece is a super-smart, super-cute puzzle game of jigsaw platforming
No one wants to be in the deckbuilding roguelike juggernaut’s way on Steam
Tomorrow, ZWB Cycling is holding the second edition of their fresh Zwift race concept: the ZWB Omnium!
While the omnium concept isn’t entirely new to Zwift, it’s an uncommon competition format due to the heavy lifting organizers have to do in planning races and compiling results. The good folks at ZWB Cycling have certainly put in the effort, choosing thoughtful routes, setting up a sensible rules structure, and creating a website to share details and results.
Each week features a set of four unique back-to-back races combining into one intense omnium competition. Riders earn points based on their performance in each race, and the combined points total determines overall ranking. Plan on 90 minutes of combined speed, endurance, and strategy!
The 4 races are in the following formats:
These are mass start races, although riders sign up based on Zwift Racing Score groupings. Riders are separated into ZwiftRacing.app vELO Score leagues (which roughly map to ZRS groupings) for the final results.
Races happen every Tuesday through April 2026, starting at 19:45 CET/18:45 UTC/13:35 ET/10:45 PT. See upcoming events >
Courses change each week, with details and writeups available at zwbomnium.netlify.app. This week’s routes are Scotland-themed:
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/zwbomnium >
You must be registered on ZwiftPower.com to be included in the final results.
Complete race rules available at zwbomnium.netlify.app/rules.
Final results and season GC standings can be found at zwbomnium.netlify.app/results.
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Cloud’s hair is just to much for Nintendo’s console and modern rendering tech
Over on the Collabora blog, Marius Vlad has an overview
of Weston 15.0, which was released on February 19. Weston is the
reference implementation of a Wayland compositor. The new
release comes with a new shell that can be programmed using the Lua language, a new, experimental Vulkan
renderer, smoother media playback, color-management additions, and more.
One of Weston’s fundamental pillars has always been making the most efficient use of display hardware. Over time, all the work we did to track and offload as much work as possible to this efficient fixed-function hardware has come at the cost of eating CPU time. In the last couple of release cycles, we’ve focused really hard on improving performance on even the most low-end of devices, so not only do we make the most efficient use of the GPU and display hardware, but we’re also really kind on your CPU now. As part of that and to improve our tooling, Weston 15 now comes with support for the Perfetto profiler.
Intel’s open-source OpenVINO AI toolkit is out with its first major release of 2026. With today’s OpenVINO 2026.0 release there is expanded large language model (LLM) support, improved Intel NPU support for Core Ultra systems, and a variety of other enhancements for benefiting Intel’s CPU / NPU / GPU range of products for AI…
Nothing has been slow-dripping news about the upcoming Phone 4a for a few days now, with a promise to reveal the handset on March 5. However, the company jumped the gun a bit and just posted an actual photo of the hardware. It looks pretty nifty, even if we don’t have any real-deal specs just yet.
The image shows the handset from behind, displaying the company’s trademark transparent design. The picture also features the redesigned Glyph Bar, which was first teased last week. This is a light-based notification system that features individually controlled mini-LEDs that light up in various ways to notify the user of missed calls and stuff like that. You can spot it next to the camera bump.
Built different.
Phone (4a). 5 March, 10:30 GMT. pic.twitter.com/n3ZtbTmYIv— Nothing (@nothing) February 23, 2026
That’s about all we know right now, though there are plenty of industry rumors. It’s been reported that the Nothing Phone 4a will feature a Snapdragon 7-series chip and that the reveal will be accompanied by a Pro model with a more powerful camera. The Nothing Phone 3a was also launched alongside the 3a Pro.
