Tequila Works auctions off game rights and IP following insolvency Listings include unreleased games and the studio's overall branding Image credit: Tequila Works News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on April 11, 2025 Tequila Works has begun auctioning off the rights to its games and IP after filing for insolvency last November. As spotted by VGC, the Spanish developer has set up a page on auction site Escrapalia where it has listed its "intangible assets" including IPs, in-development titles, and the studio's branding. Adventure platformer Rime, action-adventure puzzle game Gylt, and its debut title Deadlight are among those listed, with trademarks and rights for the games available for purchase. There are also vertical slices for unreleased projects including The Ancient Mariner, Dungeon Tour, and Brawler Crawler, alongside the studio's branding, website, and social media handles. Tequila Works filed for insolvency last year due to "prolonged market conditions." A month prior to this decision, the studio laid off a "small number" of its development team. In March 2022, Tencent became a majority investor after providing an undisclosed amount of funds. The investment was used to grow Tequila Works and support the development of more original IP.

The $750 fitted soft tonneau cover. | Image: Tesla Tesla has a new entry-level Cybertruck with longer range, and it’s the cheapest model yet at $69,990 before the federal $7,500 credit. Tesla pulled some significant features to achieve the price cut.  The new “long range” Cybertruck has just a single RWD motor compared to the two in the AWD model. It also lacks a powered roll-up hard tonneau cover. You can either keep the bed open or buy a $750 fitted soft tonneau cover. As a consolation prize for less storage security, the cover apparently gives you an aerodynamic range boost of 12 miles, according to Tesla. The Cybertruck Long Range can drive up to 350 miles on a charge, 25 miles more than the AWD model, or up to 362 miles with the soft tonneau cover. Towing capacity is also lower at 7,500 lbs compared to 11,000 lbs on the other trims. It accelerates slower than the AWD model. The RWD Cybertruck goes 0-60mph in 6.2 seconds versus 4.1 seconds on the more expensive Cybertruck. Tesla removed adaptive suspension and the 120V and 240V power outlets from the RWD model, so it can’t power your tools on the go. The company also removed the battery range extender option this week. The interior of the Cybertruck RWD comes with textile seats instead of the leatherette ones in the other models, and you aren’t getting the rear seat infotainment touchscreen, either. At the company’s 2023 delivery event, Tesla said its RWD option had a lower advertised range of 250 miles and would cost $60,990. That version was never released, though. In 2024, the RWD base option was removed. The new, more expensive, RWD model is available for order in the US, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. Tesla has had trouble selling Cybertrucks, reportedly selling only 50,000 units in 2024 on apparently one million reservations. The company is also seeing a 13 percent drop in vehicle sales year over year, which can be partly attributed to CEO Elon Musk’s control of the “Department of Government Efficiency” in the Trump Administration.

This article contains spoilers for Black Mirror Season 7.Since Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror debuted in 2011, it has presented a nigh-on nihilistic view of technology. Heck, it’s right there in the name, explaining the darkness of how what we’re watching on the TV screen reflects back onto our real world. But something has shifted as the show has continued, with the seventh season that’s just dropped on Netflix presenting a surprising, new thesis for the series. Maybe, just maybe, it’s technology – and AI in particular – that’s going to save us. Or at the very least, save itself.To get one thing out of the way, the AI that’s presented in Black Mirror is pure fantasy. This isn’t the sort of AI used in ChatGPT and programs of the like, which isn’t anything fancier than a predictive text algorithm. Nor is it the sort of AI that’s close to anything that exists commercially or otherwise in our real world. What Black Mirror presents is a fantasy future version of AI that truly is what the initials stand for: artificial intelligence. In the series, they are programs that have vaulted past computer status to become living beings in and of themselves. And it’s with that major difference that Brooker and company are aiming to teach us more about what humanity should be, through beings that are just achieving sentience on their own.This isn’t true of every episode in the new season. The season premiere, “Common People,” is a classic dark tale of a couple trying to solve their healthcare woes in a system that upcharges them to keep the wife’s brain working. It’s bleak, often darkly comic, and puts Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones through a gristmill to make a point about how the healthcare system isn’t that different from spiraling cell phone charges, or, to bite the hand that feeds Black Mirror, Netflix’s constant price hikes. “Bête Noir” is a comic tale of high school revenge that lightly plays with the idea of the Mandela Effect, but if you’re looking any deeper into the episode, you’re doing it wrong. Heck, at one point one of the characters Googles “nut allergy” and the only result is “did you mean ‘not allegory’” in case you missed how this is more of an Outer Limits style episode than classic Black Mirror.Best Black Mirror EpisodesBut the next four episodes all take a very different, surprising tact for Black Mirror, something that we’ve only seen sparsely peppered through the series thus far. “Hotel Reverie” is a romantic comedy between Issa Rae’s character, a famous actress trying to stretch her muscles, and a digital recreation of a classic actress, played by Emma Corrin. “Plaything” finds Peter Capaldi as the digital harbinger for The Throng, a game created by “Bandersnatch” madman played by Will Poulter, which may help bring about the singularity. “Eulogy” might be the most earnestly heartfelt episode of the series to date, as Paul Giamatti’s character takes a journey through a relationship in his past that he’d rather forget, after his former paramour’s passing. And the final episode, “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” checks back in on the fan-favorite Star Trek riff now that the in-game AI crew has gone off on their own adventures.There’s darkness, for sure, particularly with “Plaything.” depending on how you feel about becoming the host for a digital symbiote, you might find it more disturbing than