Everyone's getting back into vinyl these days, whether it's for that hit of nostalgia or because you don't want Spotify feeding you AI slop (vinyl, at the time of writing, does not facilitate AI slop… let us all hope it stays that way). And a new discount from Fluance makes picking up its entry-level turntable even easier.
This is the Fluance RT81, which we called "Easily the best starter turntable you can buy" when we tested it back in 2024. And it's a relatively affordable model even without a discount, designed to offer you the record-playing basics without expensive audiophile features.
A warning: turn back now if you're not reading this between 8:25am and 8:25pm ET on Wednesday, June 4 (that's 5:25am - 5:25pm PT, though it's not clear if Fluance will budge the window for Westerners). This discount is available as a Lightning Deal on Amazon, as part of Prime Day deals, so it's only live for a slender 12-hour window.
Fluance RT81:was $299.99now $239.99 at Amazon Turntable discounts aren't hugely common, so any kind of reduction is something that'll turn heads. It's great that the sale is on an entry-level model, lowering the price of entry for prospective vinyl fans a little. And the discount? It's the lowest our trackers have seen… View Deal
Hold the needle a sec: the Fluance RT81 does miss one feature common in entry-level turntables, which you should probably know about before you buy.
The turntable doesn't feature Bluetooth connectivity (which plenty of new spinners do in 2026), so you can't pair it with your JBL speaker to enjoy your tunes, say. Instead, you'll need to connect wired speakers via RCA (those white and red dual cables).
While audiophiles prefer to avoid Bluetooth for record listening, due to the compression inherent in Bluetooth losing some of the detail within the vinyl, it's much more common in entry-level record players. The feature makes it much easier to integrate a player into your home hi-fi set-up if you only own wireless tech.
So it's only worth buying the Fluance RT81 deal if you can fit a wired turntable into your home, or you already have a set of stereo speakers that you want to put to good use.
If that's no issue, you'll find the RT81 a nice, good-looking and convenient starter turntable. It's easy to set-up and use, and it sounds pretty great.
The deal will save you $60 which, admittedly, is about the cost of one record these days, but you've probably inherited a collection of those. Instead, I'd put the money towards one of the best stereo speakers so you can use the Fluance properly.
I’m under no illusions that John Ternus’ Apple will be the exactly same as it has been under Tim Cook. Initially though, there will be few, if any, changes. Ternus is not an outsider with wild anti-Apple ideas intended to wake a sleeping giant. He's been here for decades, through all the major releases that made Apple, well, Apple. Claims that he's arriving in September to revive Apple's design excellence are, if not off base, then just wrong-headed.
First of all, the argument presupposes that there is something fundamentally lacking in Apple's Industrial design: Jony Ive was obviously lighting in a bottle, and current design lead Molly Anderson is a pale, albeit also British, imitation. (Granted, Anderson has not been in the position that long, taking over from Evans Hankey, who left in 2023.)
But accepting that presumption is to ignore all the beautifully designed products that have arrived under Cook's leadership, with and without Ive, and also often under the watchful eyes of Ternus.
It was the ultimate expression (at least in PC terms) of Ive's "form meets function" obsession. The internal structure was sort of a triangle of boards that seemed perfectly wrong for a squat, circular enclosure. Ive's fingerprints were all over the impractical system, one that Craig Federighi later admitted to me (during a mea culpa meeting on the Pro) had boxed Apple into a thermal corner. It was hard to upgrade and was roundly rejected by pro system users.
Ive was also responsible for the Apple Pencil. With it, his penchant for skeuomorphism extended from app design into the physical world. The Apple Pencil fully resembled a white plastic version of a real, pencil, and to accommodate that, it had, under a custom cover, a hidden Lightning charging plug. You even needed a special adaptor to charge it. Later, wirelessly charging Apple Pencils, which I think Ive also designed, fixed this mess.
Naturally, Ive's hits far outweighed his misses, and many big ones came during the Cook-Ive collaboration period, including the iPad Air, the Apple Watch, and AirPods (which started awkwardly but gradually improved).
The more divisive Apple Vision Pro was likely designed under Hankey and Anderson's watchful eye. I do think it's a pleasant intersection between the needs of extremely high-end innovation and aesthetic appeal. Goggles will be goggles, after all.
Even iPhone design has remained, if not excellent, interesting.
The iPhone is still beautiful...discuss
When Apple introduced the first iPhone in 2007, there really was no other handset quite like it. Apple set the bar and, over the years, every other manufacturer followed. It became harder and harder for Apple to differentiate its metal and glass slab from its competitors. The ever-larger camera arrays have provided a sort of design challenge and an opportunity at the same time. Hankey and Anderson, at least, came up with a giant island that's quite recognizable from a distance. And let's not discount color. The orange was a stroke of genius and the new MacBook Neo's playful Blush and Citrus colors are lively, proving Anderson knows how to marry form with expression.
Ternus' role as hardware lead means he's been seeing these designs for years. My sense in sitting down with him after the launch of the iPhone Air is that he is intimately involved with the process of shoving all that technology into ever-thinner, but shockingly strong frames. He gets that you need to marry engineering skills with industrial design to get a durable and usable product that's still attractive.
When I think about what Ternus will do when he finally takes over in September, I am reminded of relay race runners. Cook continues to pace around the track while slowly holding out the baton behind him. Ternus is nearby, running just behind Cook with one hand outstretched. Neither man will stop. The handoff will happen in a few months, with everything still in motion.
The process of finishing the rumored iPhone Ultra (the folding phone) continues as we speak, and Ternus is not going to suddenly pull a Steve Jobs and throw the design into a fish tank, to see if bubbles rise, thus proving they could make it smaller. He won't demand that all plastic be replaced with glass, or even that one more color be added to the mix.
