Game Pass – will it continue forever? (Microsoft) The Monday letters page struggles to predict what’s going to happen with the PlayStation 6, as one reader sees their opinion of the Switch 2 change over time. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk Final Pass I agree with a lot of what was said about the current state of Xbox in the Reader’s Feature this weekend and how the more Microsoft spends, and the more companies they own, the less the seem to be in control. Which is very strange really.The biggest recent failure has got to be Game Pass, which has not had the impact they expected and yet they don’t seem ready to acknowledge that. If they’re thinking of increasing the price again, like those rumours say, then I think that will be the point at which you can draw a line under the whole idea and admit it’s never going to catch on. But would Microsoft ever shut down Game Pass completely? I feel that would almost be more humiliating than stopping making consoles, so I can’t really imagine it. Instead, they’ll make it more and more expensive and put more and more restrictions on day one games until it’s no longer recognisable.Grackle Panic button Strange to see Sony talking relatively openly about Nintendo and Microsoft as competition. I can’t remember the last time they mentioned either of them, even if they obviously would prefer not to have, if they hadn’t been asked by investors.At no point did they acknowledge that the Switch has completely outsold both their last two consoles, so I’m not sure where their confidence comes from. I guess it’s from the fact that they know they’ve done nothing this gen and still come out on top, so from their perspective they’ve got plenty in reserve. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Having your panic button being ‘do anything at all’ must be pretty reassuring really. Nintendo has had to work to get where they are with the Switch but Sony is just coasting it.Lupus James’ LadderJacob’s Ladder is a film I’ve been meaning to watch for a while, and I guessed the ending quite early on, but it feels like a Silent Hill film. I don’t know if you guys have seen it but it’s an excellent film and the hospital scene near the end, and the cages blocking off the underground early on, just remind me of the game. A depressing film overall but worth a watch.Simon GC: Jacob’s Ladder was as a major influence on Silent Hill 2 in particular, even the jacket James is wearing is the same. Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk Seeing the future I know everyone likes to think of themselves as Nostradamus, but I have to admit I have absolutely no clue what Sony is planning for the PlayStation 6. A new console that is just the usual update, that sits under your TV, is easy enough to imagine but surely they’re not going to do that again?But the idea of having new home and portable machines that come out at the same time seems so unlikely to me. Surely the portable wouldn’t be a separate format, but I can’t see it being any kind of portable that runs its own games because it’d never be as powerful as the home machine. So, it’s really just a PlayStation Portal 2? Like I said, I don’t know, but for some reason I have a bad feeling about that the next gen and whatever Sony does end up unveiling. I suspect that whatever they and Microsoft does it’s going to end up making the Switch 2 (and PC) seem even more appealing by comparison.Gonch Hidden insight I’m not going to say that Welcome Tour is a good game but what I will say is that I found it very interesting at times and I’m actually kind of surprised that Nintendo revealed some of the information that they did. Most of it could probably be found out by reverse engineering it and just taking it apart but I’m still surprised it went into as much detail as it did.You’re right that it’s all presented in a very dull way but personally I found the ‘Insights’ to be the best part of the game. The minigames really are not very good and I was always glad when they were over. So, while I would not necessarily recommend the game (it’s not really a game) I would say that it can be of interest to people who have an interest in how consoles work and how Nintendo think.Mogwai Purchase privilege I’ve recently had the privilege of buying Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from the website CDKeys, using a 10% discount code. I was lucky enough to only spend a total of £25.99; much cheaper than purchasing the title for console. If only Ubisoft had the foresight to see what they allowed to slip through their fingers. I’d also like to mention that from what I’ve read quite recently ,and a couple of mixed views, I don’t see myself cancelling my Switch 2. On the contrary, it just is coming across as a disappointment.From the battery life to the lack of launch titles, an empty open world is never a smart choice to make not even Mario is safe from that. That leaves the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally that’s recently been showcased and is set for an October launch. I won’t lie it does look in the same vein as the Switch 2, far too similar to the ROG Ally X model. Just with grips and a dedicated Xbox button. The Z2 Extreme chip has me intrigued, however. How much of a transcendental shift it makes is another question however. I’ll have to wait to receive official confirmation for a price and release date. But there’s also a Lenovo Legion Go 2 waiting in the wings. I hope we hear more information soon. Preferably before my 28th in August.Shahzaib Sadiq Tip of the iceberg Interesting to hear about Cyberpunk 2077 running well on the Switch 2. I think if they’re getting that kind of performance at launch, from a third party not use to working with Nintendo hardware, that bodes very well for the future.I think we’re probably underestimating the Switch 2 a lot at the moment and stuff we’ll be seeing in two or three years is going to be amazing, I predict. What I can’t predict is when we’ll hear about any of this. I really hope there’s a Nintendo Direct this week.Dano Changing opinions So just a little over a week with the Switch 2 and after initially feeling incredibly meh about the new console and Mario Kart a little more playtime has been more optimistic about the console and much more positive about Mario Kart World.It did feel odd having a new console from Nintendo that didn’t inspire that childlike excitement. An iterative upgrade isn’t very exciting and as I own a Steam Deck the advancements in processing weren’t all that exciting either. I can imagine someone who only bough an OG Switch back in 2017 really noticing the improvements but if you bought an OLED it’s basically a Switch Pro (minus the OLED). The criminally low level of software support doesn’t help. I double dipped Street Fighter 6 only to discover I can’t transfer progress or DLC across from my Xbox, which sort of means if I want both profiles to have parity I have to buy everything twice! I also treated myself to a new Pro Controller and find using it for Street Fighter almost unplayable as the L and ZL buttons are far too easy to accidently press when playing. Mario Kart initially felt like more of the same and it was only after I made an effort to explore the world map, unlock characters and karts, and try the new grinding/ollie mechanic that it clicked. I am now really enjoying it, especially the remixed soundtracks. I do however want more Switch 2 exclusive experiences – going back through my back catalogue for improved frame rates doesn’t cut it Nintendo! As someone with a large digital library the system transfer was very frustrating and the new virtual cartridges are just awful – does a Switch 2 need to be online all the time now? Not the best idea for a portable system. So, the start of a new console lifecycle and hopefully lots of new IP – I suspect Nintendo will try and get us to revisit our back catalogues first though.BristolPete Inbox also-rans Just thought I would mention that if anyone’s interested in purchasing the Mortal Kombat 1 Definitive Edition, which includes all DLC, that it’s currently an absolute steal on the Xbox store at £21.99.Nick The GreekI’ve just won my first Knockout Tour online race on Mario Kart World! I’ve got to say, the feeling is magnificent.Rable More Trending Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk The small printNew Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content. You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot. You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter. Arrow MORE: Games Inbox: Is Mario Kart World too hard? GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

