From its opening minutes, Moves of the Diamond Hand is upfront about what it offers: You’re going to have a lot of strange conversations, and you’re going to roll a lot of dice. Get on board with this proposition, and the reward is one of the most creative roleplaying games I’ve seen in years, even if its many mysteries won’t be resolved until 2027.
Technology
Too loud? Ticket’s in the mail
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
You already know about speed cameras. Red light cameras. Toll cameras that photograph your plate and bill you later.
Now meet their cousin. Noise cameras are the newest automated enforcement technology spreading through American cities. A pole-mounted device contains sensitive microphones paired with a license plate camera.
IF SOMEONE GETS INTO YOUR EMAIL, THEY OWN EVERY ACCOUNT YOU HAVE. THESE 3 MOVES LOCK THEM OUT FOR GOOD
Your car drives past. If your exhaust tips over the legal decibel limit, a ticket arrives in your mailbox days later. No warning. No officer pulling you over. No flashing lights in your rearview mirror. Just a microphone that never blinks, never takes a break and never misses a shift.
Silence of the Lambos
New York City has been running these since 2021. The cameras have issued more than 1,600 violations and collected nearly $2 million in fines. Get caught once, and you’re looking at $800. Get caught repeatedly, and the fine climbs to $2,500.
New York City implemented noise cameras and has been using the technology since 2021. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
Newport, Rhode Island, put two cameras on scenic Ocean Avenue. Within days, a Mustang GT got nailed at 85 decibels. Two decibels over the limit. $250 fine. Providence approved $180,000 to add cameras in 2026. Connecticut passed statewide legislation.
California has six cities running a five-year pilot program with fines up to $1,105. Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Sacramento and Washington, D.C., are all deploying or testing. Colorado, New Jersey and Hawaii have introduced similar legislation. This is not a local story anymore. It’s a national one moving fast, and most drivers have absolutely no idea it’s coming for them.
5 SIMPLE TECH TIPS TO TAKE BACK CONTROL OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
Here’s how the technology actually works.
The microphone detects sound above the legal threshold, typically between 75 and 95 decibels depending on the city. To put that in plain English, a normal conversation runs about 60 decibels. A lawnmower hits around 90. Most cities are drawing the line somewhere in between. The camera cross-references the sound spike with the exact moment a vehicle passes, photographs the plate, and generates the ticket automatically. No officer involved. No human review in most cases. Just math, a microphone and a camera pointed at your plate.
Too loud and furious
When I’m in my Porsche and flip into manual mode, rowing through the gears with that beautiful exhaust note singing, I’m not doing the math on that out loud. Let’s just say I’m watching the camera location maps very carefully. You probably should too.
If your car reaches a certain decibal above the “legal threshold,” the microphone in the camera can detect the sound and cross references with the moment a vehicle passes. (Utah Department of Transportation)
Here’s what should concern drivers with completely stock vehicles. That Mustang GT wasn’t a tuned track car. It’s a car you buy at a dealership. Two decibels over the limit. $250 gone. Motorcycles are even more exposed. A stock Harley-Davidson idles around 75 decibels and can hit 90 under acceleration. Well inside the danger zone in several cities already running cameras. You don’t need a modified exhaust to get a ticket. You just need bad timing.
AI is being used to pinpoint which specific vehicle in a group triggered the alert. Not just the loudest car in the frame. Your car. The tech is getting smarter every single month.
DRONE FOOD DELIVERY LAUNCHES IN NEW JERSEY
Roar and peace
There are two valid sides here.
If someone with a straight-pipe exhaust does a flyby past your bedroom at midnight, you’re probably delighted they got caught. Noise pollution is a real health issue linked to sleep disorders, elevated blood pressure and anxiety. Cities have tried everything and nothing worked at scale until now.
An undated file photo of rush hour traffic in Manhattan, New York City, New York. (iStock)
But this is also another layer of always-on surveillance that never forgets and never gives you the benefit of the doubt. Critics have raised legitimate questions about whether cameras get placed disproportionately in lower-income neighborhoods, turning a public health tool into a revenue machine aimed at the wrong zip codes. Fair questions worth asking out loud.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
These cameras are spreading faster than most drivers realize. Search your city name plus “noise camera ordinance” to find the exact decibel limits where you live. Know the number before the camera does.