When, as the recent Bloomberg report claims, Ternus said of Apple's design history and appeal to customers, "We’re going to make sure that stays the case,” he's not talking about making huge changes to achieve that goal.
Ternus will stay the course and support Anderson. He may hire more design support and, down the line, Ternus will look for his signature initiative or product; he will want to have his own iPhone or iPod. But that's a natural inclination for any incoming CEO. Job one, though, is staying the course, shepherding the in-the-pipeline products to market and ensuring that Apple remains Apple.
A handful of Great Britain’s gas power plants were paid almost £4m to generate electricity for just a few hours on Tuesday evening as millions of sweltering viewers turned to air conditioning, electric fans and icy drinks during England’s second World Cup game.
The heatwave has caused electricity prices across Europe to surge this week amid higher demand for cooling and a string of power plant outages due to the record high temperatures.
For the first time, archaeologists have analyzed the genetic material of Homo naledi, a mysterious 300,000-year-old relative of modern humans discovered deep in a South African cave system. What they found is unique in human evolution studies: Every skeleton known from the species is female.
"I think it is fair to say that they surprised us," Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, told Live Science in an email, but H. naledi "has always been an enigmatic discovery."
Since 2013, Berger has headed the Rising Star project, which discovered nearly two dozen skeletons of small-brained, two-legged creatures, which the research team named H. naledi, within a cave system in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind.
Research over the past decade has revealed that H. naledi was unusual for having a small brain and upper body, similar to earlier australopithecines like Lucy, but a face, hands and lower limbs that were more human-like. In 2023, the Rising Star team suggested H. naledi may have used fire in the cave, and in 2025, they advanced the controversial claim that H. naledi buried their dead — a complex behavior unexpected for a human relative with such a small brain.
But a new study of H. naledi teeth published Wednesday (June 24) in the journal Cell may bolster the team's interpretation of the Rising Star cave as a burial site.
An international team of experts studied 20 teeth from H. naledi skeletons using proteomic analysis, a minimally destructive technique that sequences genetic material from ancient proteins. Proteomics is a burgeoning field, especially because these proteins can last longer than DNA. The team focused on amelogenin genes (AMEL), which code for proteins in dental enamel and vary by sex. While the gene variant called AMELX is found in both males and females, another one, AMELY, is found only in biological males.
In analyzing the H. naledi teeth, the team found no AMELY genes but plenty of AMELX ones, suggesting that all of the skeletons were from females. These included the nearly complete skeleton of Neo and DH1, the main representative of the species, both originally assumed to be male.
The result is surprising because there are no known ancient human cemeteries or collections of nonhuman primate skeletons that contain only females.
"The most likely reason for these robust results are, in my opinion, cultural selection after death for burial by sex and perhaps gender," Berger said. "There are many past human societies with sex-specific burial practices," study co-author John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a statement, but the H. naledi skeletons "are older than any known Neanderthal or modern human burial site, and it's remarkable to see that they may all be female."
A partial jawbone with teeth from Homo naledi lies was found in the Rising Star cave system. (Image credit: Mathew Berger / Rising Star Program)
"An already weird hominin"
The discovery that everything we know about H. naledi comes from female skeletons has surprised paleoanthropologists.
"The bottom line is this is a weird result from an already weird hominin," Elizabeth Sawchuk, curator of human evolution at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. "The key thing to remember is that failure to detect evidence of AMELY does not mean there are no males in the sample — it just means that none were detected."
One possible reason for the lack of this gene in H. naledi skeletons is an AMELY gene deletion that is known to occur very rarely in some modern-human populations and that has been found in one Neanderthal male. If the AMELY gene doesn't exist in this H. naledi group, then the protein profiles of males would look identical to the profiles of females.
However, "it's very unlikely that this would be the case among even half of the 20 individuals we studied or for an entire population," study co-author Enrico Cappellini, a paleoproteomics professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said in the statement. "Either scenario, namely the absence of H. naledi males in the Rising Star cave system or a systematic deletion of their AMELY gene, is fascinating and would have deep implications for a better understanding of the biology and evolution of this species."
Studies of H. naledi, a species known from a single site, "continue to yield more questions than answers," Sawchuk said. "As the authors point out, this is a surprising result that requires more investigation."
Other hominins in South Africa
A second surprising result in the proteomic analysis was that H. naledi shares a gene variant with Paranthropus robustus, a human relative with a massive face and teeth that lived in South Africa around 1 million to 2 million years ago.
Proteomic analysis of four P. robustus skeletons in 2025 proved that limited genetic material could be recovered from ancient human relatives in Africa. The new study has revealed that some members of this species and H. naledi shared a gene variant related to collagen production, which is different from the genes found in modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans.
While H. naledi and P. robustus inhabited the same general geographic area, it is unclear if they lived there at the same time and overlapped or if they may have had an ancestor-descendant relationship.
"It is early days for sampling fossil hominins with ancient proteins, and until we build a better, bigger sample, we just don't know" what the shared genetic variant means, Berger said.
Building a larger database of ancient proteins from other human relatives that evolved in Africa, such as Australopithecus africanusand Homo erectus, may clarify where H. naledi fits into the picture of human evolution.
"Key data are missing from H. erectus and A. africanus that would help put this evidence into context," Sawchuk said. "For now, this is another curious finding that bears further investigation."
Study lead author Palesa Madupe has pioneered techniques to extract proteins from fossils. (Image credit: Alberto Taurozzi / Rising Star Program)
What does sex change?
In 2015, Berger and colleagues named the new hominin H. naledi and described what they presumed to be male and female variants of the species based on the skeletons' sizes. In many groups of human relatives and in modern humans, males are physically larger than females, on average. This assumption led the researchers to classify the presumed male individual DH1, discovered in the Dinaledi chamber of the cave, as the main representative of the new species.