You’ve drawn fifty versions of the same screen — and you still hate every one of them. Begrudgingly, you pick three, show them to your product manager, and hear: “Looks cool, but the idea doesn’t work.” Sound familiar? In this article, I’ll unpack why designers fall into detail work at the wrong moment, examining both process pitfalls and the underlying psychological reasons, as understanding these traps is the first step to overcoming them. I’ll also share tactics I use to climb out of that trap. Reason #1 You’re Afraid To Show Rough Work We designers worship detail. We’re taught that true craft equals razor‑sharp typography, perfect grids, and pixel precision. So the minute a task arrives, we pop open Figma and start polishing long before polish is needed. I’ve skipped the sketch phase more times than I care to admit. I told myself it would be faster, yet I always ended up spending hours producing a tidy mock‑up when a scribbled thumbnail would have sparked a five‑minute chat with my product manager. Rough sketches felt “unprofessional,” so I hid them. The cost? Lost time, wasted energy — and, by the third redo, teammates were quietly wondering if I even understood the brief. The real problem here is the habit: we open Figma and start perfecting the UI before we’ve even solved the problem. So why do we hide these rough sketches? It’s not just a bad habit or plain silly. There are solid psychological reasons behind it. We often just call it perfectionism, but it’s deeper than wanting things neat. Digging into the psychology (like the research by Hewitt and Flett) shows there are a couple of flavors driving this: Socially prescribed perfectionismIt’s that nagging feeling that everyone else expects perfect work from you, which makes showing anything rough feel like walking into the lion’s den. Self-oriented perfectionismWhere you’re the one setting impossibly high standards for yourself, leading to brutal self-criticism if anything looks slightly off. Either way, the result’s the same: showing unfinished work feels wrong, and you miss out on that vital early feedback. Back to the design side, remember that clients rarely see architects’ first pencil sketches, but these sketches still exist; they guide structural choices before the 3D render. Treat your thumbnails the same way — artifacts meant to collapse uncertainty, not portfolio pieces. Once stakeholders see the upside, roughness becomes a badge of speed, not sloppiness. So, the key is to consciously make that shift: Treat early sketches as disposable tools for thinking and actively share them to get feedback faster. Reason #2: You Fix The Symptom, Not The Cause Before tackling any task, we need to understand what business outcome we’re aiming for. Product managers might come to us asking to enlarge the payment button in the shopping cart because users aren’t noticing it. The suggested solution itself isn’t necessarily bad, but before redesigning the button, we should ask, “What data suggests they aren’t noticing it?” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t trust your product manager. On the contrary, these questions help ensure you’re on the same page and working with the same data. From my experience, here are several reasons why users might not be clicking that coveted button: Users don’t understand that this step is for payment. They understand it’s about payment but expect order confirmation first. Due to incorrect translation, users don’t understand what the button means. Lack of trust signals (no security icons, unclear seller information). Unexpected additional costs (hidden fees, shipping) that appear at this stage. Technical issues (inactive button, page freezing). Now, imagine you simply did what the manager suggested. Would you have solved the problem? Hardly. Moreover, the responsibility for the unresolved issue would fall on you, as the interface solution lies within the design domain. The product manager actually did their job correctly by identifying a problem: suspiciously, few users are clicking the button. Psychologically, taking on this bigger role isn’t easy. It means overcoming the fear of making mistakes and the discomfort of exploring unclear problems rather than just doing tasks. This shift means seeing ourselves as partners who create value — even if it means fighting a hesitation to question product managers (which might come from a fear of speaking up or a desire to avoid challenging authority) — and understanding that using our product logic expertise proactively is crucial for modern designers. There’s another critical reason why we, designers, need to be a bit like product managers: the rise of AI. I deliberately used a simple example about enlarging a button, but I’m confident that in the near future, AI will easily handle routine design tasks. This worries me, but at the same time, I’m already gladly stepping into the product manager’s territory: understanding product and business metrics, formulating hypotheses, conducting research, and so on. It might sound like I’m taking work away from PMs, but believe me, they undoubtedly have enough on their plates and are usually more than happy to delegate some responsibilities to designers. Reason #3: You’re Solving The Wrong Problem Before solving anything, ask whether the problem even deserves your attention. During a major home‑screen redesign, our goal was to drive more users into paid services. The initial hypothesis — making service buttons bigger and brighter might help returning users — seemed reasonable enough to test. However, even when A/B tests (a method of comparing two versions of a design to determine which performs better) showed minimal impact, we continued to tweak those buttons. Only later did it click: the home screen isn’t the place to sell; visitors open the app to start, not to buy. We removed that promo block, and nothing broke. Contextual entry points deeper into the journey performed brilliantly. Lesson learned: Without the right context, any visual tweak is lipstick on a pig. Why did we get stuck polishing buttons instead of stopping sooner? It’s easy to get tunnel vision. Psychologically, it’s likely the good old sunk cost fallacy kicking in: we’d already invested time in the buttons, so stopping felt like wasting that effort, even though the data wasn’t promising. It’s just easier to keep fiddling with something familiar than to admit we need a new plan. Perhaps the simple question I should have asked myself when results stalled was: “Are we optimizing the right thing or just polishing something that fundamentally doesn’t fit the user’s primary goal here?” That alone might have saved hours. Reason #4: You’re Drowning In Unactionable Feedback We all discuss our work with colleagues. But here’s a crucial point: what kind of question do you pose to kick off that discussion? If your go-to is “What do you think?” well, that question might lead you down a rabbit hole of personal opinions rather than actionable insights. While experienced colleagues will cut through the noise, others, unsure what to evaluate, might comment on anything and everything — fonts, button colors, even when you desperately need to discuss a user flow. What matters here are two things: The question you ask, The context you give. That means clearly stating the problem, what you’ve learned, and how your idea aims to fix it. For instance: “The problem is our payment conversion rate has dropped by X%. I’ve interviewed users and found they abandon payment because they don’t understand how the total amount is calculated. My solution is to show a detailed cost breakdown. Do you think this actually solves the problem for them?” Here, you’ve stated the problem (conversion drop), shared your insight (user confusion), explained your solution (cost breakdown), and asked a direct question. It’s even better if you prepare a list of specific sub-questions. For instance: “Are all items in the cost breakdown clear?” or “Does the placement of this breakdown feel intuitive within the payment flow?” Another good habit is to keep your rough sketches and previous iterations handy. Some of your colleagues’ suggestions might be things you’ve already tried. It’s great if you can discuss them immediately to either revisit those ideas or definitively set them aside. I’m not a psychologist, but experience tells me that, psychologically, the reluctance to be this specific often stems from a fear of our solution being rejected. We tend to internalize feedback: a seemingly innocent comment like, “Have you considered other ways to organize this section?” or “Perhaps explore a different structure for this part?” can instantly morph in our minds into “You completely messed up the structure. You’re a bad designer.” Imposter syndrome, in all its glory. So, to wrap up this point, here are two recommendations: Prepare for every design discussion.A couple of focused questions will yield far more valuable input than a vague “So, what do you think?”