We loved the 3a and 3a Pro, calling both “an easy recommendation.” Let’s hope this carries through for the 4a. Also, you didn’t miss a release of the actual Nothing Phone 4. The company likes to release the a-series handsets before the flagship. Past as prologue, we’ll likely see that one in early summer.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/nothing-reveals-the-phone-4a-ahead-of-schedule-181905011.html?src=rss
U.S. artificial-intelligence startup Anthropic said three Chinese AI companies set up more than 24,000 fraudulent accounts with its Claude AI model to help their own systems catch up. From a report: The three companies — DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax — prompted Claude more than 16 million times, siphoning information from Anthropic’s system to train and improve their own products, Anthropic said in a blog post Monday.
Earlier this month, an Anthropic rival, OpenAI, sent a memo to House lawmakers accusing DeepSeek of using the same tactic, called distillation, to mimic OpenAI’s products. Anthropic said distillation had legitimate uses — companies use it to build smaller versions of their own products, for example — but it could also be used to build competitive products “in a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost.” The scale of the different companies’ distillation activity varied. DeepSeek engaged in 150,000 interactions with Claude, whereas Moonshot and MiniMax had more than 3.4 million and 13 million, respectively, Anthropic said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Sony’s PlayStation 5 is a powerful machine, but if you just plugged it right into your TV and never bothered to go into the settings, there’s a chance you’re not seeing its full potential. From enabling 120 fps gameplay to customizing your Welcome hub, there’s a lot you can do with the PS5, if you’re willing to tinker a little bit. Here are the 10 best tips and tricks to getting the most out of Sony’s current gaming console.
Just because you bought a fancy new PS5 doesn’t automatically mean you’re getting the best performance out of it possible. If you have a 4K TV or a monitor that can support a 120Hz refresh rate or above, you’ll want to double check your video output settings to ensure your console is taking advantage of it.
First, before even turning on your device, make sure it’s connected via an HDMI 2.1 cable. This is necessary for frame rates above 60 at 4K. Your PS5 should have come with one, and you’ll know if it’s the right one if it has a boxy rectangle on either side of the cable. Also ensure that you’re plugging your cable into a port that can accept HDMI 2.1, which will look different based on your screen. On my LG C1 TV, this port says “4K @ 120Hz” above it.
Next, while your console may detect what your screen can handle and adjust its settings accordingly, head to Settings > Screen and Video to manually check them and make some adjustments that need some human fine tuning. I like to leave most of the settings on this page to Automatic to allow the PS5 to pick the best choices for the wide variety of content it can play, but you can select any of the settings on this page to see your options and force an output. If you don’t see 4K (labeled as 2160p) or 120Hz as options here, this is your sign you might need to swap your HDMI cable.
To see what settings your PS5 is using at any particular moment, select “Current Video Output Signal” at the top of this page to check your work. While I mostly like to rely on the PS5’s Automatic settings, one specific change you might want to make would be applying VRR to unsupported games, which could improve fidelity at the cost of introducing instability. If you scroll down far enough on this page, you can also adjust when your console displays HDR, and go through an HDR setup wizard by selecting “Adjust HDR.”
You can also customize your console’s display area by selecting Screen from the sidebar on the left, which is handy if your display has an unusual aspect ratio. While you’re here, you can adjust how long you need to be away from your controller before the console dims your screen.
Finally, if you have a PS5 Pro, you can up the graphics quality on some supported PS4 games. This is under Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > Enhance Image Quality for PS4 games.
Let’s say you’re having trouble sleeping, and instead of rolling around in bed, you decide to sneak out to the PS5 for a secret gaming session. Except, uh-oh, the nasty beep that the console plays at startup alerts your partner, and now you have some explaining to do. To keep this from happening, let’s turn off that beep ahead of time.
Under Settings > System > Beep and Light, toggle on Mute Beep Sound to get rid of the sound your PS5 plays at startup. Or, if you just want to make it quieter, you can do that under Volume.
While you’re here, you can also customize how bright the LED strip on the front of the console gets, under Power indicator > Brightness. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to turn it off entirely.