But a 2024 study was the first to question the assumption that the H. naledi skeletons came from two sexes. In that study, researchers found variation in the teeth of H. naledi that was "so low that the possibility that one sex is represented by few or no individuals in the sample cannot be excluded," they wrote.
"Our study helps resolve the long-standing mystery of why Homo naledi lacked significant variation," study first author Palesa Madupe, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said in the statement. "It's probably because they could have all belonged to one sex."
If the proteomic sex analysis is correct and H. naledi does not have AMELY deletion issues, it means everything we know about the species comes from females. But this doesn't mean interpretations of the species are wrong.
"The only thing that has changed is that we have never seen a male!" Berger said. "When and if we do, we will have to extend the description to include male sex characters and the likely extension of certain aspects of variation."
The researchers hope their study paves the way for more proteomic analyses of human relatives in the future.
The new analysis proves that protein analysis of fossils from the Pleistocene (2.58 million years ago to 11,700 years ago) can be done in a minimally destructive way, Madupe said. "This means potentially opening the door to a whole new way of sustainably investigating the differences between sexes in groups of extinct hominins and other animals without causing visible damage to these priceless fossils."
What do you know about early humans? Test your knowledge with our human origins quiz!
The cat sleeps more. It jumps up onto things less. It takes longer to get comfortable and doesn’t race around the way it used to. This reads as an obvious story: the animal is getting old. It’s natural. It’s expected. Most owners I know accept this narrative without a second thought because it’s tidy and it requires nothing of them.
What veterinary research keeps saying, with increasing insistence, is that the tidy narrative is almost certainly wrong.
The numbers are difficult to ignore
Studies consistently find that between 64% and 92% of cats over the age of ten have arthritis. By the time a cat reaches twelve, the figure for osteoarthritis alone is around 90%. In cats older than fourteen, 82% show joint involvement in imaging studies. These are not marginal findings from a single outlier study. They replicate across research institutions and countries.
The gap between those numbers and what most cat owners believe about their pets is enormous. And it exists almost entirely because cats are extraordinarily good at not telling you they are hurting.
Why cats conceal pain
This is not stubbornness or stoicism in any meaningful sense. It is evolutionary architecture. Cats occupy an unusual ecological position — they are predators, but they are also prey. A wild cat that signals injury or weakness invites attack. Over millions of years, the ones that survived were the ones that showed nothing.
That instinct does not disappear in a domestic animal sleeping on a heated blanket in a flat in Amsterdam. The cat that is quietly arthritic does not limp dramatically, does not vocalise its pain, does not do anything that reads obviously as suffering. It just… adjusts. It stops jumping to the high shelf. It grooms itself less around the hips. It finds a position and stays in it. To an owner watching casually, this looks indistinguishable from the ordinary changes of age.
Researchers from the University of California Davis and others have noted that owners frequently report these behavioural changes during routine vet visits, describe them as age-related, and don’t flag them as pain indicators — because they don’t know that’s what they are. The cat isn’t complaining. The owner isn’t alarmed. The pain goes unmanaged.
What to actually look for
The clinical picture of a cat in chronic pain is subtle, almost by design. The American Animal Hospital Association lists the signs: reduced activity, reluctance to jump, changes in grooming patterns, altered sleep positions, irritability when touched in certain places, and withdrawal from interaction. None of these is dramatic. All of them can be read as “just getting older.”
The distinguishing question a vet will ask is not whether any of these things are happening but whether they represent a change from the cat’s baseline. A cat that has always been calm and low-energy is probably fine. A cat that used to leap to the windowsill every morning and now doesn’t is a different conversation.
The treatment gap
There is now a real and expanding range of interventions for feline chronic pain — including newer monoclonal antibody treatments specifically approved for cats — but they require a diagnosis, which requires a vet visit, which requires an owner who suspects something is wrong.
That chain breaks at the first link when owners are operating on the assumption that the slowdown is natural. I find myself thinking about how many cats are spending years in unmanaged pain while their owners interpret the stoicism as contentment. The cat doesn’t complain. The owner assumes it’s fine. Nobody’s lying. But the outcome is the same as if both of them were.
If your cat is over ten and has changed its movement patterns in the last year or two, the veterinary consensus is clear: don’t wait for obvious signals. The species you’re dealing with evolved specifically not to give you any.
Amazon Prime Day is often the best time of year to find a discounted Kindle, but if you've opened the listing page only to feel overwhelmed by the various models to choose from, then I have a quick quiz that might help you out.
I've owned the standard version of Kindle for years, and it's not faltered once for what I need it for. Reliable and sturdy, it's one of the best tech gifts I've ever been given. It's also the cheapest model in the range, so you won't feel like you're wasting money if you still enjoy the charms of physical books. Right now, you can find the standard Kindle on sale at Amazon for $84.99 (was $109.99) in the US and for £75.99 (was £94.99) in the UK.
But if you've got a bigger budget, it's worthwhile looking at Amazon's most popular model, the Kindle Paperwhite, which is ideal for your next beach holiday with its waterproof design. Want the ability to journal? You're better off with the Kindle Scribe. Love reading graphic novels? You'll need the Kindle Colorsoft.
If you don't have time to read our guide to Amazon's excellent e-reader range to see how each model's specs compare, just answer four simple questions in the quiz below, and it'll recommend a Kindle based on the deals available at the time of writing.
Today's best Kindle deals in the US
The latest version of the standard Kindle is on sale as part of the annual Prime Day sale. It's a basic ereader, but it still boasts a four-week battery life and space for thousands of books. Given it's $40 cheaper than the Paperwhite, this is clearly a better pick for the infrequent reader who's after a more budget-friendly option. At $85, this Prime Day deal matches the record-low price for the ereader, but is far from the bigger discounts I've seen in previous years.
