We've already seen some stunning covers in 2025.

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An investigation into more than 300 cyberattacks against US K12 schools over the past five years shows how schools can withhold crucial details from students and parents whose data was stolen.

MacworldIs your Macs performance not as good as it once was? Wondering if there might be a problem with your software or if one of the components has failed? Or perhaps its your web connection thats bothering you, but you arent sure if its just that your broadband connection is really poor, or if theres something else going on with your Mac.We share plenty of advice on how to update your Mac, and speed up a slow Mac, but how do you tell if there is really a problem with your Mac rather than you just being inpatient with it? One way to get an idea of how well your Mac is working is to run benchmarks and a set of performance tests on your MacBook or Mac desktop.Several benchmarking apps will help you find out how fast your Mac is, you can test your GPU and your CPU as well as your Wi-Fi internet speed and even ethernet speed. In this article well run through the best Mac performance test apps, including some free options you can find online.If you are thinking of buying a new Mac, running benchmarks on your current machine and then comparing them to our benchmarks of the newer models weve reviewed will give you an idea of the kind of boost you can expect. (Check our Mac reviews section for the latest Mac benchmarks.)In this article, well recommend the variety of (usually free) apps we use to evaluate a Macs performance (and more specifically, the performance of its components) in a range of scenarios.Carry on reading to find out how to benchmark the CPU, GPU, hard drive, and more, of your Mac desktop or laptop.How to run Mac speed testsWant to find out how fast your Mac is (and confirm your belief that its been slowing down)? You can run various tests to find out your processor speed, which would give you an insight into how powerful your Mac is. We also recommend checking the speed of your SSDor hard drive, if you Mac is older.Before running any of the tests below, we recommend closing any apps on your Mac as they might affect how well the machine performs. Restarting to make sure that any RAM is freed up is also advisable.How to benchmark your Macs CPUTo check your processor speed we recommend Geekbench from Primate Labs. Geekbench is free to use and you can get it on the Mac App Store here. You can also download it from Primate Labs website here.Geekbench 6 (updated from Geekbench 5 in February 2023) is the most popular tool for gauging how powerful the latest processors are, and because it works for Macs and PCs, as well as iOS and Android you can get a good idea of how your processor compares to another. It is our go-to benchmark tool when reviewing the latest Macs, iPhones and iPads here at Macworld.Geekbenchs CPU test runs through various tests to stress the CPU and then calculates an overall scorethe higher the better. Tests include file compression, rendering web pages and PDFs, running developer scripts, and doing machine-learning tasks like object detection and background blur.Running these tests could be useful if you think something is wrong with your Mac; you can compare the score to similar Macs and processors. You can view recent Geekbench scores for various Mac processors here.FoundryHow to benchmark your CPU with GeekbenchThe main draw of Geekbench is that its incredibly easy to use and requires little technical knowledge. Heres how to use it: Download the app from the Mac App Store here or Primate Labs website here.We recommend that you restart your Mac before running the test. Close any other apps that are running on your Mac. Open Geekbench. Youll see a Welcome to Geekbench message and a request to Upgrade or Enter License. You dont need to do either of these things. Just click on Later. Click Run CPU benchmark.FoundryGeekbench will then measure the performance of your CPU when performing everyday tasks designed to simulate real-world applications and can take 10 minutes or more to complete, depending on the speed of your CPU.Once its done, the results will be displayed. You might initially be overwhelmed byall the information on offer, from the Processor ID to the Motherboard hardware, but the only two numbers you need to concentrate on are at the top: single-core score and multi-core score.The single-core score helps give a sense of how fast the Mac performs under certain situations when only a single processing core is handling everything. Many applications have their performance limited by a single main thread, so single-core CPU performance will determine how fast they run. Other applications are designed to be multi-threaded so that lots of processes can run at the same time. The multi-core results show you how well your Mac can perform when pushed to its absolute limits, as itll use multiple processing cores at once to handle the strain. Think of it as your Macs top-end performance.You can take these results and compare them to other benchmark tests on the Geekbench Browser, allowing you to see how your Mac compares to the latest generation of Macs, and even its competitors from other manufacturers. It should give you an idea of how well your computer is performing at the moment, and whether the upgrade youre considering is worth it in terms of raw processing power.FoundryHow to check your Macs disk speedOne way we used to check how fast the storage inside our Mac was used to be to copy and paste a 4GB folder and then time how long it took to duplicate. That is no longer an effective measure because, since Apple introduced APFS (Apple File System) the folder is no longer duplicated, all you are really doing is creating