If you've got a NAS at home already, the chances are that it's made by Synology, the class leader for consumer and enthusiast storage devices. That's no light praise, as there are plenty of other companies in the space that would love to save some of that market share for their own. And you know what, they might get the chance, because Synology has been making some strange moves lately that are turning heads (in the wrong direction).

Did you know that a Blade Runner game was going to be released soon? Yeah, well, it was, but that was before it got canceled. Supermassive Games were reportedly developing the game called Blade Runner: Time To Live. However, development hit a snag, and the title met its untimely demise.

Epic Games v. Apple judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers just ruled that, effective immediately, Apple is no longer allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside apps and blocks the company from restricting how developers can point users to where they can make purchases outside of apps.The ruling was issued as part of Epic Games’ ongoing legal dispute against Apple, and it’s a major victory for Epic’s arguments. Rogers also says that Apple “willfully” chose not to comply with her previous injunction from her original 2021 ruling. “That [Apple] thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation,” Rogers says.The judge also referred the case to the US attorney to review it for possible criminal contempt proceedings.As part of the ruling, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers says that Apple cannot:Impose “any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app”Restrict developers’ style, formatting, or placement of links for purchases outside of an appBlock or limit the “use of buttons or other calls to action”Interfere with consumers’ choice to leave an app with anything beyond “a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site”Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says that, following this ruling, the company will bring Fortnite back to the US App Store “next week.” Sweeney is also offering a “peace proposal” from Epic: “If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic.”We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court's friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic. https://t.co/bIRTePm0Tv— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 30, 2025In many cases, Apple takes a 30 percent cut of purchases made in its apps, and Rogers’ 2021 ruling forced Apple to allow developers to point to alternative payment options. But Apple instituted a policy that demanded developers pay Apple a 27 percent commission on those purchases, which many companies, including Epic, were unhappy about.“In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction,” Rogers says. She notes that, inside Apple, App Store chief Phil Schiller advocated for the company to comply with the injunction, but that CEO Tim Cook “chose poorly” by ignoring Schiller and letting CFO Luca Maestri “convince him otherwise.”Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Bethesda Softworks took the gaming world by storm on April 22, 2025, by shadow dropping The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. At the time of writing, Oblivion Remastered has averaged over 100,000+ active players on Steam since its launch. However, with no official mod support from Bethesda, the fan community has picked up the slack over at Nexus Mods.

World’s orbs have scanned millions of peoples’ eyes to verify their identity on a blockchain.Over the past few years, what sounds like an episode of Black Mirror has been unfolding in real life: millions of people around the world have agreed to let metallic orbs scan their eyes in exchange for receiving a blockchain-based ID and a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin.Beginning this week, Worldcoin (WLD) will be available in most of the US for the first time, including via exchanges like Coinbase. Those who scan their eyes at a World orb will receive 16 WLD. Meanwhile, people who have downloaded and already registered with the World app in the US will receive a "pioneer grant" of 150 WLD dropped into their wallet.The Sam Altman co-founded startup behind the project, Tools for Humanity, is also working with Visa to release a debit card later this year that converts WLD to fiat currency at checkout. Altman, who is currently the chairman of Tools for Humanity, announced the news alongside CEO Alex Blania at a press event in San Francisco on Wednesday, dubbed "At Last." More than 7,000 of World's orbs will be available for iris scans at physical "World Space" locations in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco, as well as in Razer stores. Tools for …Read the full story at The Verge.

In her ruling banning Apple from charging a commission on purchases made outside the App Store, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers says that an Apple executive “outright lied under oath.”According to Gonzalez Rogers, Alex Roman, vice president of finance at Apple, gave testimony that was “replete with misdirection and outright lies.” The judge writes that Roman lied when testifying that Apple hadn’t decided on the 27 percent number for its fee on purchases outside the App Store until January 16th, 2024.“Contemporaneous business documents reveal that on the contrary, the main components of Apple’s plan, including the 27 percent commission, were determined in July 2023,” Gonzalez Rogers says. “Neither Apple, nor its counsel, corrected the, now obvious, lies.”Gonzalez Rogers says that she is referring the case to a US attorney for possible criminal contempt proceedings against Apple and Roman.“Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction,” Gonzalez Rogers says at the end of the filing (emphasis hers). “It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this Court, there is no second bite at the apple.”

In the age of the internet, it's hard to imagine living without it. I can tell you from experience — someone who has no internet (and no power, for that matter) as I'm writing this article — I've seen firsthand how much of a problem it can be to have a slow or non-existent connection.

The Wave 3 needs all this to be portable and work efficiently.I've been testing the EcoFlow Wave 3, a follow-up to the all-in-one battery-powered air conditioner, heater, and fan I reviewed last summer. EcoFlow has dialed back its absurd marketing with a more powerful unit that can be recharged through several methods, including the sun. Only now it can automatically (try to) maintain a set temperature range and act as a dedicated dehumidifier, too.I was grateful to have EcoFlow's Wave 2 with me last summer while vanlifing around Portugal and Spain. That less powerful A/C helped to offset daytime temps hitting 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degree Fahrenheit) and made 25C (77F) nights comfortable enough to sleep. But it only worked in small spaces and under just the right circumstances. The third-generation portable heat pump from EcoFlow can't perform miracles. We're still only talking 6100BTU (1800W) of cooling and 6800BTU (2000W) of heating. And placement is limited by bulky intake and exhaust hoses, and the space needed for a receptacle to collect any drained water.But if you own a van, surf shack, work shed, roof-top tent, boat, or another small space requiring occasional temperature control, then the Wave 3 could be for you. Prices are …Read the full story at The Verge.

Passwords are already inherently unsecure versus other authentication methods, but things are only made worse with a terrible password. Here at XDA, you'll see that we send a code to your email to log in, which can be considered more secure than using a password. The same goes for passkeys and 2FA, which can enhance or outright replace passwords with better protections against brute force attacks and data breaches. I've rounded up some truly awful passwords that are still used today.

We recently saw evidence of the Windows 11 25H2 update, suggesting that Microsoft plans to release it sometime later this year, likely in October. In addition to finalizing what features it wants to offer in the next major Windows 11 update, the software giant also has another important task at hand: ensuring that more people upgrade to Windows 11 24H2. Unfortunately for Microsoft, this isn't going that well.

Following a court order that blocks Apple from taking a commission on purchases made outside the App Store, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says on X that the company plans to bring Fortnite back to iOS in the US “next week.”The app hasn’t been available on iOS in the US since August 2020, when Apple kicked it off the App Store for implementing Epic’s own in-app payment system in violation of Apple’s rules. Since then, Apple and Epic have been embroiled in an ongoing legal battle, including a ruling more in Apple’s favor in 2021 and today’s ruling that is a major victory for Epic.We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court's friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic. https://t.co/bIRTePm0Tv— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 30, 2025Fortnite has returned to iOS in the EU, but only via Epic’s own mobile app store, which isn’t available in the US.Sweeney also offered a “peace proposal” from Epic to Apple in his post on X. “If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic.”Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Sysinternals tools are a go-to resource for every IT administrator and cybersecurity professional I’ve met, but chances are you might have never used them yourself. These tools don’t come pre-installed on Windows and are typically used by advanced users like developers, but they’re just as valuable for everyday users.