Prime Day discounts on the 2024 Kindle don't come as generously as they do during Black Friday, but you won't come across a better deal at any other time of year. For Amazon's most recent standard version Kindle, $85 isn't the worst price for an e-reader that covers the basics, but it has been cheaper in the past.
Amazon Prime Day features an OK, if a little disappointing, deal on the latest Kindle Paperwhite. We found in our Kindle Paperwhite review that it's packed with features to suit all avid readers, including a 12-week battery life, glare-free 7-inch screen, adjustable warm light, and storage space for thousands of books. This is a good buy and one of the best ereaders out there; it's just a shame that the days of even bigger discounts are well in the past.
The Kindle Colorsoft is down to its lowest price as part of Amazon Prime Day. As Amazon's first colored Kindle, it's a must-have for people who love reading travel guides, graphic novels, and other genres with a lot of images and photographs. It's USB-C and wireless charging compatible, lasting up to 8 weeks on a full battery.
This updated version of the Kindle Scribe hasn't been discounted since launch, so this Prime Day is a great time to bag a deal. The Scribe combines some of the best features of the Kindle Paperwhite, such as the glare-free and auto-adjusting display, along with the option to take notes, comment on documents, and doodle using the included stylus pen. Our Kindle Scribe review was down on some missing features that have been added in recent updates, so now this is a better value for a multi-functional device.
The cheapest Kindle deal on Amazon right now is this excellent discount on the latest Amazon Kindle Kids version. Simply put, this model is functionally the same as the standard Kindle but comes with a Kid-friendly cover, a six-month trial for Amazon Kids Plus, and an extended two-year warranty. Regardless of whether you're a small or big kid, this is a great deal on the baseline Kindle.
Similar to the above deal on the standard Kindle, the cheapest Kindle Paperwhite deal available at Amazon today is on the Kids Edition variant. Again, the device is functionally the same as the standard Kindle Paperwhite, but you get a themed cover, a six-month trial of Amazon Kids+, and an extended warranty. The main selling point for the Paperwhite over the standard Kindle is that it's waterproof and features a larger seven-inch display.
The Kindle Colorsoft Kids has reached $189 on two occasions before, but today's deal is a brand-new record-low price on the latest model. While the Colorsoft is pricier than the others, as the name suggests, it has a color display that's fantastic for graphic novels and kids' books. Otherwise, it's very similar to the Paperwhite in that it's waterproof, comes with 12 months of Amazon Kids+, a themed cover, and a two-year guarantee.
The latest version of the standard Kindle is on sale as part of the annual Prime Day sale. It's a basic ereader, but it still boasts a four-week battery life and space for thousands of books. Given it's £55 cheaper than the Paperwhite, this is clearly a better pick for the infrequent reader who's after a more budget-friendly option. At £80, though, this Prime Day deal is a little underwhelming, given it's been as low as £69.99 before.
Likewise with Amazon UK, the 2024 Kindle generally gets a better deal at Black Friday, but Prime Day is a very close second. Given it's £55 cheaper than the Paperwhite, this is clearly a better pick for the infrequent reader who's after a more budget-friendly option.
Amazon has brought back its decent — but not spectacular — Black Friday deal on the latest Kindle Paperwhite for Amazon Prime Day. We found in our Kindle Paperwhite review that it's packed with features to suit all avid readers, including a 12-week battery life, glare-free 7-inch screen, adjustable warm light, and storage space for thousands of books. This is a good buy and one of the best ereaders out there; it's just a shame that the days of even bigger discounts are well in the past.
The Kindle Colorsoft just fell to its lowest-ever price as part of this year's Amazon Prime Day sale. As Amazon's first colored Kindle, it's a must-have if you love reading travel guides, graphic novels, and other genres with a lot of images and photographs — or just want to view your entire ebook library in its full colour glory. The ereader is also USB-C and wireless charging compatible, lasts up to eight weeks on a full battery, and has enough storage for thousands of books.
A notetaker's best friend, the Kindle Scribe is great for students, avid readers and productivity users alike, offering a satisfying and slick screen on which to doodle and annotate. We scored it 4.5 stars in our review.
While we scored it a respectable 4 stars in our review, a major sticking point for the Scribe Colorsoft is its value proposition. There's nowhere near enough going for it to justify this e-reader costing more than a MacBook Neo.
I've been going around in circles writing this Oura Ring 5 review. On the one hand, I find the health insights equally fascinating and motivating just like the best smart rings, and its discreet design is without a doubt comfortable to wear all day long.
But it's worth noting that Oura has been facing increasing backlash after deepening its partnership with the Department of Defense in the US last year, which is something ethically-conscious buyers may want to look into before purchasing.
That said, its ability to track more than 50 health and wellness metrics, such as sleep quality and stress levels, is undeniably enticing for anyone wanting to be more aware of their body — and the launch of this newest model brought a whole host of new insights.
What I will say is that the Oura app does try to include a lot of context about how these measurements can be interpreted and how they contribute to‚ for example, determining how prepared your body is for the day ahead based on a range of metrics, which Oura calls your 'Resilience Score'. But, again, this only scratches the surface of understanding how your body actually functions.
The best example of these assessments triggering misguided concern was when I got warnings from a feature called 'Symptom Radar', which tracks your respiratory rate and body temperature to flag signs of strain. What it didn't take into account was that a woman's body temperature naturally rises after ovulation, making its assessment unnecessarily worrying for anyone who didn't know that.