. Actively work on separating feedback on your design from your self-worth.If a mistake is pointed out, acknowledge it, learn from it, and you’ll be less likely to repeat it. This is often easier said than done. For me, it took years of working with a psychotherapist. If you struggle with this, I sincerely wish you strength in overcoming it. Reason #5 You’re Just Tired Sometimes, the issue isn’t strategic at all — it’s fatigue. Fussing over icon corners can feel like a cozy bunker when your brain is fried. There’s a name for this: decision fatigue. Basically, your brain’s battery for hard thinking is low, so it hides out in the easy, comfy zone of pixel-pushing. A striking example comes from a New York Times article titled “Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?.” It described how judges deciding on release requests were far more likely to grant release early in the day (about 70% of cases) compared to late in the day (less than 10%) simply because their decision-making energy was depleted. Luckily, designers rarely hold someone’s freedom in their hands, but the example dramatically shows how fatigue can impact our judgment and productivity. What helps here: Swap tasks.Trade tickets with another designer; novelty resets your focus. Talk to another designer.If NDA permits, ask peers outside the team for a sanity check. Step away.Even a ten‑minute walk can do more than a double‑shot espresso. By the way, I came up with these ideas while walking around my office. I was lucky to work near a river, and those short walks quickly turned into a helpful habit. And one more trick that helps me snap out of detail mode early: if I catch myself making around 20 little tweaks — changing font weight, color, border radius — I just stop. Over time, it turned into a habit. I have a similar one with Instagram: by the third reel, my brain quietly asks, “Wait, weren’t we working?” Funny how that kind of nudge saves a ton of time. Four Steps I Use to Avoid Drowning In Detail Knowing these potential traps, here’s the practical process I use to stay on track: 1. Define the Core Problem & Business Goal Before anything, dig deep: what’s the actual problem we’re solving, not just the requested task or a surface-level symptom? Ask ‘why’ repeatedly. What user pain or business need are we addressing? Then, state the clear business goal: “What metric am I moving, and do we have data to prove this is the right lever?” If retention is the goal, decide whether push reminders, gamification, or personalised content is the best route. The wrong lever, or tackling a symptom instead of the cause, dooms everything downstream. 2. Choose the Mechanic (Solution Principle) Once the core problem and goal are clear, lock the solution principle or ‘mechanic’ first. Going with a game layer? Decide if it’s leaderboards, streaks, or badges. Write it down. Then move on. No UI yet. This keeps the focus high-level before diving into pixels. 3. Wireframe the Flow & Get Focused Feedback Now open Figma. Map screens, layout, and transitions. Boxes and arrows are enough. Keep the fidelity low so the discussion stays on the flow, not colour. Crucially, when you share these early wires, ask specific questions and provide clear context (as discussed in ‘Reason #4’) to get actionable feedback, not just vague opinions. 4. Polish the Visuals (Mindfully) I only let myself tweak grids, type scales, and shadows after the flow is validated. If progress stalls, or before a major polish effort, I surface the work in a design critique — again using targeted questions and clear context — instead of hiding in version 47. This ensures detailing serves the now-validated solution. Even for something as small as a single button, running these four checkpoints takes about ten minutes and saves hours of decorative dithering. Wrapping Up Next time you feel the pull to vanish into mock‑ups before the problem is nailed down, pause and ask what you might be avoiding. Yes, that can expose an uncomfortable truth. But pausing to ask what you might be avoiding — maybe the fuzzy core problem, or just asking for tough feedback — gives you the power to face the real issue head-on. It keeps the project focused on solving the right problem, not just perfecting a flawed solution. Attention to detail is a superpower when used at the right moment. Obsessing over pixels too soon, though, is a bad habit and a warning light telling us the process needs a rethink.

Home Is the Newly Revealed Xbox Handheld a Switch 2 Killer? News Is the Newly Revealed Xbox Handheld a Switch 2 Killer? 6 min read Published: June 14, 2025 Key Takeaways Xbox has announced two new handheld gaming devices in partnership with Asus: the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. They’re expected to compete with Nintendo’s Switch 2, which has sold 3.5M units in just 4 days of its launch. Xbox aims to bring a wide range of game titles to portable handheld devices in order to cater to the gaming PC market. Xbox has entered the handheld gaming market with two new launches: the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X in partnership with ASUS. Interestingly, Nintendo released its Switch 2 just last week. The public has received it with much enthusiasm, seeing as it’s already sold around 3.5M units in the first four days of its release. Needless to say, Xbox and Nintendo will be direct competitors in the handheld segment now. We looked at the spec sheets and customer reviews, and both handheld gaming devices seem to have different target audiences. Let’s unpack them in detail. Memory and Storage The ROG Xbox Ally comes in standard white color and features the AMD Ryzen Z2 A Processor with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage, with a 60Wh battery. The Ally X, on the other hand, comes in striking black with the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme Processor, 24 GB of memory, and 1 TB of storage, and a 80Wh battery. Source: Rog Ally Life Right off the bat, we believe that Microsoft has done a good job with the storage and processors. In comparison, the Nintendo Switch 2 has 12GB of memory with just 256GB of internal storage. On paper, the Xbox series looks to have an advantage over the Switch 2, which uses a custom NVIDIA T239 chipset for raw power. Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super-Sampling), however, gives Switch 2 an advantage over Xbox’s AMD Ryzen processors. DLSS can render games at lower resolutions and, therefore, achieve higher in-use frame rates, which boosts its overall performance. Simply put, despite the gap in on-paper specifications, the Switch 2 may render comparable performance to the Xbox Ally. Take this with a pinch of salt, though, because we’ll only be able to confirm this once we get our hands on the new Xbox handhelds. Display Both the Xbox handhelds feature a 7-inch Full HD (FHD) screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate. In comparison, the Switch 2 screen is bigger, with a 7.9-inch display, also rendering at 120 Hz. However, Switch 2 also features HDR10, giving it a significant edge over Xbox Ally. HDR10 ensures a much wider range of brightness levels and a broader spectrum of colors, so the display looks more vibrant and lifelike. Plus, you’ll see more detailed blacks and whites on the screen with better realism and depth, enhancing your overall gaming experience. The Switch 2 also features VRR technology, which prevents screen tearing and reduces stutter. Notably, the Xbox Ally range has its own version of the VRR, FreeSync Premium. So, truth be told, you might not experience much of a difference in that area. However, HDR10 can definitely prove to be a winner for Switch 2. Product Market Fit While both the Switch 2 and new Xbox handhelds are apparently the same genre of products, Microsoft and Nintendo seem to have different target markets in their minds. Microsoft is focusing more on the Windows handheld market, targeting players who want an on-the-go PC gaming experience. With access to Game Pass and titles from Steam and Epic Games, the Xbox Ally offers a more comprehensive library of games. Nintendo, on the other hand, looks to build on the legacy of the OG Nintendo Switch, which has sold 152M units since its launch in 2017. It aims to tap in on the Nintendo fan base with original titles such as Mario and an improved gaming experience. Also, Xbox is in direct competition with Valve’s Steam Deck. Both are essentially handheld PCs with wide access to PC-compatible aggregated game libraries on the go. Xbox is also introducing the ‘Xbox Experience for Handheld’ feature for its new Ally range, which will make Windows 11 more compatible and optimized for its handheld device – something similar to Valve’s SteamOS on the Steam Deck. Xbox Exploring a New Market Segment The global mobile and handheld gaming market is expected to expand at a rate of 13.8% CAGR till 2034. It may reach a market value of $35.189B.  Valve’s Steam Deck managed to sell around 3.7M units by the end of 2024. On the other hand, Windows-based devices like the ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw have sold ~5.9M units so far as per early 2025 reports. This shows there’s certainly demand for Windows-based handheld gaming devices.  