an alias to the original file.Therefore the only way to really make a judgment about the speed of the storage inside your Mac is to use a tool such as the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (free from the Mac App Store here), or the AJA System Test Lite (free from the Mac App Store here) to measure the read/write speeds of your hard drive or SSD.How to benchmark your SSD with Blackmagic Disk Speed TestThe free Blackmagic Disk Speed Test was designed for video editors to help determine whether their hard drives canhandle large files. If youre not a video editor, dont fret. the data is still very helpful to gauge performance.Download Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. We recommend that you restart your Mac before running the test. Open the app. For improved accuracy, and as with all other benchmark tests, its best to make sure that no other apps are running.Select your target drive if your Mac has more than one hard drive (this is done by clicking the gear cog) and click start to begin the benchmark.While theres a bunch of data showcased in the Will it Work? and How Fast? charts, thats mainly for video editors. The numbers you want to focus on are displayed in the big gauges at the top. The write speed is on the left and the read speed on the right, giving you an idea of how fast things will be written to the drive and how fast apps and files will load respectively.Blackmagic Disk Speed works by running a write test and the Write gauge will eventually stop with a result. Then, it will do the same with a Read test. Then, it starts the process over again with a test of a different file size and will continue to go back and forth between tests until you click the Stop button. You can record any results you see while the gauge is stopped. Youll find that the results between test iterations are similar.How to check GPU performance on MacFinally, lets talk about graphical performance. For this, we usually opt for two main benchmark tools: Geekbenchs Compute tests and Maxons Cinebench. How to use Cinebench to benchmark your Macs GPUCinebench 2024, which you can download here, is another free piece of software that, in addition to testing your Macs CPU (much like Geekbench without the ability to compare with other results online), will use an OpenGL and Metal test to benchmark your graphics card.Cinebench tests the CPU and/or GPU by creating a 3D engine with Maxons Redshift render engine. On M3 and later MAcs, Cinebench supports the GPU-accelerated Metal RT hardware ray tracing.After the tests have run youll see the frames per second (fps) result and a score, with the higher the result the better. Youll see some of the best results following the test, but Maxon doesnt have an easy-to-search database for different models like Geekbench does.MaxonTo perform the test, install the app (Its called Cinebench R24), open it, and click Start next to the GPU test in the top-left corner of the app. Itll take you through the test, and your final result will be displayed next to the Start button. A test can take 10 minutes or longer.How to use Geekbench to benchmark your Macs GPUGeekbench doesnt measure 3D graphics rendering performance like the Cinebench test above. Instead, it uses the GPU to handle computational tasks like edge detection on images, applying a gaussian blur to a 24-megapixel photo, or detecting faces in photos. That is how it measures GPU Compute tasks. For that reason we would suggest that if you want to measure 3D graphics performance you are better off using Cinebench (above). Geeknech Compute is a good general-purpose GPU benchmark.To measure the GPU using Geekbench download the app from the Mac App Store here or Primate Labs website here.We recommend that you restart your Mac before running the test. Close any other apps that are running on your Mac. Open Geekbench. Youll see a Welcome to Geekbench message and a request to Upgrade or Enter License. You dont need to do either of these things. Just click on Later. Click on Compute in the sidebar on the left.Choose between OpenCL or Metal in the GPU API section. On a Mac, Metal is the most important score; on iPhones and iPads, the only supported API is Metal. Click Run GPU Benchmark.Having benchmarked your Mac you will have a better idea of whether it is performing as well as should be expected, or if there might be something wrong. Our first suggestion would be to update your software, but if your Mac is just suffering from old age and you decide to look for a new Mac, take a look at our Mac buying guide and be sure to check out the best prices for a new Mac in our various Mac deals round ups:Best Mac mini deals this monthBest MacBook Air deals this monthBest Mac Studio deals available nowBest MacBook Pro deals this monthBest iMac deals this month

The Nintendo Switch has hit a new lifetime sales total with 150.86 million units sold. The company revealed in its latest financial earnings report for Q3 fiscal year 2025 that it sold 4.82 million Switch consoles.In those three months, it sold 53.7 million units of software. For the nine months ending on December 31st, 2024, hardware sales declined by 30.6 percent year on year, hitting 9.54 million. Meanwhile, software sales were down by 24.4 percent year-on-year and reached 123.98 million.The decline is attributed to the outstanding performance of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, both released in 2023. Nintendo hasnt had as many big hits in 2024 comparatively, though it noted sales to be steady for a console thats eight years old.Of course, its the calm before the storm, especially with the Nintendo Switch 2 announced. Its out this year with a Direct scheduled for April. Nintendo will also provide fans in select cities with the chance to go hands-on. Head here for more details.