I can't deny that its claim to be the world's smallest smart ring at launch really does hold up — its lightness makes it disappear on your finger, making it ideal for everyday wear. With six stylish finishes and an even more scratch-resistant titanium surface, it's no wonder it's made headlines in the wearable tech space, with plenty of influencer reviewers fawning over the all-new Oura Ring 5.
By now you've definitely noticed my to-ing and fro-ing as I work through every side of the Oura Ring 5 to reach an honest and fair review. I won't say it's the most perfect smart ring on the market — that would be ignoring too much — but I will say it comes close. I can't argue with its premium build and the level of tech packed into those tiny sensors, which manage to achieve high levels of accuracy. That's impressive in itself, and
Oura has been facing increasing backlash after deepening its partnership with the Department of Defense in the US last year, although it doesn't use data from any of its users other than specific military personnel as part of this arrangement. It's also worth keeping in mind that there have been studies raising concerns about 'health data anxiety', and Oura's attempt to bring new biomarkers into play have given us a whole new category to worry about. But at the end of the day, I'm a sucker for brilliant tech — which the Oura Ring 5 definitely is.
Oura Ring 5: Price and availability
(Image credit: Future)
$399 / £399 / AU$649 (each) for two base finishes
$499 / £499 / AU$799 (each) for four premium styles
$5.99 monthly subscription (priced in USD across all regions)
$99 / £99 / AU$159 for the Oura Ring 5 travel case
The Oura Ring 5 costs an extra $50 / £50 / AU$80 — or $100 / £100 for a premium finish — compared with the Oura Ring 4, which launched in 2024. (Australian pricing doesn't appear to carry the same premium finish gap.)
Beyond the high-gloss gold and silver finishes, you're paying an extra $100 / £100 / AU$150 for any of the four premium styles: a softer gold, brushed silver, matte black, and — the color I tried — deep copper rose.
Add the $5.99 monthly subscription, and you're looking at up to $670 / £670 / AU$1,029.88 to own an Oura Ring 5 for a year, if you go for the most expensive finish plus the travel case.
That's no small sum when most smart rings on the market cost less and many don't require a recurring subscription. There are also plenty of wearable alternatives that track the same health vitals, which makes this very much a luxury purchase.
Value score: 2/5
Oura Ring 5: Design
(Image credit: Future)
The closest a smart ring has come to looking like luxury jewellery
Extremely low-profile and light, making it comfortable to wear all day
An easy-to-use companion app with a clean UI
By far the best justification for the Oura Ring 5's high price tag is that it could easily pass for a piece of jewellery. That's largely down to a 40% decrease in size from the previous model, the result of Oura redesigning the entire core.
That freed up space to drop multiple sensors, but it hasn't made the Ring 5 any less accurate — Oura has increased the efficiency of the remaining sensors to offset the loss. The titanium surface is also more scratch-resistant; I can't compare it directly to a previous model, but it hasn't picked up a nick yet.
What I can say is that the Oura Ring 5 is significantly smaller than the Ring 4. Holding it up against a previous-generation ring (admittedly the bulkier ceramic finish), I was shocked at how noticeable the size difference is. It's lighter and far more comfortable to wear, since it doesn't protrude — and therefore doesn't rub against — my finger as much.
That same design ethos carries through to the Oura app, which has a minimalist interface that isn't cluttered with numbers and graphs. Instead, data is presented as scores with percentages and ratings for each health vital. It's easy to use, though it's worth noting that the app needs a certain amount of data to establish your health baseline, so you won't have access to every feature right away.
Design score: 5/5
Oura Ring 5: Features
(Image credit: Future)
Tracks vitals including body temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate
AI wellness assessments for sleep, stress, resilience, and more
Activity tracking lags behind more dedicated fitness wearables
After two weeks of wearing the Oura Ring 5, I've unlocked most features — sleep, resilience, and activity scores — which now populate what was once a fairly bare home screen.
The Oura app works best with more data, so it's constantly prompting you to add new "tags" to your day's timeline. Some are automatic, like detecting exercise, while others — what you ate, or what kind of activity you did — require manual logging.
The app's other three main sections cover your vitals, a health assessment area, and an LLM chatbot you can talk to about your data. That last part matters, because as I mentioned above, there's plenty of room for misleading interpretations if you don't understand the many factors behind your body's vitals.
I got a lot out of learning more about my sleep quality and general heart health (the app has a neat feature that lets you feel your heartbeat throughout the day via your phone's haptic feedback), but what I'm most interested in unlocking next are the new women's health features, such as Hormonal Birth Control, which builds on the existing Cycle Insights dashboard with what Oura calls a "first-of-its-kind" view into how biometrics shift across hormonal and hormone-free days.
While I find the wellness insights genuinely useful, the ring is nowhere near as practical as a dedicated fitness tracker. Without GPS — it relies on a paired device for location — and limited to activities compatible with wearing jewellery on your hand (so no weightlifting without a third-party silicone band over the top), it falls short, even with the addition of real-time tracking — which, again, you can only view through a paired device).
Features score: 4/5
Oura Ring 5: Performance
(Image credit: Future)
Battery life has increased to seven days
Automatic activity tracking has been accurate
Sleep and heart rate tracking data is in line with our benchmark device
One of the biggest improvements that the Oura Ring 5 brings over the Ring 4 is that has managed to squeeze out a whole extra day of battery life, despite the ring itself being redesigned to be 40% smaller.
During my testing, I found it lasted a whole seven days on one full charge. But I was more impressed with was how quickly you can charge the smart ring. From a fully drained battery, it took less than an hour until it was all way back up to 100%, which means it's very easy to top it up throughout the week whenever you're, say, washing dishes or having a shower.
For the most part, I kept the Oura Ring 5 on throughout the day, allowing it to track my vitals as I moved from home to work to seeing friends, exercising and cooking, which it does very well. Most of the automated tracking suggestions were accurate, allowing me to quickly confirm all of the day's activities when I next checked into the app.