See all those widgets at the bottom of the Welcome Hub when you turn your PS5 on? Did you know that you can actually customize them? It’s especially handy if you’re like me and can’t stand seeing what are essentially ads taking up more than half of your display.
To adjust your PS5 Welcome Hub widgets, simply press X while hovering over the Welcome Hub tile, then navigate to the controls in the top-right corner. Here, you can select Presets to choose from various options set up by Sony, or select Edit Widgets to toggle specific widgets on and off. Personally, I disabled the News, PlayStation Plus, Wishlist, and PlayStation Store widgets, since they’re pretty much only there to sell you things.
Once you’re done selecting the widgets you want to see, before leaving Welcome Hub setup, navigate to the Settings cog and choose if you want to enable the carousel-like Large Layout, where you want notifications (Temporary Widgets) to show up, and if you want your widgets to match your broader System Appearance settings (more on that later). If you have the News widget active, you can also customize which games show news here.
Finally, to the left of the Settings cog, you can choose a background for the Welcome Hub, picking from options either prepared by Sony, bundled with certain games you own, or pulled from your Media Gallery.
Your PS5 can do more than basic stereo sound, even if you don’t own a physical surround sound setup. That’s thanks to the power of various virtual surround sound codecs, which come baked into the console. To turn these on, head over to Settings > Sound > Audio Output > Audio Format (Priority). Here, you can choose between Linear PCM, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Audio, and DTS. Not all of these options support virtual surround sound, and I’ll admit I’m not enough of an audiophile to know the best one for every setup, but because it supports height data, Dolby Atmos has been the most versatile pick for my soundbar.
Alternatively, you can also use Sony’s own 3D Audio technology by selecting 3D Audio (TV) or 3D Audio (Headphones) from the sidebar. Personally, I haven’t found the results here to be as rich as Dolby Atmos, but that makes sense. These are built for gamers using TV speakers or headphones, so they aren’t the best option if you’ve got a soundbar or external speaker setup. Still, they’re worth trying out if you listen over your TV’s internal speakers or via a headset. Note that only Sony’s own headsets will connect to the console wirelessly by themselves, but there are ways around that, which my colleague Jake Peterson has written about here.
Sony’s so proud of the rumble and haptics in the PS5 controller that it updated its classic DualShock branding to DualSense alongside the controller’s launch. But weirdly, the haptics aren’t as strong as they could be out of the box. That’s because the PS5 controller has a microphone built-in, and Sony has intentionally weakened its haptics to prevent interference from being picked up on the mic.
If you’re like me, and you barely use the microphone in your controller, there are two ways to fix that. The first is more temporary, and simply involves pressing the clear button above the microphone icon on your controller to mute it, which will strengthen the haptics until you turn it back on. It’ll also display an orange light while the mic is off.
The second doesn’t require you to manually flip your mic on and off, and will get rid of that orange light. You can enable it by toggling on Mute under Settings > Sound > Microphone > Microphone Status When Logged In, but know that you’ll need to toggle this back to On if you need to use the microphone again.
Sony might be proud of the haptics in its brand new controller, but personally, I think they’re a little bit too strong, especially when it comes to the triggers. With the PS5, Sony introduced its new adaptive triggers, which add resistance to trigger pulls in certain games for heightened realism. But while having the controller fight back against you the first time you try to tighten a bowstring in a Horizon game might be a fun novelty, it gets tiring pretty quick.
Luckily, you can customize this, as well as fine tune any of the other haptics. Under Settings > Accessories > Controller (General), select Trigger Effect Intensity to choose how strong the adaptive trigger resistance should be, and select Vibration Intensity to set the strength for more general rumble. Personally, I have Vibration Intensity set to Strong, and Trigger Effect Intensity turned off.