Being a learn-it-all will get you way further than being a know-it-allPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- We forgot to mention this last Friday, but the Medium Newsletter is officially 1 year old, meaning it can sit up without help and understand the word noIssue #260: journalisms chilling effect + why you should write actual lettersBy Harris SockelSomehow, weve been sending this newsletter every weekday for a whole dang year! If youve been here since the jump or discovered us any time over the last year thank you.To celebrate, I want to revisit one of my favorite issues. It touches on the theme of simply keeping something going for a while through success, failure, bad days, and good days. It centers on a story by former Microsoft engineer Dare Obasanjo, who remembers life inside the company after Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014. Nadella had risen through the ranks for 22 years after beginning as a humble engineer in 1992. By the time he assumed the CEO mantle, Microsoft was dead or at least thats what Y Combinator founder Paul Graham was saying. In 2007, Graham argued that the rise of Googles web apps (Gmail, mostly) and Apple had turned Windows into an obsolete tool for grandmas.Microsofts biggest weakness, Graham wrote, is that they still dont realize how much they suck. In other words, they were complacent and Graham wasnt wrong about this. Obasanjo remembers: Despite failure after failure, many people acted like we were the best thing since sliced bread because we had Windows & Office, two of the most successful software products ever built.One lesson: Overcoming success is sometimes harder than coming back after failure. Finding the will to make mistakes, to be weird, to learn something from scratch even if you might be terrible at it thats hard if youve just built a legendary product like Windows! Nadella fought complacency by taping mantras about growth mindset to whiteboards in every conference room (learn from criticism!). He sponsored the largest private hackathon on the planet to help everyone think like entrepreneurs again. Arguably, it worked. Microsoft finally developed cloud-based software like Azure, and its valuation now rivals Apples. A few strategic investments (GitHub, LinkedIn, and, most notably, OpenAI) made the company newly relevant.Turnaround CEO Philippe Collard (hes turned around 3 companies in 10 years!) builds on this idea in a more recent Medium story. He writes that a leaders primary job is to help people face reality with equal parts humility and optimism, which is key after a big win. Obasanjos primary takeaway from living through that era at Microsoft is, I think, applicable to both life and work: being a learn-it-all will get you way further than being a know-it-all. Also todayMusic critic Mariel Ferragamo on Cowboy Carters revolutionary legacy: Pop culture has largely treated country and hip-hop as if theyre magnets that repel each other. Not anymore.I love this essay by (almost) 70-year-old burlesque performer Tris Harkness its basically an ode to being yourself. In journalism, theres something called the chilling effect, she writes, which occurs when people censor their own writing even before theyve been told to in order to stay out of trouble. And a chilling effect happens in life, too.S. Bear Bergman one of the five founders of the first gay/straight alliances lists all the very tangible things you can do right now to support your trans and nonbinary friends, the most important being not to succumb to panic yourself, and to be thoughtful with the links you share. Instead of sharing news stories that provoke anger or resentment (even as a way to show you care), send us nice trans articles: awards, accomplishments, book reviews, whatever you see thats NOT the news. Your daily dose of practical wisdomA handwritten letter to someone you care about, Rachel Syme believes, is probably one of the most closely read documents youll ever compose in your lifetime. (The Molehill)