Send this to someone who is a car enthusiast, a motorcycle rider or anyone with a loud vehicle. Forward this before they find out the hard way. Consider it your good deed for the week.
Copyright 2026, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved.
Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner recently uncovered four datasets of music being used to train AI models and made them fully searchable for the public. Two of the sets are absolutely enormous at 12 million and 9 million tracks. The other two are much smaller, but still represent a significant amount of training data at over 100,000 songs each.
According to Reisner, the sets have been downloaded thousands of times and, while it’s impossible to know exactly who has used them, Google and Stability have both confirmed they have in research papers. Some of the sources, like the Free Music Archive dataset, are free to stream for personal use but require licensing for commercial applications.
While the datasets are freely available on the internet in theory, using them as training data is not as simple as downloading a ZIP file and feeding it to an AI model. As Reisner explains:
Three of the datasets I found are distributed as a list of links to songs on YouTube or Spotify. AI developers download the actual audio using tools that automate the job, some of which allow developers to bypass logins, advertisements, and mechanisms that might earn money or subscribers for creators. Such tools violate the terms of service of these platforms.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
You step off a long flight, find your hotel and the first thing you look for is the Wi-Fi password. You connect, clear your inbox, log into your streaming account to unwind and maybe check your bank balance before dinner. It all feels harmless because we all do it.
But that one travel habit can quietly put your passwords, accounts and personal information at risk.
Public Wi-Fi is convenient for you. It can also be convenient for the person sitting three tables over with a laptop and bad intentions.
THE TEMPTATIONS AND RISKS OF FREE WI-FI
A traveler connects to hotel Wi-Fi, a common habit that can put personal accounts at risk when the network is not protected. (iStock)
Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report
- Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox.
- For simple, real-world ways to spot scams early and stay protected, visit CyberGuy.com, trusted by millions who watch CyberGuy on TV daily.
- Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide free when you join.
Why public Wi-Fi is such a soft target
Most public networks send your data through the air on a network you do not control. When a network is open, anyone connected to it may be able to use simple tools to watch traffic patterns, spot unencrypted activity or try to redirect you to fake login pages. Security researchers call this packet sniffing. Modern HTTPS protects most usernames and passwords, but not every app, site or connection handles security perfectly. That is where public Wi-Fi can still get risky fast.
Then there are the fake networks. A hacker sets up a hotspot named something friendly like “Airport_Free_Wi-Fi” or “Hotel Guest,” and travelers connect without a second thought. Once you’re on their network, everything you do passes through their hands first. This trick is common enough that it has a name: the evil twin attack.
APPLE FIXES PASSWORDS APP VULNERABILITY ENABLING WI-FI ATTACKS
Here’s the part most people miss. Stealing your password is not the only goal. When you log into a service, your device gets a small file called a session token that keeps you signed in. If an attacker can trick you onto a fake network, push you toward a fake login page or exploit a poorly protected connection, that token or login can become a target. That is how a quick hotel Wi-Fi session can turn into someone hijacking an account, locking you out, racking up charges or selling your access on the side.
Your phone, your laptop, your email, your banking app, your streaming logins. On an unprotected network, all of it is fair game.
The simple fix: encrypt everything you send
The good news is that protecting yourself does not require you to become a security expert or swear off public Wi-Fi forever. You just need a Virtual Private Network, or VPN.
ROUTER VPNS VS DEVICE VPNS: WHICH PRIVACY SOLUTION IS BEST FOR YOU?
A VPN builds an encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet. Everything you send and receive gets scrambled before it leaves your phone or laptop, so even if someone is watching the network, all they see is meaningless noise. Your passwords, your messages, your account logins and your banking details stay locked up tight.
The catch with a lot of VPNs is that people either forget to turn them on or find them clunky enough to give up. The best VPN for travel should be easy to use, fast enough for streaming and video calls, strong on privacy and able to protect your devices with one tap.