Plus, Xbox’s partnership with ASUS could bring along a brand-value advantage for the product. With a seamless Windows 11 experience on an on-the-go device, these sales figures are expected to swell once the Xbox Ally hits the shelves. However, pricing will be a key determinant. The Switch 2 currently sells at $449.99 – or $499.99 with the Mario Kart bundle. The Steam Deck starts at $399.00 and goes up to $649. This means that the price range according to the current market demand is around $400-$600. Anything more than that may result in market adoption issues. The original ASUS ROG Ally is currently priced at $499. There’s little doubt, however, that Xbox would add a premium to this price. So, we’re expecting the price of the ROG Xbox Ally to be around $600, while the ROG Xbox Ally X may cost more than $700. This means that Xbox will be participating in the premium handheld gaming sector, which is something Nintendo and Steam do not cater to. Let’s wait for confirmation regarding the pricing and the launch date. Remember, this was only a feature comparison of the two products, and we’re yet to test them out for a detailed hands-on gaming experience comparison. Stick around for that. Krishi is a seasoned tech journalist with over four years of experience writing about PC hardware, consumer technology, and artificial intelligence.  Clarity and accessibility are at the core of Krishi’s writing style. He believes technology writing should empower readers—not confuse them—and he’s committed to ensuring his content is always easy to understand without sacrificing accuracy or depth. Over the years, Krishi has contributed to some of the most reputable names in the industry, including Techopedia, TechRadar, and Tom’s Guide. A man of many talents, Krishi has also proven his mettle as a crypto writer, tackling complex topics with both ease and zeal. His work spans various formats—from in-depth explainers and news coverage to feature pieces and buying guides.  Behind the scenes, Krishi operates from a dual-monitor setup (including a 29-inch LG UltraWide) that’s always buzzing with news feeds, technical documentation, and research notes, as well as the occasional gaming sessions that keep him fresh.  Krishi thrives on staying current, always ready to dive into the latest announcements, industry shifts, and their far-reaching impacts.  When he's not deep into research on the latest PC hardware news, Krishi would love to chat with you about day trading and the financial markets—oh! And cricket, as well. View all articles by Krishi Chowdhary Our editorial process The Tech Report editorial policy is centered on providing helpful, accurate content that offers real value to our readers. We only work with experienced writers who have specific knowledge in the topics they cover, including latest developments in technology, online privacy, cryptocurrencies, software, and more. Our editorial policy ensures that each topic is researched and curated by our in-house editors. We maintain rigorous journalistic standards, and every article is 100% written by real authors. More from News View all View all

Scammers are using AI tools to create increasingly convincing ways to trick victims into sending money, and to access the personal information needed to commit identity theft. Deepfakes mean they can impersonate the voice of a friend or family member, and even fake a video call with them! The result can be criminals taking out thousands of dollars worth of loans or credit card debt in your name. Fortunately there are steps you can take to protect yourself against even the most sophisticated scams. Here are the security and privacy checks to run to ensure you are safe … 9to5Mac is brought to by Incogni: Protect your personal info from prying eyes. With Incogni, you can scrub your deeply sensitive information from data brokers across the web, including people search sites. Incogni limits your phone number, address, email, SSN, and more from circulating. Fight back against unwanted data brokers with a 30-day money back guarantee. Use a password manager At one time, the advice might have read “use strong, unique passwords for each website and app you use” – but these days we all use so many that this is only possible if we use a password manager. This is a super-easy step to take, thanks to the Passwords app on Apple devices. Each time you register for a new service, use the Passwords app (or your own preferred password manager) to set and store the password. Replace older passwords You probably created some accounts back in the days when password rules were much less strict, meaning you now have some weak passwords that are vulnerable to attack. If you’ve been online since before the days of password managers, you probably even some passwords you’ve used on more than one website. This is a huge risk, as it means your security is only as good as the least-secure website you use. What happens is attackers break into a poorly-secured website, grab all the logins, then they use automated software to try those same logins on hundreds of different websites. If you’ve re-used a password, they now have access to your accounts on all the sites where you used it. Use the password change feature to update your older passwords, starting with the most important ones – the ones that would put you most at risk if your account where compromised. As an absolute minimum, ensure you have strong, unique passwords for all financial services, as well as other critical ones like Apple, Google, and Amazon accounts. Make sure you include any accounts which have already been compromised! You can identify these by putting your email address into Have I Been Pwned. Use passkeys where possible Passwords are gradually being replaced by passkeys. While the difference might seem small in terms of how you login, there’s a huge difference in the security they provide. With a passkey, a website or app doesn’t ask for a password, it instead asks your device to verify your identity. Your device uses Face ID or Touch ID to do so, then confirms that you are who you claim to be. Crucially, it doesn’t send a password back to the service, so there’s no way for this to be hacked – all the service sees is confirmation that you successfully passed biometric authentication on your device. Use two-factor authentication A growing number of accounts allow you to use two-factor authentication (2FA). This means that even if an attacker got your login details, they still wouldn’t be able to access your account. 2FA works by demanding a rolling code whenever you login. These can be sent by text message, but we strongly advise against this, as it leaves you vulnerable to SIM-swap attacks, which are becoming increasingly common. In particular, never use text-based 2FA for financial services accounts. Instead, select the option to use an authenticator app. A QR code will be displayed which you scan in the app, adding that service to your device. Next time you login, you just open the app to see a 6-digit rolling code which you’ll need to enter to login. This feature is built into the Passwords app, or you can use a separate one like Google Authenticator. Check last-login details Some services, like banking apps, will display the date and time of your last successful login. Get into the habit of checking this each time you login, as it can provide a warning that your account has been compromised. Use a VPN service for public Wi-Fi hotspots Anytime you use a public Wi-Fi hotspot, you are at risk from what’s known as a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack. This is where someone uses a small device which uses the same name as a public Wi-Fi hotspot so that people connect to it. Once you do, they can monitor your internet traffic. Almost all modern websites use HTTPS, which provides an encrypted connection that makes MitM attacks less dangerous than they used to be. All the same, the exploit can expose you to a number of security and privacy risks, so using a VPN is still highly advisable. Always choose a respected VPN company, ideally one which keeps no logs and subjects itself to independent audits. I use NordVPN for this reason. Don’t disclose personal info to AI chatbots AI chatbots typically use their conversations with users as training material, meaning anything you say or type could end up in their database, and could potentially be regurgitated when answering another user’s question. Never reveal any personal information you wouldn’t want on the internet. Consider data removal It’s likely that much of your personal information has already been collected by data brokers. Your email address and phone number can be used for spam, which is annoying enough, but they can also be used by scammers. For this reason, you might want to scrub your data from as many broker services as possible. You can do this yourself, or use a service like Incogni to do it for you. Triple-check requests for money Finally, if anyone asks you to send them money, be immediately on the alert. Even if seems to be a friend, family member, or your boss, never take it on trust. Always contact them via a different, known communication channel. If they emailed you, phone them. If they phoned you, message or email them. Some people go as far as agreeing codewords with family members to use if they ever really do need emergency help. If anyone asks you to buy gift cards and send the numbers to them, it’s a scam 100% of the time. Requests to use money transfer services are also generally scams unless it’s something you arranged in advance. Even if you are expecting to send someone money, be alert for claims that they have changed their bank account. This is almost always a scam. Again, contact them via a different, known comms channel. Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash 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