On This Day in HistoryThe Wartime Organization That Brought Hollywood Stars Like Marilyn Monroe and Nancy Sinatra to the Front Lines to Entertain the TroopsEstablished on this day in 1941, the United Service Organizations offers wholesome entertainment options to off-duty service members Marilyn Monroe performs in front of service members in Korea in 1954. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsToward the end of World War I, American military leaders realized that they had a morale problem.Flooded with reports that troops were filling any free time they had with excessive alcohol consumption and sexual escapades that resulted in sexually transmitted infections, Army commanders expressed concerns about their soldiers fitness for battle. Private organizations like the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross stepped up to provide support, offering wholesome entertainment options to keep off-duty soldiers busy and maintain morale.Nearly two decades later, with the United States on the brink of entering World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested that these private organizations form a more permanent answer to the militarys needs. Incorporated in New York on February 4, 1941, the United Service Organizations (USO) centralized morale efforts by the Young Mens Christian Association, the Young Womens Christian Association, the National Catholic Community Service, the National Jewish Welfare Board, the National Travelers Aid Association and the Salvation Army.Why USO Tours Were Vital for Troop Morale in the PacificWatch on The USO created recreational centers for troops to come together and relax. These centers served coffee and doughnuts, brought thoroughly vetted young women in to socialize with service members, and hosted activities like letter-writing.At the heart of the USO was the idea that entertainment, all phases of itradio, pictures and liveshould be treated as essential, Billboard magazine reported in 1943. In addition to screening movies, the USO decided to bring Hollywood to the front lines, coordinating tours by some of the countrys most popular performers. The Army flew comedians, musicians and dancers in from the U.S. to perform for troops around the world, starting just months after the USO was incorporated.Comedian Bob Hope kicked off 50 years of touring with the USO in May 1941, while movie star Edward G. Robinson traveled to France to meet with troops in 1944. In between these shows, troops stationed in the Caribbean enjoyed performances by singer Jane Pickens, dancer Ray Bolger, and comedians Laurel and Hardy. Bob Hope (center, in suit) sits with American service members in Korea in 1950. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsTours continued after World War II. One of the USOs most iconic acts saw Marilyn Monroe travel to Korea in 1954. She performed for roughly 100,000 service members over just four days. During the Vietnam War, Nancy Sinatra sang in front of troops and visited injured service members.The USO remains active today, living out the same ideals. The organizations centers on the front lines provide refreshments and internet access to troops, and its staff send holiday care packages to those stationed far from family and friends. The USO also hosts virtual and on-site performances. From the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders to Katy Perry to Stephen Colbert, celebrities are still volunteering to boost troops morale.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Nintendo announced its financial results for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, with hardware sales of the Switch hitting 4.82 million units.Read More

Fireshine Games appoints Brian Foote as CEOFoote has over two decades of experience in the industry, including roles at Microsoft, PlayStation, and Team17Image credit: Fireshine Games News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Feb. 4, 2025 Fireshine Games has announced the appointment of Brian Foote as CEO.Foote joined Fireshine in 2024 as chief business development officer. He will be taking over the role of CEO from founder James Cato following his retirement.Foote has over two decades of industry experience, having worked in retail and publishing sectors. He previously held roles at Amazon, Team17, and Microsoft, in addition to senior experience on PlayStation's global third-party team."Fireshine Games has achieved rapid growth in its digital business over recent years and 2024 brough major success with the releases of Core Keeper and Shadows of Doubt," said Foote."We have built a strong publishing team, coupled with a solid business foundation which has enabled us to weather the challenging industry backdrop. We have a fantastic release schedule for 2025 and beyond which we look forward to sharing with players."At the same time, we will continue to provide full publishing and co-publishing services to new and existing partners."Fireshine was established in 2014, having been rebranded from Sold Out Games. It has lent its co-publishing services to Neowiz (Lies of P), Playstack (Balatro), and Rebellion (Sniper Elite: Resistance).