My No. 1 pick checks those boxes without making you think about it. It uses strong encryption, has a no-logs policy, includes a kill switch if the VPN connection drops and runs on iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac and routers.
MALICIOUS APPS POSING AS VPNS CAN TURN YOUR DEVICE INTO A TOOL FOR CYBERATTACKS
For the best VPN software, see my expert review of the best VPNs for browsing the web privately on your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at Cyberguy.com
Fake public Wi-Fi networks can look harmless, but they may route your activity through a hacker’s device before it reaches the internet. (iStock)
A few smart habits to pair with it
A VPN does the bulk of the work, but these quick moves close the remaining gaps.
1) Turn off auto-connect
Stop your phone from automatically joining Wi-Fi networks you do not fully trust.
5 PHONE SETTINGS TO CHANGE RIGHT NOW FOR A SAFER SMARTPHONE
On iPhone, go to Settings > Wi-Fi > Ask to Join Networks and choose Ask or Notify. You can also tap the info icon next to a saved network and turn off Auto-Join.
On Samsung, go to Settings > Connections > Wi-Fi, tap the gear icon next to a saved network and turn off Auto reconnect.
2) Confirm the network name before you connect
Before joining a hotel, airport or café Wi-Fi, ask the staff for the exact network name. Fake “free Wi-Fi” networks often use names that look official enough to fool tired travelers.
3) Turn on two-factor authentication
Even if a password leaks, 2FA gives an attacker another wall to get past before they can break into your account.
4) Use a password manager
Better still, use a password manager to create and store super-secure credentials that are unique for every site.
5) Save the sensitive stuff for trusted connections
When you can, handle banking, shopping and other sensitive logins on cellular data, your phone’s hotspot, your home network or a trusted VPN.
Kurt’s key takeaways
The trip is supposed to be the memorable part, not the security headache you deal with after you get home. The travel mistake is treating free Wi-Fi as safe Wi-Fi. Free Wi-Fi can be risky, and the people who exploit it are counting on you not to notice. Flip the script with a trusted VPN, build the one-tap habit, and you close one of the easiest doors hackers use against travelers.
Do you turn on a VPN the moment you connect to public Wi-Fi, or only when you remember? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report
Using a trusted VPN while traveling helps encrypt your connection and protect your phone, laptop and streaming accounts on public networks. (Al Drago/Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
- Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox.
- For simple, real-world ways to spot scams early and stay protected, visit CyberGuy.com, trusted by millions who watch CyberGuy on TV daily.
- Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide free when you join.
Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Moves of the Diamond Hand is an Early Access videogame available on PC, macOS, and steamOS (including the Steam Deck, where I played it) from musician and game designer Cosmo D. The game looks and feels like a 2000s-era first-person RPG or immersive sim: environments are grimy, stark, and blocky; characters’ features are stretched over smooth heads a bit too small for their faces; an eerie soundtrack pulses over all. You’ll arrive on a train and immediately meet an old mentor, disgraced by some kind of political scandal. You convey your desire to join a powerful organization called Circus X, then declare which of several wildly different paths you’ll take into its fold — you can try joining the city council, but could find equal success crafting the perfect sandwich or joining the best band.
These options help introduce the central mechanic. The game gives you one upgradeable die for each of seven stats, ranging from standard fare like Physique and Observation to the more idiosyncratic Cooking and Music. To set a challenge, it will roll a die corresponding to one of those attributes, and you’ve got to match or beat it with your own roll.
Once you emerge into the train station, the complexity quickly multiplies. There are a plethora of sub-mechanics including cooking, performing music, laundering disguises, and mixing cocktails — all of which add additional dice with unique quirks. You can selectively re-roll dice in a manner similar to Yahtzee, introducing an element of strategy within each encounter, and your final score (win or lose) is translated into experience points. The basic system was introduced in Cosmo D’s last game, Betrayal at Club Low, but in a less flexible and elegant form; Diamond Hand feels like its evolution. (Disclosure: My husband has provided outside feedback for Cosmo D’s games.)
