Browsing: Tech Reviews

Your Christmas Eve gaming session might not go as planned. Online gaming hub Steam went down on Wednesday.The Steam outage appeared to begin mid-afternoon ET, according to Downdetector, which monitors site outages. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)A representative for Steam did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As of Wednesday noon PT, Steam’s official X and Bluesky accounts hadn’t posted anything about the outage.Gamers certainly noticed. “Steam down, Steam down!!!” wrote one Bluesky user. Others commented on the bad timing just as gamers were enjoying time off or receiving gaming gifts. “‘You…

South Korea adds facial recognition to SIM registration to choke off scam-driven phone numbersStolen personal data has made mobile fraud cheap, and regulators want higher barriersTelecom security failures forced government to rethink how phone accounts are approvedSouth Korea is moving to tighten how new mobile accounts are created by adding facial recognition to the signup process.A new government post (via The Register) outlined how the change will reduce scams that rely on fraudulently registered phone numbers.Under the new policy, buyers will still present official identity documents, but they will also complete a facial scan through carrier-backed mobile applications. You may…

Here’s some exciting news for those looking to bring their home network along on a long road trip: Ubiquiti just announced the UniFi Travel Router (model UTR), its first of its kind. From the look of it, the UTR seems interesting to say the least, featuring the dated Wi-Fi 5. But that might just be all you’d need anyway. Let’s find out more! The Ubiquiti UniFi Travel Router (UTR) Related stories on Ubiquiti and Wi-Fi Ubiquiti UniFi Travel Router: Will Wi-Fi 5 be cool again? When Wi-Fi 5 was mainstream, I called it “cool” partly because it’s a pun considering…

The Trump administration has issued travel bans that prohibit five European tech researchers, including one former EU Commissioner, from entering the United States. “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.That official is Thierry Breton, the former European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Digital Services, who Sarah Rogers called the “mastermind” of the Digital Services Act. Rogers, the Under Secretary of State, said Breton threatened Elon Musk…

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I’m Irish-American, but yet 6-Down, which involves Ireland, stumped me at first. Read on for all the answers.. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving…

The moment we’ve all been waiting for has arrived – it’s time for TechRadar’s annual Santa Tracker!We’re going to be monitoring St. Nick’s whereabouts as he delivers all the best tech gifts this Christmas, following along using the two most popular trackers; NORAD and Google. Every year, millions tune in to watch Kris Kringle’s annual gift-giving globe-trot. It’s practically a sporting event, with both the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Google running Santa Trackers to follow his every movement.Of course, there’s more to Christmastime than watching an animated sleigh jet across the skies, so we’re also sharing global…

You might never have heard of the file system, but when you use a computer or any device that stores data, you have to deal with one. The same can be said about a partition. This post explains all that in simple terms and shows how to create or format a partition on a storage device using an appropriate file system on a Mac or Windows computer. Dong’s note: I first published part of this post on March 20, 2018, and updated it on December 22, 2025, with the latest information. Related stories on storage and data security File system explained: A…

Researchers from MIT, Northeastern University, and Meta recently released a paper suggesting that large language models (LLMs) similar to those that power ChatGPT may sometimes prioritize sentence structure over meaning when answering questions. The findings reveal a weakness in how these models process instructions that may shed light on why some prompt injection or jailbreaking approaches work, though the researchers caution their analysis of some production models remains speculative since training data details of prominent commercial AI models are not publicly available. The team, led by Chantal Shaib and Vinith M. Suriyakumar, tested this by asking models questions with preserved…

The Federal Communications Commission has added foreign-made drones and their critical components to the agency’s “Covered List,” making them prohibited to import into the US. In a public notice published by the FCC, it said several national security agencies have determined that umanned aircraft systems (UAS) and their critical components produced in foreign countries pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.“UAS and UAS critical components must be produced in the United States,” the agency said. “UAS are inherently dual-use: they are both commercial platforms and potentially military or paramilitary sensors and weapons. UAS and UAS…

The end of the year usually means a last-minute rush for gifts, not least for that gamer in your life. Digital platforms like Steam have their Winter Sale, but the Epic Games Store not only has discounted games for the holiday, it also has a free title available every day during the sale.  From Dec. 18 to Jan. 1, Epic is giving away one free PC game per day. These games are a surprise and are only available for 24 hours. No purchase is needed to get access to these free titles, but an Epic Games Store account is required. These freebies…