The PS5 comes with a good amount of storage by default, and while amounts differ depending on your model, it’s usually enough for five to seven AAA games. But if you want more storage, you can actually install a supported M.2 SSD into your PS5 without much hassle. Sony has exact installation instructions here, plus a guide on determining if an SSD is supported. While specific steps will vary depending on your PS5 model and which SSD you get, you generally only need a screwdriver to complete installation. Even better? The new SSD won’t replace your existing internal storage, so you can use them in tandem.
To install games to your SSD once it’s installed, you’ll first need to change your Installation Location to M.2 SSD under Settings > Storage. Then, simply install a game as usual. If you want to move games that are already installed on your PS5’s internal storage to your SSD, head to your Game Library, highlight the games you want to move, press the Options button, and select Move Games and Apps. If you’re also using expanded USB storage, select Movable to M.2 SSD Storage after this step.
Speaking of USB storage, the PS5 also supports external USB drives. You can see requirements here—not every device is guaranteed to work. Also note that while you can play PS4 games directly off USB storage, PS5 games need to be installed to an SSD to work. However, you can keep a PS5 game offloaded to USB storage and then load it onto either your console’s SSD or your custom M.2 SSD when you’re ready to play, bypassing the need for a download.
The first thing I do whenever I boot up a new game isn’t start my adventure, but dive deep into the settings to see what I can customize. It’s not the best first impression, but there’s usually a switch I can flip that will make the game play much better for me, especially if it ups the frame rate. Luckily, Sony’s aware of this optimization sickness I suffer from, and is doing its best to help.
Under Settings > Saved Data and Game/App Settings > Game Presets, you can set a number of preferences for how your games should play ahead of time, and your PS5 will automatically configure them for you when you boot up a supported game. It’s not a fully robust selection, since Sony can’t predict every game’s needs, but you can choose a preferred difficulty here, whether the game should be played in first-person or third-person (if both are available), which language you’d like to play in, whether subtitles should be turned on, your online multiplayer permissions, and most crucially for me, whether your games prefer Performance Mode or Quality Mode (called Resolution Mode here). Finally, I can set my PS5 games to default to smooth performance over the prettiest visuals.
Let’s say you’re struggling in a game, but you don’t want to bother to pull up an internet browser and look up a walkthrough. This is where the PS5’s Game Help feature comes in. It’s not available for every game, but if you’re stuck, it’s worth looking for. Just press the PlayStation logo button on your controller, and if it’s there, select the Game Help card. From here, your PS5 will suggest hints towards specific goals based on where you are in your game, and might even show you videos from other players. It’ll also warn you if you’re about to see spoilers, so you can back out before looking at a hint.
It’s fairly self explanatory, and while the hints aren’t always detailed enough for my needs, I do appreciate that Game Help also estimates how long it’ll take you to complete certain goals, as well as show you your progress towards them. As a busy 30-something, it’s a great way to know how long my play sessions might be ahead of time.
As for where Game Help gets its gameplay videos, it’s from players who’ve opted in to share them. To start sending videos to Game Help, head to Settings > Captures and Broadcasts > Auto-captures > Community Game Help. Select On next to Participate, and Sony may occasionally look at your gameplay and upload select sections from it to its servers to serve as a guide towards other players. Voice or party chat audio won’t be recorded and uploaded videos won’t take up space on your console, but depending on the game, usernames or text-based chat messages shown in gameplay footage might be shared.
Finally, this one’s just for fun. Back in 2024, Sony introduced themes to the PS5 home screen that mimicked the look of the PS1, PS2, PS3, and PS4. These left the system shortly afterwards, but came back for good in April of last year. To try them out, head to Settings > System > Appearance > Appearance and Sound and choose a console you’d like to mimic. Personally, I like the PS2 theme, but I’ve gone for the PS3 look for now, because my husband has a lot of fondness for that console’s XMB menu. Now, if only Sony would add even more themes to the list. Maybe an Astro Bot look?
Ball x Pit, a delightful roguelite that was one of our favorite games of last year, is on the way to mobile devices. The chaotic brick-breaking action is coming to iOS and Android on March 12. There will be a free trial with no ads, and you can unlock the full game with an in-app purchase. This is Ball x Pit “for your pants pocket,” according to the latest trailer.