This same accuracy extends to the sleep data, which is the absolute highlight of the Oura Ring 5's feature set. I found the insights both enlightening and motivating, especially after getting my first sleep score as (like any gamification effect) I began trying to reach a new higher level. My testing also confirmed this when my readouts for my average heart rate managed to be within 3 BPM of the Polar H10 chest strap, which is the gold standard for consumer heart rate and workout accuracy as it uses actual ECG (electrocardiogram) technology.
Average heart rate
Oura Ring 5
115
Polar H10
112
037.575112.5150
Average heart rate Data
Product
Value
Oura Ring 5
115
Polar H10
112
Performance score: 5/5
Oura Ring 5: Scorecard
Category
Comment
Score
Value
An extremely luxury smart ring compared to others on the market.
2/5
Design
The most discreet and comfortable smart ring to wear all day.
5/5
Features
Stacked on the wellness front, but not when it comes to fitness.
4/5
Performance
A whole week's worth of battery, with accurate sleep tracking.
5/5
Oura Ring 5: Should I buy?
(Image credit: Future)
Buy it if...
You want wellness tracking From stress to sleep, you can turn your health vital's raw data into useful insights.
You want a smart ring that looks like jewellery The smart ring manages to be stylish, small and light, and comfortable.
Don't buy it if...
You don't want to spend more than you need to You can find smart ring alternatives that deliver the same benefits for a lot less.
You want a fitness tracking wearable There are far more feature-rich fitness trackers available at a more affordable price.
Also consider
Component
Oura Ring 5
Samsung Galaxy Ring
Price
From $399 / £399 / AU$649
$399 / £399 / AU$699
Colors
Gold, Silver, Brushed Silver, Premium Gold, Stealth Black, Rose Gold
Black, Titanium Gold, Titanium Silver
Material
Titanium
Titanium
Weight
Between 2 (size 6) and 2.6g (size 13)
2.3g (size 5) 3.0g (size 13)
Battery life
Up to 7 days
Up to 7 days (ring), up to 6 charges (cradle)
Connectivity
Bluetooth 6.0
Bluetooth 5.4
Sensor array
Updated Smart Sensing array
PPG, accelerometer, skin temperature
Water resistance
IP68
IP68
GPS?
No
No
How I tested
I wore the Oura Ring 5 for two weeks, draining the battery completely (despite the app advising against letting it go below 30%). I have some gaps in my data from forgetting to put it back on, but I mostly didn't take it off. I tested the ring's heart rate monitoring accuracy against the Polar H10 chest strap, and compared its design to a ceramic Oura Ring 4.
Protecting a household of devices, storing family memories, and protecting your online identity would usually have your searching for multiple solutions from different providers. But right now, Norton 360 Advanced is currently 77% off, reducing the monthly cost of protecting 10 devices to just £2.92/mo.
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Antivirus protection that scored top marks across protection, performance, and usability - with a whole range of additional features to secure your financial and online identity. This package is perfect for those looking for a complete suite of protective software under one roof.
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Password Manager
Its no secret that many people rely on the same password, or a combination thereof, across all of their accounts. From bank logins, to social media, and beyond - if just one of these passwords is leaked on compromised it can put your entire online life at risk.
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As the World Cup fever grows around stars like Messi and Ronaldo, Shanghai hosts a unique penalty shootout featuring humanoid robots.
At MWC Shanghai 2026, humanoid robots are stepping up to the spot in the Humanoid Robot Football Penalties Challenge, testing the limits of robotics, AI, machine vision, and real-time motion control.
According to Chinese media outlets, the event showcases how embodied AI performs under pressure, highlighting next-generation autonomous technology through football-inspired challenges.
Ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Hyundai Motor recently launched a football-themed campaign featuring Boston Dynamics’ Atlas humanoid robot.
Humanoid football test
On its opening day at MWC Shanghai 2026 on June 24, the spotlight quickly shifted from keynote speeches to a live demonstration of embodied AI in action: the Humanoid Robot Football Penalties Challenge.
Held within the Mobile AI Innovation Frontiers Zone at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, the event is designed as a controlled stress test for real-time autonomous decision-making, where humanoid robots must read the goal, judge angles, and execute penalty kicks without pre-programmed sequences, external control, or resets, reported CGTN.
While official details of the participating humanoid robots remain limited, videos circulating online suggest models from Booster Robotics and Unitree Robotics taking part in the challenge.
In the penalties challenge itself, participating humanoids are evaluated on perception accuracy, balance control, motion planning, and adaptive response under game-like pressure. Each robot must independently interpret ball position and goalkeeper movement before committing to a strike, making split-second corrections based on sensor feedback.
The format escalates through semi-finals and a final scheduled for June 25, intensifying constraints to simulate high-pressure competitive conditions. By turning a universally understood sports moment—the penalty kick—into a robotics benchmark, the showcase highlights how far embodied AI has progressed toward coordinated, human-like physical intelligence in unpredictable environments.
Atlas soccer showcase
In a recent football demonstration by Boston Dynamics, an Atlas robot is shown standing before a large display screen, closely tracking player movements, body positioning, and in-game reactions across football footage. After each clip ends, Atlas moves into a practice zone where it immediately attempts to reproduce the actions it has just observed, effectively linking visual perception with physical execution in real time.
The footage highlights a series of football-inspired motions. In one sequence, the robot shifts its weight, swings a leg forward, and smoothly guides a ball across the floor with controlled contact. It then progresses through rapid training drills focused on balance, coordination, and timing. As the session continues, Atlas’s movements appear increasingly fluid, suggesting the system is being evaluated not only for strength but also for agility, reflex response, and adaptive motor control.