This article contains spoilers for Paradise episodes 1-3.Three episodes into Paradise its quickly becoming clear that nothings as it seems in this political thriller about secret service agents and the country they guard. Hulus current number one television series stars Sterling K. Brown (This is Us) as an agent assigned to safeguard a president and Ill be honest when I first watched the trailer with my husband, I wasnt sure about Paradise at all.This looks like a fake show, I said to him as we lay in bed looking for something to watch. At first glance, Paradise seems a bit cheesy and pretty similar to other movies and shows in which a bunch of suits guard a man in charge while political scandal brews. Still, what draws viewers in is the twist that occurs in the last few minutes of the first episode. What got our attention before that, however, were the literary and musical Easter eggs that helped further the plot. Here are some major moments of pop culture greatness that fit into the story of Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), and might explain that big twist.James and the Giant PeachIf you read James and the Giant Peach as a kid, its time to put on your thinking cap. In the 1961 Roald Dahl novel, a young orphan boy named James moves in with two abusive aunts after the traumatic death of both his parents. When a giant peach grows in James yard, he finds a hole in the fruit and ends up living inside it with a group of magical garden insects. After many adventures, the peach ends up in New York City and James gets a job, makes friends, and finds a home in Central Park, free of the trauma of his past.The book makes an appearance early on in episode 1 of Paradise. Xaviers son, James (Percy Daggs IV), is reading a copy of it as hes getting ready for school and seeing it causes an emotional reaction from Xavier. Later, we learn that Xavier guards Cal Bradford (James Marsden), the President of the United States, who Xavier finds murdered early in the episode. In a later flashback, Xavier delivers a monologue about how, when his wife was pregnant with their son, she read James and the Giant Peach, leading to her choice to name their son after the book. Through this speech, we learn Xaviers wife has died and he blames Cal for her death.Then comes the real twist. In Paradise, the United States we think weve been watching no longer exists. Years before, 25,000 humans were taken to an underground dome-shaped structure by the U.S. government when a catastrophe wiped out all of humanity. The dome, located beneath a mountain range, simulates everything about a real town, from sunsets to insect chirping noises, and the survivors have established a new society there. Cal was the former president of the above-ground United States, and acts as president of this town-turned-shelter as well.Is Xavier James? Is this underground town where so many took refuge after a major trauma the metaphorical giant peach? And what will become of Xavier as he attempts to solve Cals murder the first murder thats taken place since the 25,000 went into the dome? Theres a good chance the plot of James and the Giant Peach is foreshadowing Xaviers future, and the literary reference only adds to the uniqueness of Paradises twist and makes us wonder if some part of the U.S. as he knew it may be waiting above ground for Xavier.And its not just Xavier who fits into the James and the Giant Peach theory. Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), the therapist we learn helped choose the 25,000 and arrange the details of day-to-day life under the dome, is a lot like Miss Spider, the James character who nurtured and cared for the crew inside the peach, right down to spinning them each a bed. But is Gabriela as innocent as she seems? Its too early in the Paradise story to tell.Lots of characters in the show appear as villainous as James aunts, Sponge and Spiker: Our eyes are currently on Billy Page (John Beavers), who Gabriela just warned Xavier to watch out for at the end of episode 3. And were sure that someone will emerge as the bad guy in town, whether its one of Xaviers colleagues, members of the newly-erected government, or someone who hasnt been introduced yet, which gives major Cloud-Men vibes. Cloud-Men appear as the antagonists in James and the Giant Peach, and when theyre upset, they cause all sorts of stormy weather.We Built This City: The Revealing Music of ParadiseIn all three episodes, theres been a song that plays mid-episode as sung by the original artist, followed by an edgier, hauntingly beautiful remake of the song during the last few minutes. In episode 1, Phil Collins Another Day in Paradise plays as James and Cal discuss his wifes death during a flashback. At the end of the episode, the twist of the underground bunker is revealed as a very different version of the song by Cat vs Cat and Joyner plays to close out the episode. Its a poetic song for the start of the series as were learning so much about the paradise these characters have escaped to.Episode two brings more details about the town itself and Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson), the worlds richest self-made woman who helped create the safe space. As deception and political scandal run rampant during the episode, we hear both the Starship version of We Built This City and a dreamlike version by Aron Wright and Jill Andrews. Its an appropriate tune for an episode that gives so much backstory into how the town was built, and the haunting rendition at the end really makes you think about whether or not building this city was the right thing to do.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!In the third episode of Paradise, we get some steamy romance scenes and lots more drama and intrigue, all set to Tiffanys I Think Were Alone Now and a decidedly gothic version of the tune by Hidden Citizens. With so many secrets in this seemingly-perfect town, its no wonder you have to be careful who you trust and make sure youre really alone when you share information.As we move forward through the remaining five episodes of Paradise, keep an ear out for songs that may offer clues and tell parts of the story. Its too soon to tell, but maybe well get some answers with songs like R.E.M.s Its the End of the World as We Know It or Imagine Dragons Radioactive.Paradise episode 4 premieres Tuesday, February 4 on Hulu. New episodes premiere Tuesdays, culminating with the finale on March 4.