It’s all a little intimidating at first. But the game allows you to ease into its options, which happens quickly, since you’re rolling for virtually every action and verbal exchange from making small talk to opening a door. There’s a meaningful element of chance to all this, without descending into unbounded randomness. Some rolls can be mathematically impossible to win or lose at a given skill level, but it’s possible to still damage your health or gain an unwelcome status effect with safe challenges, preventing them from becoming purely rote. You can retry most actions if you fail them, but they’ll become slightly more difficult on a second attempt, so there’s a constant balancing act of deciding when to take the initial leap. The ambient low-level risk makes even simple spaces feel substantive and engaging — it negates the common RPG urge to speed through environmental detail and flavor text while looking for the “real” parts of the game.
Through countless skill checks, you’ll internalize the odd logic of the game’s world. The setting, Off-Peak City, is a garish metropolis shaped by the machinations of sinister corporations, corrupt politicians, and shady operatives, but also musicians, restaurateurs, and literally and figuratively underground tailors — a neon retro-future for streetwise aesthetes. What might be niche skills in any other game prove extraordinarily powerful here. The Music stat, whose uses include sewing (machines can, among other options, be literally operated by improvisation), calming aggressive animal-human hybrids (by whistling tunes), and mixology (which can be performed “rhythmically”), is arguably the single strongest power in the game.
Circus X, you’ll soon learn, is a secretive arts institution that influences everything from politics to the sandwich supply chain — imagine the Factory crossed with the Freemasons. While pursuing membership, you’re embroiled in a local election between a scandal-plagued technocrat, a former boy-band star, and the corporate-controlled clone of a mayor from decades past. In place of a Maltese Falcon, everyone’s scheming for control of a sentient Big Mouth Billy Bass. And meddling behind the scenes is the mysterious, anarchic Diamond Hand, frequently alluded to but not explained.
Diamond Hand’s story evokes real-world parallels, but as a jumping-off point for something that’s rich and alive in its own right. In perhaps the most obvious example, a company in Off-Peak City is pumping the place full of clones, supplanting human artists with corporate-guardrailed regurgitations of old media. But rather than stop at commentary, the game walks this out to explore the idea that clones are also conscious beings who are frustrated by their creative limits and lack of autonomy, while letting human characters reflect on their own relationship with nostalgia and artistic taste.
Put this all together and you’ve got a hard-boiled sci-fi thriller involving subway busking, finding library books, stumping for politicians, harvesting lettuce, arguing about jazz, and doing laundry, infused with the lizard-brain appeal of a nonstop game of chance. It’s irresistible.
Most of Diamond Hand’s main quests end in roadblocks, because its Early Access build includes only the first two of six chapters, with the next scheduled for this summer and a full launch set for the spring of 2027. But even in its current state, Diamond Hand is dense and tantalizing, delivering a string of absurd premises and dry humor with a straight face. (Among many tossed-off jokes that are also actual game mechanics, local pizza-makers require everyone to bake their own pie, so if you don’t like your order, you have only yourself to blame.) You’re granted experience points for letting characters ramble through their backstories and opinions — which lands somewhere between a sly gag about RPG infodumping and a straightforwardly clever decision — but the dialogue pays off even without that prize.
And for all its dystopian elements, there’s something idealistic about a world where art, for good or ill, deeply matters. Diamond Hand may be a work in progress, but it’s a recipe for becoming obsessed with skill and perfection, chasing the world’s greatest sandwich and the string of lucky dice rolls that will get you there.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
-
Lifestyle17 minutes agoHow actress Laverne Cox became the woman of her dreams (CT+) : Consider This from NPR
-
Technology27 minutes agoThe Atlantic created a searchable database of the music used to train AI
-
World32 minutes agoKeir Starmer reportedly considering stepping down as PM and could announce timetable for departure
-
Politics39 minutes agoPope Leo sends unmistakable message on immigrants during visit honoring America’s first saint
-
Health42 minutes agoMale breast cancer survivor shares warning after unexpected diagnosis
-
Sports47 minutes agoJazz Chisholm explains why he still won’t wear a cup after fouling a pitch into his own groin
-
Technology54 minutes agoTravel mistake puts phone, laptop and streaming accounts at risk
-
Business57 minutes agoTractor-trailer crosses center divider in Irwindale, killing 1 and injuring 30