Some of the most notable moments show Atlas imitating human emotional reactions. After completing a drill, it raises its arms in celebration, mirroring a footballer’s goal celebration. In another instance, it drops to one knee and pauses, recreating an injury response seen in match footage it had just observed.
Hyundai Motor Company, parent of Boston Dynamics, described the demonstration as Atlas’s first exposure to football under its “School of Football” initiative. The company has also indicated potential plans to showcase Atlas and the quadruped robot Spot at the FIFA World Cup, though their exact roles remain undisclosed.
Voyager aux États-Unis, au Canada ou au Mexique pendant l’été implique souvent le même besoin : rester connecté sans se compliquer la vie. Entre la recherche d’itinéraires, les réservations de dernière minute, les messages aux proches et l’usage constant des applications de navigation, la...
En levant les yeux vers le ciel nocturne dans la nuit de lundi à mardi, peut-être avez-vous eu la chance d’apercevoir une brève mais intense traînée de lumière. Mais de quoi s’agissait-il ?
O KaBuM! jogou o preço no chão e está oferecendo o Monitor Gamer LG UltraGear de 27 polegadas com um desconto imperdível. O valor despencou de R$ 1.799,99 para apenas R$ 999,99, e você ainda pode parcelar esse valor em até 10x sem juros. Essa é a oportunidade de ouro para ter uma tela de altíssima taxa de atualização pagando o preço de um monitor de entrada. A oferta é por tempo muito limitado.
A grande estrela desta tela é a sua taxa de atualização de 240Hz aliada ao tempo de resposta de 1ms. Na prática, isso significa que seus jogos competitivos vão rodar com uma fluidez impressionante. Você reage muito mais rápido aos inimigos e elimina aquele atraso chato que prejudica sua mira em cenas de muita ação, garantindo uma vantagem real dentro do jogo.
- Entre no Canal do WhatsApp do Canaltech e fique por dentro das últimas notícias sobre tecnologia, lançamentos, dicas e tutoriais incríveis. -
Outro ponto forte é o painel IPS. Diferente de telas voltadas apenas para velocidade que costumam deixar as cores lavadas, o painel da LG entrega imagens extremamente claras, limpas e com excelentes ângulos de visão. Isso garante que seus jogos de campanha ou filmes tenham visuais bonitos e cores fiéis, melhorando a sua experiência visual no dia a dia.
Monitor Gamer LG UltraGear 27" conta com suporte a FreeSync Premium e G-Sync (Divulgação/LG)
Para completar o pacote, ele conta com ajuste de altura e suporte a FreeSync Premium e G-Sync. Você ajusta o monitor para jogar com a postura correta, evitando dores no pescoço após longas sessões de gameplay. Além disso, as tecnologias de sincronização garantem que a imagem não sofra "cortes" horizontais, entregando um visual totalmente liso do começo ao fim da partida.
Vale a pena comprar o Monitor Gamer LG UltraGear 27"?
Considerando que o valor original beira os R$ 1.800, pagar menos de mil reais neste modelo é um negócio excelente e totalmente focado no custo-benefício. Ele é a escolha certeira para quem busca fluidez competitiva extrema sem precisar gastar o dobro do valor em telas mais caras.
Para ajudar você a decidir de forma consciente, é preciso ser transparente em alguns detalhes da tecnologia. Por ser uma tela de 27 polegadas com resolução Full HD, se você ficar com o rosto colado na tela para ler textos, pode notar um pouco os pixels. Além disso, como é comum em todo painel IPS, pode haver leve vazamento de luz nas bordas em cenas de filmes muito escuros, além de um pouco de motion blur natural da tecnologia.
Porém, para quem joga a uma distância normal e confortável da mesa, nada disso apaga a grande vantagem desta oferta. Pelo preço cobrado hoje, é quase impossível achar um monitor de marca confiável que entregue 240Hz verdadeiros, cores bonitas e suporte ajustável. O estoque com esse desconto vai esgotar rápido. Corra e garanta o seu antes que o valor suba novamente.
O Governo brasileiro anunciou, na última terça-feira (23), uma nova fase do Programa Nacional Celular Seguro. A nova etapa mira o combate ao mercado ilegal de aparelhos e o fortalecimento de mecanismos voltados à recuperação dos dispositivos com o objetivo de tornar o roubo e a revenda menos lucrativos para os criminosos e interceptadores. Em outras palavras, o Governo quer deixar os celulares "menos roubáveis".
Esse próximo passo da iniciativa foi marcado pela assinatura, por parte do presidente Lula, do decreto que consolida o programa como uma política pública permanente. A medida também instituiu o Banco Nacional de Celulares com Restrição (BNCR).
O BNCR será gerido pela Secretaria Nacional de Segurança Pública (Senasp/MJSP) e, inicialmente, contará com mais de 2,9 milhões de aparelhos que podem ser recuperados pelas vítimas.
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A plataforma reunirá informações sobre aparelhos roubados, furtados ou extraviados em todo o território nacional. Esses dados terão origem tanto no Programa Celular Seguro quanto em outras bases de dados, como:
Boletins de ocorrência registrados pelas Polícias Civis;
Operadoras de telefonia;
Sistemas nacionais de segurança pública;
Cadastro de Estações Móveis Impedidas (CEMI), da Anatel e da ABR Telecom.
“A partir desse decreto, muita coisa vai mudar na atuação do Governo Federal e dos governos estaduais. Também acho que muita coisa vai mudar nas pessoas que ousarem roubar um celular daqui para frente”, ressaltou Lula.