For the uninitiated, Ball x Pit is sort of a mix of Breakout and Vampire Survivors with some base building (and elements of many other genres) blended in. It’s all about finding powerful synergies between the character(s) you select, passive abilities and the balls you use to take out enemies before they get too close to damage you. These balls are regular ones that deal damage on impact (aka baby balls) or special balls that are infused with a range of effects and powers, such as Lightning, Ghost and Poison. These special balls can be fused to combine their effects or evolved into more powerful versions.
BALL x PIT is going MOBILE! ��
�️ Launching on iOS & Android March 12
� Try-before-you-buy: try it for free, no ads! Love it? Unlock the full game with a single in-app purchase and keep BALLing forever!
Pre-order now on the App Store and Google Play! pic.twitter.com/3MmJ6dGNzp
— BALL x PIT � REGAL UPDATE OUT NOW (@BALLxPIT) February 23, 2026
On each run, you’ll collect blueprints and resources that you’ll use to reconstruct a fallen town. Buildings unlock new characters and abilities that can aid you on your next run. Everything synergizes beautifully in Ball x Pit.
Ball x Pit should work well with touch controls on mobile. You can set the balls to fire automatically, so all you really need to worry about is moving your character and aiming, as well as choosing your next upgrade when you earn enough experience gems.
The first of three planned updates for this year arrived in January. I’m still waiting for developer Kenny Sun to add cross-progression since I’ve already plowed dozens of hours into this game on PS5, PC and Xbox — it’s available on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 as well. Ball x Pit is also currently on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ball-x-pit-will-land-on-ios-and-android-on-march-12-175159137.html?src=rss
Last week’s surprise departure of Phil Spencer from Microsoft led to the promotion of Asha Sharma, who comes to head Microsoft’s gaming division after two years as president of the company’s CoreAI Product group. Despite that recent history, Sharma says in a new interview that she has “no tolerance for bad AI” in game development.
Speaking with Variety, Sharma noted that “AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be,” before adding that “great stories are created by humans.” The interview comes after Sharma promised in an introductory memo: “We will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us.”
Those statements seem like a clear line in the sand from Sharma against the use of AI tools in Microsoft’s first-party game development, at the very least. But what separates “bad AI” and “soulless AI slop” from “innovative technology” that humans can use to create artful games is a matter of some significant debate in the gaming world.
Looks like we won’t get to hear the powerful hum of an all-electric Lamborghini on the streets anytime soon. According to a report from The Sunday Times, Lamborghini has abandoned making a production version of the Lanzador EV concept, which was expected to hit the market in 2029.
Stephen Winkelmann, chairman and CEO of Lamborghini, told The Sunday Times that there was “close to zero” interest from its customer base for battery-powered EVs. Winkelmann also revealed that the verdict to kill off the Lanzador was made late last year, but this is the first public confirmation of the decision after Lamborghini’s grand reveal of the EV concept in August 2023. The automaker’s CEO told The Sunday Times that “EVs, in their current form, struggle to deliver this specific emotional connection,” adding that the lack of noise could have played a part in failing to attract customers.
Instead, Lamborghini will replace the Lanzador with another plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, like its Reveulto and Urus. With this change, Lamborghini’s entire lineup will be hybrid EVs by 2030, with Winkelmann confirming that the company would continue making internal combustion engines “for as long as possible.” Still, the CEO hinted to The Sunday Times that Lamborghini could pursue another all-electric car in the future, but “only when the time is right.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/lamborghini-ditches-plans-for-its-all-electric-supercar-due-to-close-to-zero-buyer-interest-173441263.html?src=rss
Iron Guard: Salvation, a VR sci-fi tower defense game, is launching on PlayStation VR2 in March.