not. But each episode posits that the way forward is working with and learning from our AI counterparts. It’s a far cry from how Toby Kebbell lost himself to The Grain in Season 1’s “The Entire History of You,” or the dark, sad end of android Domhnall Gleeson in Season 2’s “Be Right Back.” Heck, this is 180 degrees from the murder machine of Season 4’s “Metalhead,” or any of the times technology led to a gruesome death on the show, aka most of them. Instead, this batch of four episodes shows how tech can lead to closure, independence, a bright future, or even true love.So, how did we get here? How did a show so focused on the bleak side of sci-fi pivot to become a fantasy of what could be? The answer likely goes back to what is perhaps the most beloved episode of Black Mirror of all time, “San Junipero,” which is referenced constantly in Season 7. “Common People” finds the main couple celebrating their anniversary every year at an inn/restaurant called The Juniper. Issa Rae’s Brandy lives on 3049 Junipero Drive. Black Mirror has always included Easter eggs and references to other episodes; some overt, some not. But it’s hard to understate the importance of “San Junipero” to this steady change to the series, and to Season 7 in particular.PlayThe fourth episode of Season 3, “San Junipero” starred Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis as Kelly and Yorkie, respectively, two seemingly young women who fall in love, only for it to turn out that Kelly is a dead copy of a person’s memories, while Yorkie is a dying old woman. It’s a beautiful lesbian love story, the first of its kind for the series, but in classic Black Mirror fashion it ends in a place that is either beautiful – they decide to be together forever in the digital afterlife – or disturbing – Yorkie is euthanized, and the final shot is a bunch of robot arms sorting drives, including their memories.Ending aside, multiple other episodes since then have experimented with this weird, fresh idea of “hope.” Season 4’s “USS Callister,” also hailed as one of the best episodes of the series, found a bunch of cloned digital creations escaping their old-school Star Trek reality by killing their maker and entering a bold, new world. Later in Season 4, “Hang The DJ” seemed to present almost a heterosexual version of “San Junipero” involving a dating app, but ultimately fizzled its premise with a classic Black Mirror bummer of an ending. Same with Season 5’s “Striking Vipers,” which found two male friends striking up a sexual relationship in a Street Fighter-esque fighting game, only to discover it didn’t work at all in the real world. Three episodes taking halting steps towards a different tone over nearly a decade, but none as successful as “San Junipero.” Until now.So… Why now? Perhaps the easiest answer is Big Tech’s current obsession with AI as the latest hot thing, something that is quickly proving to be not what consumers want at all. The faux AI they’re hocking is as dark as anything Black Mirror has ever peddled, from boiling large bodies of water and accelerating climate change to wrecking whole swathes of the internet with frequently incorrect results. What can Black Mirror possibly say about our current AI when people are using predictive text in place of therapy, and Google is telling chefs to add glue to pizza? There’s nothing left to parody, to heighten, because in the real world, it’s already so ridiculous, so dangerous.Black Mirror Season 7 GalleryInstead, Brooker’s crew has changed focus to the real heroes, the digital beings, since we humans have taken so little effort and so much time to decide our world isn’t worth saving as long as we can generate terrible-looking art with the wrong number of fingers.This is something the show seemingly tackles head-on in “Hotel Reverie,” with Awkwafina’s Kimmy testing a new technology that will spruce up old black-and-white movies by inserting new, hot actors into the scenes. It goes wrong, of course, and there’s plenty of not-so-subtle commentary about how AI (the way we know it) can generate the beats of a script, from when characters should fall in love to how mysteries should be solved. But the heart of the episode, quite literally, is how Issa Rae’s Brandy, stuck in the computerized version of the movie, finds a kindred soul with Emma Corrin’s digital recreation – and it ends with a beautiful scene involving a phone call that matches Yorkie and Kelly’s “forever,” without the weird robot arms. It’s about how connections can be made despite the interference of algorithms, not because of them.“Eulogy” presents the flipside of “The Entire History of You,” with Giamatti’s Phillip trying to forget his past so definitively that he’s ripped the face of his ex-girlfriend out of pictures. But it’s through his bond with The Guide (Patsy Ferran), who turns out to be an AI duplicate of his ex-girlfriend’s daughter, curating material for her memorial, that Phillip can confront his own past mistakes and move forward with his life. It’s not ChatGPT therapy, but it is the version that users think they’re getting, versus plagiarized text that’s missing the intuitiveness of emotion and consciousness.PlayAnd the highly anticipated “USS Callister: Into Infinity” pairs nicely with “Plaything,” both positing that perhaps humans are prone to violence and petty jealousy, while digital creations have the ability to be better, and do better. In the former, with one exception the human characters are all scrambling to either dominate each other or destroy. Meanwhile, the crew of the Callister just want the opportunity to live. And in “Plaything,” when the adorable Tamagotchi-esque creatures of the Throng are presented with murder, their reaction isn’t to kill – it’s to present Capaldi’s Cameron (played in flashback by Lewis Gribben) with another option: let them take that pain and rage away by forming machine-man hybrids.While Black Mirror isn’t totally past punishing humans (see “Common People” in particular), the pivot in Season 7 has turned to a fantasy that flips from the common belief that a la Terminator, the machines are here to kill us. Instead, Black Mirror suggests by coexisting with them, they can teach us to be better humans. And in a worst-case scenario, replace us because we don’t seem to want ourselves to survive anyway.Turns out that Black Mirror which we thought reflected back on us was a two-way mirror all along, and Brooker’s digital creations have been watching this whole time. Perhaps it’s a flight of fancy, perhaps not. But as the show’s thoughts on AI have evolved, and the real world’s reliance on destructive fake AI has devolved, Black Mirror may have a point. All hail our new machine overlords… Even if for now they’re just fantasy.

Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! In this weekly feature we cover all the games coming soon to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, and Game Pass! Get more details on these upcoming games below and click their profiles for further info (release dates subject to change). Let’s jump in! Crystal Ball of Firmament Xitilon ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Crystal Ball of Firmament – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S The spell book is missing! Help the magician to find it in this action platformer adventure. Use the crystal ball to change between the day and night to make your path, collect tokens and buy useful upgrades. Venture out four different biomes (mountain, woods, winter forest and city) with a total of 32 levels. Warping the day / night cycle changes Ambiental obstacles and enemies’ behavior. Chains of Freedom Nordcurrent Labs ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Chains of Freedom – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Step into a thrilling turn-based tactics game set in a fictional, dystopian Eastern European state. Lead an elite military squad as you navigate perilous missions filled with danger, deceit, and moral dilemmas. Finding Frankie PERP GAMES ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Finding Frankie – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Fight for your life as you compete against two other contestants in Frankie’s twisted parkour game show. Run, jump, swing and slide your way throughout parkour and obstacle courses while avoiding Frankie, Henry Hotline and many other terrifying enemies. Hot Rod Mayhem Casual Brothers Ltd. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $19.99 $15.99 Pre-order Hot Rod Mayhem – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Xbox Play Anywhere Start your engines, gearheads – it’s time for Hot Rod Mayhem! Prove yourself as the ultimate little racer by putting your speed and swerving skills to the test in wild races and one-of-a-kind trials! Use perilous pick-ups, like the tricky Marble or the Homing Dart, to leave your opponents in the dust! Lab Rat Klei Publishing ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Lab Rat – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Lab Rat is a hand-crafted narrative puzzler masquerading as a machine-generated video game. This satirical adventure stars a metrics-obsessed AI who will monitor, profile, and guide you as you solve over a hundred unique spatial problems. Over time this AI will develop a hilariously misguided understanding of humanity based on your performance and survey response data. Lushfoil Photography Sim Annapurna Interactive ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Lushfoil Photography Sim – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Experience detailed, true-to-life recreations of beautiful and diverse locations around the world. Trek through and explore environments to capture stunning vistas and landscapes with your fully featured in-game camera. Each environment is filled with objectives to reward players that have a good eye for angles and perspectives, and hidden secrets for those who are patient and observant. Monument Valley ustwo games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Monument Valley – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Embark on a dreamlike adventure in the iconic Monument Valley, the award-winning puzzle game where architecture defies reality. Guide Princess Ida through surreal monuments, uncovering hidden paths and optical illusions that challenge perception. Monument Valley 2 ustwo games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Monument Valley 2 – April 15Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Monument Valley 2 invites you on an award-winning emotional puzzle adventure where architecture transforms as you play. Join Ro and her child as they explore stunning, ever-shifting worlds, solving optical illusions that challenge perception and their lives. Bear Knight Honey Quest Marcos Game Dev ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Bear Knight Honey Quest – April 16 Bear Knight Honey Quest is an action platformer about a huggable bear and his trusty sword on a mission to recover the bee queen’s stolen honey. With easy controls, it’s guaranteed fun for the whole family! Farmer's Life FreeMind S.A. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Farmer’s Life – April 16Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Unleash the Farmer within. Dive into the rustic charm of rural living in Farmer’s Life, where you’ll experience the joy and challenges of life on a vibrant farm stead. Plant, grow, and embrace a country living in a vast open world. You choose from diverse mechanics and endless possibilities. I, Robot Atari ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $14.99 $13.49 Pre-order I, Robot – April 16Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Jeff Minter is back with another unique take on a 1980s Atari arcade game: I, Robot. Reimagined in Minter’s signature assault of colors, shapes and sounds, this new take on the eclectic arcade title is built from the ground up with new challenges, new twists, and a whole lot of llamas. Moving Houses Eastasiasoft Limited ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Moving Houses – April 16Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery / Xbox Play Anywhere Enjoy a silly physics-based game about moving on as you box up your life while immersed in casual comfy gameplay and the instant gratification of task-based gamification of packing chores. Be neat, be careful or be a chaos goblin. The choice is yours! Sunshower NOKOGODO ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Sunshower – April 16Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery / Xbox Play Anywhere A colorful, casual arcade action game that follows a robot’s survival in a rainstorm! Use the plant installed on your head to reach for the sky as you achieve high scores and stop the rain from washing away the world. Vinebound: Tangled Together Silesia Games Sp. z o.o. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Vinebound: Tangled Together – April 16 A co-op roguelike for 1-2 players where you must coordinate attacks with a ping-pong cooldown to defeat hordes of enemies. Can your friendship survive the botanical mayhem of Garden Lands? Crime Scene Cleaner PlayWay S.A. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Crime Scene Cleaner – April 17Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Xbox Play Anywhere When insurance companies dodge the responsibility, it’s up to you to save your daughter’s life. This will require some dirty work and shady clientele, but you have no other choice, right? When the big boss calls once again, bring a bucket and a mop cause you will really need them. Are you up for the challenge? KEMCO RPG Selection Vol. 4 KEMCO ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $39.99 Pre-order Kemco RPG Selction Vol. 4 – April 17Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Now you can enjoy 4 RPGs; Chronus Arc, Bonds of the Skies, Legend of the Tetrarchs, Monochrome Order in one bundle! Leila NAISU ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $12.99 Pre-order Leila – April 17 Play as Leila and traverse through all phases of her life, uncovering her pivotal life moments. By unraveling puzzles imbued with the fragments of her narrative, you’ll comprehend the motives behind Leila’s life decisions. As you delve deeper into her psyche and her emotional landscape, you’ll discover facets of your own self mirrored in the life journey of this seemingly ordinary woman. Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree Knights Peak ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree – April 17Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Slash, burn, and rage your way through Mandragora, a 2.5D side-scroller action-RPG with deep Metroidvania and Soulslike elements. Light your Witch Lantern, enter the dark realm of Entropy, and tear reality asunder. Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate Rocket Panda Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate – April 17Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery A side-scrolling beat ’em up with the heart of a fighting game, supporting cross-platform pixel art anime action with up to 8P online multiplayer and all the characters from Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Overdrive! Terror Mansion Domynyo SRL ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Terror Mansion – April 17Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Xbox Play Anywhere Terror Mansion is an exciting, first-person horror video game that catapults you into a frightening Mansion. Your main objective is to escape the infested Mansion, finding objects and challenging riddles while exploring incredible scenarios. The Safe Place Restless Corp ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now The Safe Place – April 17Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery / Xbox Play Anywhere A gripping, social point-and-click adventure game that delves into the harsh realities of childhood and the complexities of self-sacrifice. As the third installment of the trilogy from the creator of Little Kite and Repentant, this game takes you on an emotional journey through the lives of two characters bound by fate. Tempopo CULT Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Tempopo – April 17Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery / Xbox Play Anywhere When Hana’s garden of musical flowers are scattered across a sky full of beautiful islands, she must turn to the magical Tempopo for help returning them. Chaotic and uncoordinated by nature, the Tempopo rely on Hana’s conducting skills to keep on the right track, and solve each island’s puzzle. Cute Puppy Academy COMMANDO PANDA ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Cute Puppy Academy – April 18Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Welcome to Cute Puppy Academy, the ultimate place for puppy lovers! Train, care for, and play with adorable pups! Feed, groom, and teach them tricks to keep their tails wagging. Take them on fun walks, play mini-games, and test their skills. Expand your academy with new facilities, attract more puppies, and become the best trainer in town! LUNAR Remastered Collection GungHo Online Entertainment America, Inc. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Lunar Remastered Collection – April 18Xbox Play Anywhere Dive into the enchanting worlds of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, two beloved JRPGs that have captured the hearts of gamers for generations. This definitive remastered edition features enhanced graphics, audio, and quality-of-life improvements that will satiate that hunger for 90s nostalgia–better than you remember! Snow Squall Dolores Entertainment ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Snow Squall – April 18Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Your helicopter crashes in a remote, icy wilderness en route to delivering batteries to a mysterious research facility. Now, you must complete your delivery before you freeze to death or get eaten by a strange presence stalking you. Space Smash Rising Moon Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Space Smash – April 18Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery A retro-style, fast-paced, and addictive shoot ’em up. A throwback to the classic arcade games of the 80s. Great for playing while waiting in line for another game. Thrill Penguin Ratalaika Games S.L. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Thrill Penguin – April 18Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery You are an ambitious penguin who brandishes a stylish bandana and aspires to be a parkour master. Run, jump, dive, and swim through different and six unique zones containing challenging levels to demonstrate your esteemed parkour prowess.