It's early June, which means it's time for a ton of video game events! Rising from the ashes of E3, Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest is now the premium gaming event of the year, just inching ahead of… Geoff Keighley's Game Awards in December. Unlike the show it replaced, Summer Game Fest is an egalitarian affair, spotlighting games from AAA developers and small indies across a diverse set of livestreams. SGF 2025 includes 15 individual events running from June 3-9 — you can find the full Summer Game Fest 2025 schedule here — and we're smack dab in the middle of that programming right now. We're covering SGF 2025 with a small team on the ground in LA and a far larger group of writers tuning in remotely to the various livestreams. Expect game previews, interviews and reactions to arrive over the coming days (the show's in-person component runs from Saturday-Monday), and a boatload of new trailers and release date announcements in between. Through it all, we're collating the biggest announcements right here, with links out to more in-depth coverage where we have it, in chronological order. Tuesday, June 3 State of Unreal: The Witcher IV and Fortnite AI Epic hitched its wagon to SGF this year, aligning its annual developer Unreal Fest conference, which last took place in the fall of 2024, with the consumer event. The conference was held in Orlando, Florida, from June 2-5, with well over a hundred developer sessions focused on Unreal Engine. The highlight was State of Unreal, which was the first event on the official Summer Game Fest schedule. Amid a bunch of very cool tech demos and announcements, we got some meaningful updates on Epic's own Fortnite and CD PROJEKT RED's upcoming The Witcher IV. The Witcher IV was first unveiled at The Game Awards last year, and we've heard very little about it since. At State of Unreal, we got a tech demo for Unreal Engine 5.6, played in real time on a base PS5. The roughly 10-minute slot featured a mix of gameplay and cinematics, and showed off a detailed, bustling world. Perhaps the technical highlight was Nanite Foliage, an extension of UE5's Nanite system for geometry that renders foliage without the level of detail pop-in that is perhaps the most widespread graphical aberration still plaguing games today. On the game side, we saw a town filled with hundreds of NPCs going about their business. The town itself wasn't quite on the scale of The Witcher III's Novigrad City, but nonetheless felt alive in a way beyond anything the last game achieved. It's fair to say that Fortnite's moment in the spotlight was… less impressive. Hot on the heels of smooshing a profane Darth Vader AI into the game, Epic announced that creators will be able to roll their own AI NPCs into the game later this year. Wednesday, June 4 PlayStation State of Play: Marvel Tōkon, Silent Hill f and the return of Lumines Another company getting a headstart on proceedings was Sony, who threw its third State of Play of the year onto the Summer Game Fest schedule a couple days ahead of the opening night event. It was a packed stream by Sony's standards, with over 20 games and even a surprise hardware announcement. The most time was given to Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, a new PlayStation Studios tag fighter that fuses Marvel Superheroes with anime visuals. It's also 4 versus 4, which is wild. It's being developed by Arc System Works, the team perhaps best known for the Guilty Gear series. It's coming to PS5 and PC in 2026. Not-so-coincidentally, Sony also announced Project Defiant, a wireless fight stick that'll support PS5 and PC and arrive in… 2026. Elsewhere, we got a parade of release dates, with concrete dates for Sword of the Sea (August 19) Baby Steps (September 8) and Silent Hill f (September 25). We also got confirmation of that Final Fantasy Tactics remaster (coming September 30), an an all-new... let's call it aspirational "2026" date for Pragmata, which, if you're keeping score, was advertised alongside the launch of the PS5. Great going, Capcom! Rounding out the show was a bunch of smaller announcements. We heard about a new Nioh game, Nioh 3, coming in 2026; Suda51's new weirdness Romeo is a Dead Man; and Lumines Arise, a long-awaited return to the Lumines series from the developer behind Tetris Effect. Thursday, June 5 Diddly squat There were absolutely no Summer Game Fest events scheduled on Thursday. We assume that's out of respect for antipodean trees, as June 5 was Arbor Day in New Zealand. (It's probably because everyone was playing Nintendo Switch 2.) Friday, June 6 Summer Game Fest Live: Resident Evil Requiem, Stranger Than Heaven and sequels abound It's fair to say that previous Summer Game Fest opening night streams have been… whelming at best. This year's showing was certainly an improvement, not least because there were exponentially fewer mobile game and MMO ads littering the presentation. Yes, folks tracking Gabe Newell's yacht were disappointed that Half-Life 3 didn't show up, and the Silksong crowd remains sad, alone and unloved, but there were nonetheless some huge announcements. Perhaps the biggest of all was the "ninth" (Zero and Code Veronica erasure is real) Resident Evil game. Resident Evil Requiem is said to be a tonal shift compared to the last game, Resident Evil Village. Here's hoping it reinvigorates the series in the same way Resident Evil VII did following the disappointing 6. We also heard more from Sega studio Ryu Ga Gotoku about Project Century, which seems to be a 1943 take on the Yakuza series. It's now called Stranger Than Heaven, and there's a (literally) jazzy new trailer for your consideration. Outside of those big swings, there were sequels to a bunch of mid-sized games, like Atomic Heart, Code Vein and Mortal Shell, and a spiritual sequel of sorts: Scott Pilgrim EX, a beat-em-up that takes the baton from the 2010 Ubisoft brawler Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game. There were countless other announcements at the show, including: Troy Baker is the big cheese in Mouse: P.I. for Hire Here's a silly puppet boxing game you never knew you needed Killer Inn turns Werewolf into a multiplayer action game Out of Words is a cozy stop-motion co-op adventure from Epic Games Lego Voyagers is a co-op puzzle game from the studio behind Builder's Journey Mina the Hollower, from the makers of Shovel Knight, arrives on Halloween Wu-Tang Clan's new game blends anime with Afro-surrealism Day of the Devs: Blighted, Snap & Grab, Blighted and Escape Academy II As always, the kickoff show was followed by a Day of the Devs stream, which focused on smaller projects and indie games. You can watch the full stream here. Escape Academy has been firmly on our best couch co-op games list for some time, and now it's got a sequel on the way. Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School takes the same basic co-op escape room fun and expands on it, moving away from a level-select map screen and towards a fully 3D school campus for players to explore. So long as the puzzles themselves are as fun as the original, it seems like a winner.  Semblance studio Nyamakop is back with new jam called Relooted, a heist game with a unique twist. As in the real world, museums in the West are full of items plundered from African nations under colonialism. Unlike the real world, in Relooted the colonial powers have signed a treaty to return these items to their places of origin, but things aren't going to plan, as many artifacts are finding their way into private collections. It's your job to steal them back. The British Museum is quaking in its boots. Here are some of the other games that caught our eye: Snap & Grab is No Goblin's campy, photography-based heist game Please, Watch the Artwork is a puzzle game with eerie paintings and a sad clown Bask in the grotesque pixel-art beauty of Neverway Pocket Boss turns corporate data manipulation into a puzzle game Tire Boy is a wacky open-world adventure game you can tread all over The rest: Ball x Pit, Hitman and 007 First Light After Day of the Devs came Devolver. Its Summer Game Fest show was a little more muted than usual, focusing on a single game: Ball x Pit. It's the next game from Kenny Sun, an indie developer who previously made the sleeper hit Mr. Sun's Hatbox. Ball x Pit is being made by a team of more than half a dozen devs, in contrast to Sun's mostly solo prior works. It looks like an interesting mashup of Breakout and base-building mechanics, and there's a demo on Steam available right now. Then came IOI, the makers of Hitman, who put together a classic E3-style cringefest, full of awkward pauses, ill-paced demos and repetitive trailers. Honestly, as someone who's been watching game company presentations for two decades or so, it was a nice moment of nostalgia.  Away from the marvel of a presenter trying to cope with everything going wrong, the show did have some actual content, with an extended demo of the new James Bond-themed Hitman mission, an announcement that Hitman is coming to iOS and table tops, and a presentation on MindsEye, a game from former GTA producer Leslie Benzies that IOI is publishing.  Saturday-Sunday: Xbox and much, much more Now you're all caught up. We're expecting a lot of news this weekend, mostly from Xbox on Sunday. We'll be updating this article through the weekend and beyond, but you can find the latest announcements from Summer Game Fest 2025 on our front page.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/everything-new-at-summer-game-fest-2025-marvel-tokon-resident-evil-requiem-and-more-185425995.html?src=rss