Iron Guard: Salvation is a tower defense strategy game in which players must build and upgrade bases and weapons while managing resources and fending off waves of enemies in VR. A story-driven campaign mode offers a cinematic experience across 30 hand-crafted missions.
Iron Guard: Salvation is a direct sequel to Xlab Digital’s Iron Guard, which first debuted in 2021 and was ported to PS VR2 last year.
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We previously reviewed Iron Guard: Salvation when it released on Quest, where our reviewer found it to be a strong tower defense game that might have benefitted from heavier implementation of RTS mechanics and inclusion of a multiplayer mode.
Iron Guard: Salvation launches March 5th on PlayStation VR2. It’s out now on Quest and PC VR.
The first fiber-optic cable ever laid across an ocean — TAT-8, a nearly 6,000-kilometer line between the United States, United Kingdom, and France that carried its first traffic on December 14, 1988 — is now being pulled off the Atlantic seabed after more than two decades of sitting dormant, bound for recycling in South Africa.
Subsea Environmental Services, one of only three companies in the world whose entire business is cable recovery and recycling, began the operation last year using its new diesel-electric vessel, the MV Maasvliet, and had already brought 1,012 kilometers of the cable to the Portuguese port of Leixoes by August.
TAT-8, short for Trans-Atlantic Telephone 8, was built by AT&T, British Telecom, and France Telecom, and hit full capacity within just 18 months of going live. A fault too expensive to repair took it out of service in 2002. The recovered cable is being shipped to Mertech Marine in South Africa, where it will be broken down into steel, copper, and two types of polyethylene — all commercially valuable, especially the high-quality copper at a time when the International Energy Agency projects global shortages within a decade.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Anime fans rejoice, as there’s a new Neon Genesis Evangelion series on the horizon. This was announced during a 30th anniversary event held in Japan. The bad news? Franchise creator Hideaki Anno won’t be writing the scripts.
However, his replacement will be Yoko Taro, the guy who created the video game NieR. He also wears a giant and rather unsettling moon mask for some reason. The NieR franchise is known for rich and complex lore, with a story spanning thousands of years that occasionally dips into a parallel universe.
Evangelion veteran Kazuya Tsurumaki will be on hand to direct episodes, which is nice for long-time fans. He directed the Rebuild of Evangelion films and the recent Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX anime. Composer Keiichi Okabe, from the NieR franchise, is scoring the new show. The new series will be produced by Studio Khara and Cloverworks.
While we know a fair bit about who’s behind the scenes of the upcoming show, we don’t know anything about the plot. We don’t know if it’s yet another remake of the original story, a sequel or some kind of spin-off like the chibi-inspired Petit Eva: Evangelion@School. There’s a trailer, but it’s light on details.
New “Neon Genesis Evangelion” ANIME SERIES NEW TRAILER
Written by Yoko Taro
Directors: Kazuya Tsurumaki & Toko Yatabe
Music: Keiichi Okabe
Animation Production: CloverWorks x Khara pic.twitter.com/jnJZ12XSRb— Captain Melvin Seahorse⚘️ (@sshiroux19) February 23, 2026
With Taro on board, it could really go in any direction. It’s worth remembering, after all, that NieR is actually a spin-off of a PS2 game called Drakengard. In one of the multiple endings of that game, a final boss is transported from a fantasy realm to modern-day Tokyo. Slaying this beast releases a virus that plagues humankind, which is what eventually leads to the post-apocalyptic setting of NieR. This is sort of like if the events of a Dragon Quest game somehow led to the world of Resident Evil.
If there’s anyone who can breathe fresh life into the Evangelion franchise, it’s Taro. Did I mention he wears a gigantic moon mask? Also, this isn’t his first time penning TV scripts. He co-wrote the NieR: Automata anime spinoff.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a-new-evangelion-series-is-coming-from-studio-khara-and-yoko-taro-creator-of-nier-170916543.html?src=rss