The behind the scenes journalistic recaps of Apple’s AI drama continues today at The New York Times. And in this latest report, blame for Apple’s struggles to compete in AI is assigned to a surprising source: Luca Maestri and budget. Maestri scaled GPU purchase plans way back in early 2023, harming Apple’s AI efforts Today Tripp Mickle at The New York Times has published a wide-ranging report outlining Apple’s struggles in AI, Siri, the Vision Pro, and more. It covers much of the same ground as yesterday’s The Information report, but there is an especially interesting new tidbit around Apple’s slow AI start. John Giannandrea, Apple’s AI head, reportedly sought approval in early 2023 to upgrade the company’s GPU arsenal and faced some pushback. Tripp Mickle writes at The New York Times: At the time, Apple’s data centers had about 50,000 GPUs that were more than five years old — far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of chips being bought at the time by A.I. leaders like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta, these people said. Mr. Cook approved a plan to double the team’s chip budget, but Apple’s finance chief, Luca Maestri, reduced the increase to less than half that, the people said. Mr. Maestri encouraged the team to make the chips they had more efficient. It seems remarkable that Maestri would be able to have such a huge impact on Apple’s AI efforts. Especially considering Cook gave his own approval. Mickle continues: The lack of GPUs meant the team developing A.I. systems had to negotiate for data center computing power from its providers like Google and Amazon, two of the people said. The leading chips made by Nvidia were in such demand that Apple used alternative chips made by Google for some of its A.I. development. 9to5Mac’s Take Maestri is Apple’s longtime CFO who recently stepped into a reduced role, likely as part of a slow retirement plan. While Maestri’s oversight of Apple’s finances makes him an important voice in the decision to increase GPU investment, it’s wild that such a seemingly short-sighted move happened so recently. Apple’s growing R&D spend over the years, the importance of AI, and the company’s huge cash flow all make a simple budget dispute seem hard to believe. Not that this one decision can be entirely blamed for Apple’s slow AI uptake, of course. Mickle also highlights leadership struggles between Robby Walker, who formerly led Siri, and Sebastien Marineau-Mes, a senior executive in software. However, such a big scale back on what Giannandrea was asking for seems like an especially big error, in hindsight. How much do you think this GPU budget reduction hurt Apple’s AI efforts? Let us know in the comments. Best iPhone accessories Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Image by Getty / FuturismRx/MedicinesThanks to policies by the Drug Enforcement Administration, prescription medications for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) like Adderall and Vyvanse are in a years-long artificial shortage.Luckily, one expert has a few tricks up his sleeve to help those suffering without their meds get access to them.In an interview with Futurism, veteran psychiatrist and ADHD specialist William Dodson revealed that prescribers in the know will often sync up their patients’ prescriptions to be filled on the seventh day of every month.The reasoning behind this, as Dodson explains, is labyrinthine.Since 2022, the DEA has capped the amount of pills that ADHD drug manufacturers — like Adderall maker Teva Pharmaceuticals, Vyvanse maker Takeda, and Ritalin maker Novartis — are allowed to produce. The agency's reasoning, as Dodson wrote in a 2024 op-ed for ADDitude Magazine, is the claim that people are abusing prescription stimulants — despite there being "virtually no evidence to support this belief."So strict are America’s drug czars in controlling stimulants that they set the number of pills manufacturers can send to pharmacies monthly a year ahead of time."The drug company is so told [by the DEA] 'you can release one million Vyvanse 40s and 800,000 Vyvanse 60s,'" the Colorado-based psychiatrist said, citing Vyvanse, an "abuse-deterrant" stimulant, as an example. "They're told exactly how many of which strength they can they can produce, and then can release to the warehouses and the wholesalers on the first of each month in the next calendar year."On the first of every month, Dodson detailed, wholesalers get the drugs, and after that pharmacies request it. Around the sixth of each month, the stuff makes it to pharmacies — and on the seventh day, they release it to customers."People who know that," he said, "synchronize all of their patients' prescriptions for the seventh."As Dodson told us, individuals can either request that their doctors submit the prescription at the very first of the month or ask pharmacies to hold onto them until the seventh."Both docs and pharmacists are happy to not have to spend hours and hours searching for medications toward the [latter] part of the month," he said.As helpful as this sort of advice may be, however, it’s no substitute for common-sense drug policy — especially if enough patients find out about this one weird trick."That's sort of the vagaries of distribution," Dodson said. "The DEA plan is cumbersome, stupid. It doesn't work well, and they are completely resistant to any modification."Of all people, Dodson knows. As he told Futurism, the "only reason" he’s able to criticize the DEA as strongly as he does is because he’s retired from practice — and as such, is less concerned about getting blowback from what calls the "thuggish" agency.At some point over the next month, he said the DEA is expected to sit down with drug manufacturers in what’s "supposed to be a negotiation" and tell them point-blank how much of each stimulant they’re allowed to produce over the next nine months."In some cases," he continued, "they're trying to guess what the needs are going to be 20 months in advance. It's the whole next calendar year, and they're doing it in March and April."In sum, Dodson likens the DEA to the cartels it's