When we first got confirmation of this week’s State of Play, Sony’s official description provided little to go on. PlayStation’s first-party output is quite slim this year, but some of us expected the company’s biggest game in 2025 - Ghost of Yotei - to make some sort of appearance. Read more

Once again, Sam Altman wants to show you the future. The CEO of OpenAI is standing on a sparse stage in San Francisco, preparing to reveal his next move to an attentive crowd. “We needed some way for identifying, authenticating humans in the age of AGI,” Altman explains, referring to artificial general intelligence. “We wanted a way to make sure that humans stayed special and central.” The solution Altman came up with is looming behind him. It’s a white sphere about the size of a beach ball, with a camera at its center. The company that makes it, known as Tools for Humanity, calls this mysterious device the Orb. Stare into the heart of the plastic-and-silicon globe and it will map the unique furrows and ciliary zones of your iris. Seconds later, you’ll receive inviolable proof of your humanity: a 12,800-digit binary number, known as an iris code, sent to an app on your phone. At the same time, a packet of cryptocurrency called Worldcoin, worth approximately $42, will be transferred to your digital wallet—your reward for becoming a “verified human.” Altman co-founded Tools for Humanity in 2019 as part of a suite of companies he believed would reshape the world. Once the tech he was developing at OpenAI passed a certain level of intelligence, he reasoned, it would mark the end of one era on the Internet and the beginning of another, in which AI became so advanced, so human-like, that you would no longer be able to tell whether what you read, saw, or heard online came from a real person. When that happened, Altman imagined, we would need a new kind of online infrastructure: a human-verification layer for the Internet, to distinguish real people from the proliferating number of bots and AI “agents.”And so Tools for Humanity set out to build a global “proof-of-humanity” network. It aims to verify 50 million people by the end of 2025; ultimately its goal is to sign up every single human being on the planet. The free crypto serves as both an incentive for users to sign up, and also an entry point into what the company hopes will become the world’s largest financial network, through which it believes “double-digit percentages of the global economy” will eventually flow. Even for Altman, these missions are audacious. “If this really works, it’s like a fundamental piece of infrastructure for the world,” Altman tells TIME in a video interview from the passenger seat of a car a few days before his April 30 keynote address.Internal hardware of the Orb in mid-assembly in March. Davide Monteleone for TIMEThe project’s goal is to solve a problem partly of Altman’s own making. In the near future, he and other tech leaders say, advanced AIs will be imbued with agency: the ability to not just respond to human prompting, but to take actions independently in the world. This will enable the creation of AI coworkers that can drop into your company and begin solving problems; AI tutors that can adapt their teaching style to students’ preferences; even AI doctors that can diagnose routine cases and handle scheduling or logistics. The arrival of these virtual agents, their venture capitalist backers predict, will turbocharge our productivity and unleash an age of material abundance.But AI agents will also have cascading consequences for the human experience online. “As AI systems become harder to distinguish from people, websites may face difficult trade-offs,” says a recent paper by researchers from 25 different universities, nonprofits, and tech companies, including OpenAI. “There is a significant risk that digital institutions will be unprepared for a time when AI-powered agents, including those leveraged by malicious actors, overwhelm other activity online.” On social-media platforms like X and Facebook, bot-driven accounts are amassing billions of views on AI-generated content. In April, the foundation that runs Wikipedia disclosed that AI bots scraping their site were making the encyclopedia too costly to sustainably run. Later the same month, researchers from the University of Zurich found that AI-generated comments on the subreddit /r/ChangeMyView were up to six times more successful than human-written ones at persuading unknowing users to change their minds.  Photograph by Davide Monteleone for TIMEBuy a copy of the Orb issue hereThe arrival of agents won’t only threaten our ability to distinguish between authentic and AI content online. It will also challenge the Internet’s core business model, online advertising, which relies on the assumption that ads are being viewed by humans. “The Internet will change very drastically sometime in the next 12 to 24 months,” says Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania. “So we have to succeed, or I’m not sure what else would happen.”For four years, Blania’s team has been testing the Orb’s hardware abroad. Now the U.S. rollout has arrived. Over the next 12 months, 7,500 Orbs will be arriving in dozens of American cities, in locations like gas stations, bodegas, and flagship stores in Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami. The project’s founders and fans hope the Orb’s U.S. debut will kickstart a new phase of growth. The San Francisco keynote was titled: “At Last.” It’s not clear the public appetite matches the exultant branding. Tools for Humanity has “verified” just 12 million humans since mid 2023, a pace Blania concedes is well behind schedule. Few online platforms currently support the so-called “World ID” that the Orb bestows upon its visitors, leaving little to entice users to give up their biometrics beyond the lure of free crypto. Even Altman isn’t sure whether the whole thing can work. “I can see [how] this becomes a fairly mainstream thing in a few years,” he says. “Or I can see that it’s still only used by a small subset of people who think about the world in a certain way.” Blania (left) and Altman debut the Orb at World’s U.S. launch in San Francisco on April 30, 2025. Jason Henry—The New York Times/ReduxYet as the Internet becomes overrun with AI, the creators of this strange new piece of hardware are betting that everybody in the world will soon want—or need—to visit an Orb. The biometric code it creates, they predict, will become a new type of digital passport, without which you might be denied passage to the Internet of the future, from dating apps to government services. In a best-case scenario, World ID could be a privacy-preserving way to fortify the Internet against an AI-driven deluge of fake or deceptive content. It could also enable the distribution of universal basic income (UBI)—a policy that Altman has previously touted—as AI automation transforms the global economy. To examine what this new technology might mean, I reported from three continents, interviewed 10 Tools for Humanity executives and investors, reviewed hundreds of pages of company documents, and “verified” my own humanity. The Internet will inevitably need some kind of proof-of-humanity system in the near future, says Divya Siddarth, founder of the nonprofit Collective Intelligence Project. The real question, she argues, is whether such a system will be centralized—“a big security nightmare that enables a lot of surveillance”—or privacy-preserving, as the Orb claims to be. Questions remain about Tools for Humanity’s corporate structure, its yoking to an unstable cryptocurrency, and what power it would concentrate in the hands of its owners if successful. Yet it’s also one of the only attempts to solve what many see as an increasingly urgent problem. “There are some issues with it,” Siddarth says of World ID. “But you can’t preserve the Internet in amber. Something in this direction is necessary.”In March, I met Blania at Tools for Humanity’s San Francisco headquarters, where a large screen displays the number of weekly “Orb verifications” by country. A few days earlier, the CEO had attended a $1 million-per-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago with President Donald Trump, whom he credits with clearing the way for the company’s U.S. launch by relaxing crypto regulations. “Given Sam is a very high profile target,” Blania says, “we just decided that we would let other companies fight that fight, and enter the U.S. once