Nova fase do Celular Seguro terá como foco o combate ao mercado ilegal de aparelhos (Imagem: Marcelo Fischer/Canaltech)
Modo Recuperação e consulta antes da compra
Uma das principais novidades do Celular Seguro é o Modo Recuperação, que não bloqueia o aparelho imediatamente, mantendo o IMEI ativo para monitoramento nacional. Assim, quando uma nova linha telefônica for habilitada, o sistema identificará o uso do celular e iniciará o processo de recuperação do aparelho.
Outra inovação diz respeito à criação de uma ferramenta pública de consulta, que dará aos cidadãos a possibilidade de verificar se um aparelho possui algum registro de restrição antes de adquiri-lo.
Essa verificação poderá ser feita por meio do aplicativo ou do portal do Celular Seguro. A consulta exigirá o número do IMEI e exibirá ao usuário um dos dois resultados possíveis: "Sem Restrição" ou "Com Restrição".
“A gente está dando um mecanismo para evitar que as pessoas comprem um celular roubado. Além disso, quem já comprou, vamos notificar, avisando que elas estão de posse de um celular, porque é uma questão de cidadania”, pontuou Francisco Lucas Costa Veloso, secretário nacional de Segurança Pública.
In a laboratory in Broomfield, Colorado, 98 atoms are suspended in mid-air, held in place by electric fields and cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero.
Each atom is far smaller than anything the naked eye could ever see, yet each carries information in a form that has no counterpart in classical physics.
Together, they form Helios, a new quantum computer built by the British-American company Quantinuum. Quantum computers use the power of quantum mechanics, the rules that govern how physics operates at atomic and sub-atomic scales. Those that use Helios’ model of suspended atoms are known as trapped-ion.
A paper published in Nature describes it as a 98-qubit processor with very high accuracy and performance that pushes beyond what can easily be simulated on classical machines. That sounds impressive, but the important question is not simply whether this is a
bigger quantum computer (the previous biggest, System Model H2, had 56 qubits). It is whether it is a better one.
Quantum computers are not just faster versions of ordinary computers. The qubits (quantum bits) that they use to process information can exist in quantum states that do not behave like the ones and zeroes of conventional digital technology.
This allows some calculations to be arranged in ways that may eventually outperform even the largest supercomputers. The possible applications are fascinating: new materials, better optimisation methods, improved chemistry simulations and new approaches to cryptography.
An introduction to the Helios quantum computer (Quantinuum).
The difficulty is that qubits are extremely fragile. They are disturbed by temperature variations, imperfect control, unwanted interactions with the environment and, in some systems, even the act of moving information around the device.
For this reason, the race in quantum computing is not only about having more qubits. It is about having more good qubits, controlled accurately enough to perform long and meaningful calculations.
Why it matters
This is why Helios’ result matters. Quantum computing has been promising to change the world for decades, but many announcements still tend to focus on the number of qubits.
This is like judging a race by the number of runners at the starting line. What matters is how many reach the finish, and in what condition. Helios takes both sides of that challenge seriously. Not only is the 98 qubits relatively large; it also reports very low error rates at this scale.
Errors are more common with quantum computers than with classical ones, so error correction is a big challenge in this area.
The Nature paper gives an average error rate for single-qubit gates of about 2.5 in 100,000 for Helios. A quantum gate is the building block of a circuit in quantum computers. For two-qubit gates in Helios, which are harder and more important for useful computation, the average error rate is about 7.9 in 10,000. This is similar to the best demonstrations of around 5 in 10,000 errors.
Quantum operations are cumulative. A small error in one step may not matter much, but a useful quantum algorithm may require thousands, millions or more operations. Lower error rates mean that more complex calculations become possible before the quantum information falls apart.
Helios’ other notable feature is all-to-all connectivity. In many quantum computers, qubits can interact only with their nearest neighbours, rather like people who can speak only to those sitting next to them. If two distant qubits need to interact, the information must be moved through a chain of intermediate steps. Each extra step adds time and error.
In Helios, any qubit can in principle interact with any other. This is especially valuable for algorithms where the required pattern of interactions does not fit neatly onto a fixed grid.
Quantum railway
The hardware behind this is also interesting. Trapped-ion quantum computers such as Helios use charged atoms as qubits. These ions are held using electric fields and manipulated with laser pulses.
The approach is known for high accuracy, but scaling it up while preserving that accuracy is technically difficult. Helios uses barium ions in what is called a quantum charge-coupled device, or QCCD, architecture. A useful way to picture it is as a tiny quantum railway.
Ions can be stored in memory regions and physically moved into operation zones when the computer programme needs a calculation to be performed using particular qubits. In those operation zones, carefully controlled laser pulses perform the basic steps of a quantum algorithm, known as quantum gates. These gates change the quantum state of one ion, or link the states of two ions together, allowing the computer to process information. In Helios, a ring-shaped storage area and a junction help route the ions around the device.
This separation of storage, movement and computation is not just smart engineering.
It is a sign that quantum computing is becoming more like a full computing system,
rather than a collection of impressive laboratory components.
The machine also uses software that can make routing and control decisions while a program is running. In practice, this means deciding which physical ion should represent each qubit, which ions need to be moved into the operation zones, and in what order the quantum gates should be carried out. This is important for more advanced quantum programmes, especially those where later steps may depend on measurements made during the computation.
And the paper reports that Helios can run random quantum circuits that would be extremely difficult to simulate on classical machines. That is an important benchmark, but not the same as having a generally useful quantum computer. Random circuit sampling tests the power and complexity of the machine; it does not, by itself, solve problems in medicine, climate science or engineering.
So how big an advance is Helios? It is a serious one, because even if it is not the
arrival point of a quantum revolution, it brings together scale, accuracy, connectivity and programmability in one machine.
It is a reminder that transformative technologies rarely arrive in a single leap; they are built step by step, atom by atom, until the impossible starts to look engineered.
Domenico Vicinanza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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