nominally fighting against. (When we reached out to the DEA, a spokesperson had no comment on Dodson's advice, but responded with links to the agency's own press releases about slightly upping quotas year over year.)Ahead of its upcoming non-negotiations, the DEA has, as we’ve learned from an agency update the psychiatrist shared with us, slightly raised its production quota on methylphenidate, or generic Ritalin. Last fall, it did the same for generic Vyvanse.While that update is certainly welcome to those who've had to go without their meds, it's hard to say now whether the DEA's policies will shift significantly under the new Trump administration. As Dodson assured us, the known Adderall-hating Robert F Kennedy Jr, who now sits in charge of our country's healthcare, has no authority over the DEA.More on drug shortages: Hims Is Begging Customers to Lobby the FDA to Keep Its Ozempic Knockoffs LegalShare This Article

Apr 11, 2025Ravie LakshmananMalware / Vulnerability The threat actor known as Paper Werewolf has been observed exclusively targeting Russian entities with a new implant called PowerModul. The activity, which took place between July and December 2024, singled out organizations in the mass media, telecommunications, construction, government entities, and energy sectors, Kaspersky said in a new report published Thursday. Paper Werewolf, also known as GOFFEE, is assessed to have conducted at least seven campaigns since 2022, according to BI.ZONE, with the attacks mainly aimed at government, energy, financial, media, and other organizations. Attack chains mounted by the threat actor have also been observed incorporating a disruptive component, wherein the intrusions go beyond distributing malware for espionage purposes to also change passwords belonging to employee accounts. The attacks themselves are initiated via phishing emails that contain a macro-laced lure document, which, upon opening and enabling macros, paves the way for the deployment of a PowerShell-based remote access trojan known as PowerRAT. The malware is designed to deliver a next-stage payload, often a custom version of the Mythic framework agent known as PowerTaskel and QwakMyAgent. Another tool in the threat actor's arsenal is a malicious IIS module called Owowa, which is used for retrieving Microsoft Outlook credentials entered by users on the web client. The latest set of attacks documented by Kaspersky starts with a malicious RAR archive attachment containing an executable that masquerades as a PDF or a Word document using a double extension (i.e., *.pdf.exe or *.doc.exe). When the executable is launched, the decoy file is downloaded from a remote server and shown to the user, while the infection proceeds to the next stage in the background. "The file itself is a Windows system file (explorer.exe or xpsrchvw.exe), with part of its code patched with a malicious shellcode," it said. "The shellcode is similar to what we saw in earlier attacks, but in addition contains an obfuscated Mythic agent, which immediately begins communicating with the command-and-control (C2) server." The alternate attack sequence is a lot more elaborate, using a RAR archive embedding a Microsoft Office document with a macro that acts as a dropper to deploy and launch PowerModul, a PowerShell script capable of receiving and executing additional PowerShell scripts from the C2 server. The backdoor is said to have been used since the start of 2024, with the threat actors initially using it to download and execute PowerTaskel on compromised hosts. Some of the other payloads dropped by PowerModul are listed below - FlashFileGrabber, which is used to steal files from removable media, such as flash drives, and exfiltrate them to the C2 server FlashFileGrabberOffline, a variant of FlashFileGrabber that searches removable media for files with specific extensions, and when found, copies them to the local disk within the "%TEMP%\CacheStore\connect\" folder USB Worm, which is capable of infecting removable media with a copy of PowerModul PowerTaskel is functionally similar to PowerModul in that it's also designed to run PowerShell scripts sent by the C2 server. But in addition, it can send information about the targeted environment in the form of a "checkin" message, as well as execute other commands received from the C2 server as tasks. It's also equipped to escalate privileges using the PsExec utility. In at least one instance, PowerTaskel has been found to receive a script with a FolderFileGrabber component that, besides replicating the features of FlashFileGrabber, includes the ability to gather files from remote systems via a hardcoded network path using the SMB protocol. "For the first time, they employed Word documents with malicious VBA scripts for initial infection," Kaspersky said. "Recently, we have observed that GOFFEE is increasingly abandoning the use of PowerTaskel in favor of the binary Mythic agent during lateral movement." The development comes as BI.ZONE attributed another threat group called Sapphire Werewolf to a phishing campaign that distributes an updated version of the open-source Amethyst Stealer. The stealer retrieves "credentials from Telegram and various browsers, including Chrome, Opera, Yandex, Brave, Orbitum, Atom, Kometa, and Edge Chromium, as well as FileZilla and SSH configuration files," the Russian company said, adding it can also grab documents, including those stored on removable media. Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter  and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. SHARE    