the air is clear.” As a kid growing up in Germany, Blania was a little different than his peers. “Other kids were, like, drinking a lot, or doing a lot of parties, and I was just building a lot of things that could potentially blow up,” he recalls. At the California Institute of Technology, where he was pursuing research for a masters degree, he spent many evenings reading the blogs of startup gurus like Paul Graham and Altman. Then, in 2019, Blania received an email from Max Novendstern, an entrepreneur who had been kicking around a concept with Altman to build a global cryptocurrency network. They were looking for technical minds to help with the project. Over cappuccinos, Altman told Blania he was certain about three things. First, smarter-than-human AI was not only possible, but inevitable—and it would soon mean you could no longer assume that anything you read, saw, or heard on the Internet was human-created. Second, cryptocurrency and other decentralized technologies would be a massive force for change in the world. And third, scale was essential to any crypto network’s value. The Orb is tested on a calibration rig, surrounded by checkerboard targets to ensure precision in iris detection. Davide Monteleone for TIMEThe goal of Worldcoin, as the project was initially called, was to combine those three insights. Altman took a lesson from PayPal, the company co-founded by his mentor Peter Thiel. Of its initial funding, PayPal spent less than $10 million actually building its app—but pumped an additional $70 million or so into a referral program, whereby new users and the person who invited them would each receive $10 in credit. The referral program helped make PayPal a leading payment platform. Altman thought a version of that strategy would propel Worldcoin to similar heights. He wanted to create a new cryptocurrency and give it to users as a reward for signing up. The more people who joined the system, the higher the token’s value would theoretically rise. Since 2019, the project has raised $244 million from investors like Coinbase and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. That money paid for the $50 million cost of designing the Orb, plus maintaining the software it runs on. The total market value of all Worldcoins in existence, however, is far higher—around $12 billion. That number is a bit misleading: most of those coins are not in circulation and Worldcoin’s price has fluctuated wildly. Still, it allows the company to reward users for signing up at no cost to itself. The main lure for investors is the crypto upside. Some 75% of all Worldcoins are set aside for humans to claim when they sign up, or as referral bonuses. The remaining 25% are split between Tools for Humanity’s backers and staff, including Blania and Altman. “I’m really excited to make a lot of money,” ” Blania says.From the beginning, Altman was thinking about the consequences of the AI revolution he intended to unleash. (On May 21, he announced plans to team up with famed former Apple designer Jony Ive on a new AI personal device.) A future in which advanced AI could perform most tasks more effectively than humans would bring a wave of unemployment and economic dislocation, he reasoned. Some kind of wealth redistribution might be necessary. In 2016, he partially funded a study of basic income, which gave $1,000 per-month handouts to low-income individuals in Illinois and Texas. But there was no single financial system that would allow money to be sent to everybody in the world. Nor was there a way to stop an individual human from claiming their share twice—or to identify a sophisticated AI pretending to be human and pocketing some cash of its own. In 2023, Tools for Humanity raised the possibility of using the network to redistribute the profits of AI labs that were able to automate human labor. “As AI advances,” it said, “fairly distributing access and some of the created value through UBI will play an increasingly vital role in counteracting the concentration of economic power.”Blania was taken by the pitch, and agreed to join the project as a co-founder. “Most people told us we were very stupid or crazy or insane, including Silicon Valley investors,” Blania says. At least until ChatGPT came out in 2022, transforming OpenAI into one of the world’s most famous tech companies and kickstarting a market bull-run. “Things suddenly started to make more and more sense to the external world,” Blania says of the vision to develop a global “proof-of-humanity” network. “You have to imagine a world in which you will have very smart and competent systems somehow flying through the Internet with different goals and ideas of what they want to do, and us having no idea anymore what we’re dealing with.”After our interview, Blania’s head of communications ushers me over to a circular wooden structure where eight Orbs face one another. The scene feels like a cross between an Apple Store and a ceremonial altar. “Do you want to get verified?” she asks. Putting aside my reservations for the purposes of research, I download the World App and follow its prompts. I flash a QR code at the Orb, then gaze into it. A minute or so later, my phone buzzes with confirmation: I’ve been issued my own personal World ID and some Worldcoin.The first thing the Orb does is check if you’re human, using a neural network that takes input from various sensors, including an infrared camera and a thermometer. Davide Monteleone for TIMEWhile I stared into the Orb, several complex procedures had taken place at once. A neural network took inputs from multiple sensors—an infrared camera, a thermometer—to confirm I was a living human. Simultaneously, a telephoto lens zoomed in on my iris, capturing the physical traits within that distinguish me from every other human on Earth. It then converted that image into an iris code: a numerical abstraction of my unique biometric data. Then the Orb checked to see if my iris code matched any it had seen before, using a technique allowing encrypted data to be compared without revealing the underlying information. Before the Orb deleted my data, it turned my iris code into several derivative codes—none of which on its own can be linked back to the original—encrypted them, deleted the only copies of the decryption keys, and sent each one to a different secure server, so that future users’ iris codes can be checked for uniqueness against mine. If I were to use my World ID to access a website, that site would learn nothing about me except that I’m human. The Orb is open-source, so outside experts can examine its code and verify the company’s privacy claims. “I did a colonoscopy on this company and these technologies before I agreed to join,” says Trevor Traina, a Trump donor and former U.S. ambassador to Austria who now serves as Tools for Humanity’s chief business officer. “It is the most privacy-preserving technology on the planet.”Only weeks later, when researching what would happen if I wanted to delete my data, do I discover that Tools for Humanity’s privacy claims rest on what feels like a sleight of hand. The company argues that in modifying your iris code, it has “effectively anonymized” your biometric data. If you ask Tools for Humanity to delete your iris codes, they will delete the one stored on your phone, but not the derivatives. Those, they argue, are no longer your personal data at all. But if I were to return to an Orb after deleting my data, it would still recognize those codes as uniquely mine. Once you look into the Orb, a piece of your identity remains in the system forever. If users could truly delete that data, the premise of one ID per human would collapse, Tools for Humanity’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran tells me when I call seeking an explanation. People could delete and sign up for new World IDs after being suspended from a platform. Or claim their Worldcoin tokens, sell them, delete their data, and cash in again. This argument fell flat with European Union regulators in Germany, who recently declared that the Orb posed “fundamental data protection issues” and ordered the company to allow European users to fully delete even their anonymized data. (Tools for Humanity has appealed; the regulator is now reassessing the decision.) “Just like any other technology service, users cannot delete data that is not personal data,” Kieran said in a statement. “If a person could delete anonymized data that can’t be linked to them by World or any third party, it would allow bad actors to circumvent the security and safety that World ID is working to bring to every human.”On a balmy afternoon this spring, I climb a flight of stairs up to a room above a restaurant in an outer suburb of Seoul. Five elderly South Koreans tap on their phones as they wait to be “verified” by the two Orbs in the center of the room. “We don’t really know how to distinguish between AI and humans anymore,” an attendant in a company t-shirt explains in Korean, gesturing toward the spheres. “We need a way to verify that we’re human and not AI. So how do we do that? Well, humans have irises, but AI doesn’t.”The attendant ushers an elderly