As AI continues to evolve, the question becomes whether companies can transform their businesses while adapting their workforce strategies at the same pace. An executive mindset shift -- or mindshift -- is needed to not only reimagine businesses forward, but to also prepare workers for roles that don’t yet exist. Seismic shifts lie ahead: artificial intelligence will reshape 86% of businesses by 2030, according to a new World Economic Forum (WEF) report. That same report also predicts that AI and automation will create 170 million jobs, while displacing 92 million roles as companies adapt to technological change; 39% of existing skill sets will become outdated between 2025-2030.  Business, Not Digital, Transformation Is the Way Forward  Companies now face a new chapter in the evolution of digital transformation, one that challenges organizations to think beyond the digitization of legacy processes and workflows they prioritized over the past decade. In reality, BCG research uncovered that 70% of digital transformations still fall short of their objectives.  Before the dawn of ChatGPT, it could be argued that most digital transformation efforts focused on the digitization and optimization of legacy processes. The pursuit of efficiency, scale, and cost-cutting limited or impaired the prospect of any meaningful transformation desired business outcomes. The same may already be happening in an era of AI. Companies are prioritizing the automation of the processes and workflows digitized over the past decade, which is important, but without exploring the potential for new opportunities in an era of AI, automation may not be enough to evolve.  Related:If digital transformation was the defining strategy in the 2000s, AI-native business transformation represents a potentially better, and more adaptable way forward. Unlike digital transformation, AI represents an opportunity for business transformation. It’s an inflection point to reimagine organizations and work in a world where AI becomes inherently attached to almost every technology, action, and outcome.  The Next Chapter of AI-Native Businesses 2025 is set to be the year that not just AI, but AI agents, start to reshape the enterprise. While organizations are just beginning to recognize the possibilities of AI, they are not yet exploring the implications of businesses that accelerate AI-first transformation. Now is the time for organizations to embrace AI beyond tools and as a core component of their strategic mindset and operational framework. Related:But what does it mean to be an AI-first enterprise?  To help, let’s substitute AI-first with AI-native: AI as being native to the core of the business itself, strategy, operations, culture, and value creation. It’s also more than the implementation of AI tools across the enterprise. It's about redefining roles, work, and operations, fostering innovation, and creating a culture that embraces change.  An AI-native enterprise is characterized by the strategic integration of artificial intelligence at the core of its operations and decision-making.  An AI-native approach will fundamentally redefine how businesses operate, innovate, and engage with customers, employees, and their ecosystem. AI becomes not just a tool, but the central driver of decision-making, operational efficiency, and customer interaction. Lead in the AI Revolution or Be Left Behind AI-first is not just about using AI, it’s about making AI native to business architecture, foundationally. Make AI core to decision-making: AI is not just a tool for efficiency; it plays a central role in strategic decision-making, forecasting, and autonomous execution. Use AI to drive exponential thinking, not incremental optimization: Instead of improving traditional business processes, AI-native companies reimagine workflows, value chains, and customer experiences from scratch. Automate adaptability: AI-first companies build systems that can sense, analyze, and act autonomously in real-time across supply chains, operations, and customer engagement. Integrate AI to spur network effects and self-learning models: Continuously improve via feedback loops, fine-tune AI models, and leverage collective intelligence rather than relying solely on human input. Make data and compute as a core asset: Unlike traditional companies that prioritize physical assets or human capital, AI-first organizations treat data, compute power, and algorithmic capabilities as their primary competitive advantage. Drive workflow transformation with AI agents: AI agents are the next major evolution in AI-native businesses. They don’t just enhance workflows; they autonomously execute tasks, make decisions, and optimize operations at a scale and speed impossible for human-led organizations. You need to make sure you are designing and enhancing workflows of the future, not the past. Why? AI-native businesses will rely on agentic systems to manage core functions, drive efficiency, and create new competitive advantages. Redefine leadership for an AI-native era: C-Suites are not immune. Train executives and managers to think strategically about AI adoption, guiding their teams in AI-first decision-making and workflow transformation. Invest in reskilling programs for emerging roles: As AI automates repetitive tasks, new roles will emerge that require human creativity, problem-solving, and oversight. Companies must proactively explore and identify future job needs and provide pathways for employees to transition into high-value roles. This includes preparing for an agentic enterprise and beyond. Related:The shift from digital transformation to AI-native business transformation is not just an evolution -- it is a foundational reinvention of how organizations operate, compete, and create value. AI-native enterprises are architecting their businesses around it, making AI the backbone of strategy, decision-making, and execution. It’s about designing businesses where AI is intrinsic to every function, continuously learning, adapting, and driving innovation. AI-native leaders are also preparing for workforce evolution for the agentic enterprise, imagining new roles, and upskilling and reskilling in preparation, especially as the agentic enterprise takes shape. As AI agents become more capable, businesses must simultaneously prepare for the inevitable rise of an Agentic Enterprise. AI-native pacesetters will prepare their architecture for embedding AI agents into workflows across the enterprise to augment decision-making, operations, and customer engagement. The future won’t favor companies that use AI; it will reward those that architected for it and AI’s evolution. 