woman over to an Orb. It bleeps. “Open your eyes,” a disembodied voice says in English. The woman stares into the camera. Seconds later, she checks her phone and sees that a packet of Worldcoin worth 75,000 Korean won (about $54) has landed in her digital wallet. Congratulations, the app tells her. You are now a verified human.A visitor views the Orbs in Seoul on April 14, 2025. Taemin Ha for TIMETools for Humanity aims to “verify” 1 million Koreans over the next year. Taemin Ha for TIMEA couple dozen Orbs have been available in South Korea since 2023, verifying roughly 55,000 people. Now Tools for Humanity is redoubling its efforts there. At an event in a traditional wooden hanok house in central Seoul, an executive announces that 250 Orbs will soon be dispersed around the country—with the aim of verifying 1 million Koreans in the next 12 months. South Korea has high levels of smartphone usage, crypto and AI adoption, and Internet access, while average wages are modest enough for the free Worldcoin on offer to still be an enticing draw—all of which makes it fertile testing ground for the company’s ambitious global expansion. Yet things seem off to a slow start. In a retail space I visited in central Seoul, Tools for Humanity had constructed a wooden structure with eight Orbs facing each other. Locals and tourists wander past looking bemused; few volunteer themselves up. Most who do tell me they are crypto enthusiasts who came intentionally, driven more by the spirit of early adoption than the free coins. The next day, I visit a coffee shop in central Seoul where a chrome Orb sits unassumingly in one corner. Wu Ruijun, a 20-year-old student from China, strikes up a conversation with the barista, who doubles as the Orb’s operator. Wu was invited here by a friend who said both could claim free cryptocurrency if he signed up. The barista speeds him through the process. Wu accepts the privacy disclosure without reading it, and widens his eyes for the Orb. Soon he’s verified. “I wasn’t told anything about the privacy policy,” he says on his way out. “I just came for the money.”As Altman’s car winds through San Francisco, I ask about the vision he laid out in 2019: that AI would make it harder for us to trust each other online. To my surprise, he rejects the framing. “I’m much more [about] like: what is the good we can create, rather than the bad we can stop?” he says. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to avoid the bot overrun’ or whatever. It’s just that we can do a lot of special things for humans.” It’s an answer that may reflect how his role has changed over the years. Altman is now the chief public cheerleader of a $300 billion company that’s touting the transformative utility of AI agents. The rise of agents, he and others say, will be a boon for our quality of life—like having an assistant on hand who can answer your most pressing questions, carry out mundane tasks, and help you develop new skills. It’s an optimistic vision that may well pan out. But it doesn’t quite fit with the prophecies of AI-enabled infopocalypse that Tools for Humanity was founded upon.Altman waves away a question about the influence he and other investors stand to gain if their vision is realized. Most holders, he assumes, will have already started selling their tokens—too early, he adds. “What I think would be bad is if an early crew had a lot of control over the protocol,” he says, “and that’s where I think the commitment to decentralization is so cool.” Altman is referring to the World Protocol, the underlying technology upon which the Orb, Worldcoin, and World ID all rely. Tools for Humanity is developing it, but has committed to giving control to its users over time—a process they say will prevent power from being concentrated in the hands of a few executives or investors. Tools for Humanity would remain a for-profit company, and could levy fees on platforms that use World ID, but other companies would be able to compete for customers by building alternative apps—or even alternative Orbs. The plan draws on ideas that animated the crypto ecosystem in the late 2010s and early 2020s, when evangelists for emerging blockchain technologies argued that the centralization of power—especially in large so-called “Web 2.0” tech companies—was responsible for many of the problems plaguing the modern Internet. Just as decentralized cryptocurrencies could reform a financial system controlled by economic elites, so too would it be possible to create decentralized organizations, run by their members instead of CEOs. How such a system might work in practice remains unclear. “Building a community-based governance system,” Tools for Humanity says in a 2023 white paper, “represents perhaps the most formidable challenge of the entire project.”Altman has a pattern of making idealistic promises that shift over time. He founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, with a mission to develop AGI safely and for the benefit of all humanity. To raise money, OpenAI restructured itself as a for-profit company in 2019, but with overall control still in the hands of its nonprofit board. Last year, Altman proposed yet another restructure—one which would dilute the board’s control and allow more profits to flow to shareholders. Why, I ask, should the public trust Tools for Humanity’s commitment to freely surrender influence and power? “I think you will just see the continued decentralization via the protocol,” he says. “The value here is going to live in the network, and the network will be owned and governed by a lot of people.” Altman talks less about universal basic income these days. He recently mused about an alternative, which he called “universal basic compute.” Instead of AI companies redistributing their profits, he seemed to suggest, they could instead give everyone in the world fair access to super-powerful AI. Blania tells me he recently “made the decision to stop talking” about UBI at Tools for Humanity. “UBI is one potential answer,” he says. “Just giving [people] access to the latest [AI] models and having them learn faster and better is another.” Says Altman: “I still don’t know what the right answer is. I believe we should do a better job of distribution of resources than we currently do.” When I probe the question of why people should trust him, Altman gets irritated. “I understand that you hate AI, and that’s fine,” he says. “If you want to frame it as the downside of AI is that there’s going to be a proliferation of very convincing AI systems that are pretending to be human, and we need ways to know what is really human-authorized versus not, then yeah, I think you can call that a downside of AI. It’s not how I would naturally frame it.” The phrase human-authorized hints at a tension between World ID and OpenAI’s plans for AI agents. An Internet where a World ID is required to access most services might impede the usefulness of the agents that OpenAI and others are developing. So Tools for Humanity is building a system that would allow users to delegate their World ID to an agent, allowing the bot to take actions online on their behalf, according to Tiago Sada, the company’s chief product officer. “We’ve built everything in a way that can be very easily delegatable to an agent,” Sada says. It’s a measure that would allow humans to be held accountable for the actions of their AIs. But it suggests that Tools for Humanity’s mission may be shifting beyond simply proving humanity, and toward becoming the infrastructure that enables AI agents to proliferate with human authorization. World ID doesn’t tell you whether a piece of content is AI-generated or human-generated; all it tells you is whether the account that posted it is a human or a bot. Even in a world where everybody had a World ID, our online spaces might still be filled with AI-generated text, images, and videos.As I say goodbye to Altman, I’m left feeling conflicted about his project. If the Internet is going to be transformed by AI agents, then some kind of proof-of-humanity system will almost certainly be necessary. Yet if the Orb becomes a piece of Internet infrastructure, it could give Altman—a beneficiary of the proliferation of AI content—significant influence over a leading defense mechanism against it. People might have no choice but to participate in the network in order to access social media or online services.I thought of an encounter I witnessed in Seoul. In the room above the restaurant, Cho Jeong-yeon, 75, watched her friend get verified by an Orb. Cho had been invited to do the same, but demurred. The reward wasn’t enough for her to surrender a part of her identity. “Your iris is uniquely yours, and we don’t really know how it might be used,” she says. “Seeing the machine made me think: are we becoming machines instead of humans now? Everything is changing, and we don’t know how it’ll all turn out.”—With reporting by Stephen Kim/Seoul. This story was supported by Tarbell Grants.Correction, May 30The original version of this story misstated the market capitalization of Worldcoin if all coins were in circulation. It is $12 billion, not $1.2 billion.