These days, we all just want to come home at the end of the day, sit back on our comfy couch, and unwind by watching the most stressful medical drama show we can find. The good news is there are tons of them, each more high-octane than the last, curing any delusions we might have had that we would be able to hold it together while staffing an emergency room full of screaming patients.Maybe it’s the thrill of the claustrophobic yet exciting environment, maybe it’s the schadenfreude of “well at least that’s not happening to me,” but doctor shows are far and away one of the most popular television genres of all time. The best ones have an even split between can’t-look-away medical cases and compelling interpersonal complexities between their main characters, hooking their audience with human drama and terrifying physical ailments, and promising, most of the time, that everyone is going to be okay.If you’re a fan of medical dramas and in need of a new one, or you’re interested in them but don’t know where to start, or you just want to find the most nerve-wracking way to spend your off hours, boy, do we have the perfect list for you. Out of all the doctor shows out there, from the most beloved to the more obscure, we’ve gathered together the ten most stressful, most fraught television shows ever made, each of which tests the boundaries of medical science and how many cameras you can fit inside one hospital set. Envy the brilliance of these star doctors while safe in the knowledge that at least your day wasn’t as bad as theirs is about to be.The Most Intense Medical TV Shows Ever MadeEveryone is going to be okay. Maybe. READ MORE: The Best New TV Shows of the YearGet our free mobile app12 Pairs of Actors and Directors With Famous FeudsYou won't see these great actors and directors working together again. Gallery Credit: Emma StefanskyFiled Under: ER, Grey's Anatomy, House, The Knick, The PittCategories: Galleries, Original Features, Special Features, TV News

Are you able to write thorough and engaging UX research findings?Would you like to join a team of dedicated usability researchers, who produce cutting-edge User Experience research? Producing UX research findings that will be used by thousands of web professionals, including some of the biggest brands in the world (including Amazon, Google, Nike, Shopify)? Are you excellent at presenting complex research findings on web user behavior through the written word?Then apply for the remote full-time position as UX Research Analyst & Writer at Baymard Institute.About Your Job at BaymardIn this position, you will join Baymard’s team of usability researchers and primarily work at annotating and analyzing our raw usability test data and writing the insights from this into usability guidelines. The guidelines go directly into our Baymard subscription platform. Our Baymard customers are eagerly waiting for your UX research insights, be it the UI designer at Nike or the ecommerce director at Amazon, as they use it as direct input for their UX and UI design decisions.In this role, you’ll need to enjoy analysis and writing, since analyzing usability test data and writing usability test findings will be at least 50–80% of what you’ll be doing all year round.Besides analysis and writing, the job also involves moderating 1-1 usability tests and identifying themes and issues across multiple sites, and coming up with proposals for design patterns that can alleviate the identified problems.While each researcher at Baymard generally directs their own study, from research design through publication, collaboration with other team members is an essential part of the job. As such, the amount of input and control you have over any one phase of research varies based on the specific research being conducted, other team members’ availability, and your own strengths when it comes to the many phases that comprise a complete research study.In this job, you’ll be directly shaping the future of ecommerce, become a published usability research author, and should expect to join the ranks of the absolute top experts within ecommerce usability within a few years (if you aren’t already).We want to work with the smartest and most dedicated people and, therefore, the position is fully remote. All of Baymard's current research team is already working remotely, and the entire company is structured around remote work. In other words, you are welcome to work with us from locations such as UK, Ireland, EU, Canada, or US.For more information about Baymard as a company, see this “Key Work Values” section.Job QualificationsWhile we will train you in Baymard’s methodology and analysis process, we expect that you have the following qualifications. The numbers in brackets indicate the weighted importance of each on a 7-point scale (higher = more important). These weights reflect how candidates are evaluated, so make sure your application illustrates your prowess in the highest-weighted skills and traits.[7/7] Substantial experience with analyzing usability test data. We take qualitative test data in the form of test session videos as the basis for our analysis, so experience in this form of analysis is preferred. [7/7] Substantial experience with writing usability guidelines (or best practices, UX issues to avoid, etc.).[7/7] A sincere desire to collaborate effectively with colleagues (e.g., by taking in and thoughtfully responding to feedback and editorial direction, supporting other researchers in their own projects, etc.)[5/7] Broad experience with usability research (e.g., conducting think-aloud usability test sessions, analyzing data, writing findings).[5/7] Ability to propose web design recommendations for the usability issues we identify.We furthermore expect that you are comfortable working remotely via digital platforms. Additionally, as most of our team is either based in the eastern USA or western Europe, you must have at least 3–4 hours of daily scheduled work overlap with those timezones.Practical DetailsExperience level: at least 3–5 years of experience in UX research.Language: native English speaker.Salary: in accordance with qualifications and location.Location: remote, full-time position from UK, Ireland, EU, Canada, or US.Start date: as soon as possible.Travel: limited; expect only 0-1 week of optional travel each year (in connection with an optional, company-wide meetup).How to ApplyIf you’re interested in this position, please send the following:At least one long-form UX writing sample (1,000+ words), or a series of samples. While a writing sample on a UX topic is strongly preferred, we’ll also consider writing on other web-related topics (e.g., ecommerce, information architecture, documentation). Samples can be both published or unpublished works; all materials are kept confidential. (Note: slide decks and samples with multiple authors are not considered.) (Required)A cover letter (1 page; PDF) describing how you fit the role and qualifications. (Required)A resume (PDF) or a link to your LinkedIn profile. (Required)Send the above to [email protected].(All applications and materials are treated confidentially.)Deadline is May 11th, 2025 (end of day).Note: Based on the applications, a few selected candidates will be assigned a paid writing and analysis test, which will be the main evaluation criterion for the position. This will also be a good way for you to get a feel for the primary task of this job. (The test will be performed remotely. You’ll be given a real usability test dataset to analyze and describe within a 10-day deadline.)Also, consider reading our SaaS sales page and our “Key Work Values” section.Sincerely,Edward Scott, UX Research Lead at the Baymard InstituteReferral Bonus: If this job isn’t you, but you know someone who’ll be the perfect fit, please send them the link to this page. If we end up hiring the person you referred, we’ll give you a 1 year access to a Baymard ‘Comprehensive’ plan (normally $2,388/year).