TechPlugged

The most recognizable name in PC benchmarking is building something new, and it is betting the whole thing on path tracing. UL Solutions has confirmed that its next 3DMark GPU benchmark will be fully path-traced, a step up from the hybrid ray-tracing tests that define the current generation of graphics workloads. To mark the occasion, the company has landed a sponsor with skin in the PC game: power-supply maker Seasonic.

MOBILITYYANGOUAE Ride-HailingTECHPLUGGED.COM Ride-hailing in the UAE has quietly turned into infrastructure. Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority says public transport, shared mobility and taxis carried 802.1 million riders in 2025, and an ever-larger share of those trips now begins with a tap in an app rather than an arm raised at the curb. Mobility firm Yango has published its read on what those riders actually want — and price, it argues, is no longer the whole story.

CYBERSECURITYCLOUDSEKFrance Threat ReportTECHPLUGGED.COM France has become one of the busiest hunting grounds on the cybercriminal underground. A new report from threat-intelligence firm CloudSEK finds that France-linked activity across dark web forums, ransomware channels, and hacktivist groups has more than quadrupled over the past two years — and it is not slowing down. The numbers are stark. CloudSEK analyzed roughly 17,800 France-related threat intelligence items over 24 months.

SECURITYSYNOLOGYCloud Video SurveillanceTECHPLUGGED.COM Synology has spent nearly two decades selling boxes that sit in a closet and record video. On July 24, it decided that closet is optional. The Taiwanese company launched Surveillance365, a Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) platform that moves camera management into the cloud and promises to stand up enterprise-grade, multi-site systems in minutes rather than days.

GOVTECHSYRIADigital Tourism EcosystemTECHPLUGGED.COM Syria’s Ministry of Tourism is betting that the fastest route back into the global travel market runs through a data platform, not a hotel lobby. The ministry has signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with three Saudi technology companies — Tamkeen, Cipher and Hawaz — to build what it calls an integrated “digital tourism ecosystem,” a sweeping attempt to digitize a sector that has spent much of the past decade in survival mode.

There is a whole genre of games built on the strange satisfaction of putting things where they belong, and TV Archive Tidy Up Together wants to scale that itch up to industrial proportions. Announced this week for a late August 2026 launch on Steam, the first-person simulation drops you inside a sprawling television archive and hands you a single, faintly overwhelming job: shelve 3,180 individually numbered videotapes into their correct categories and slots.

Ford is making its pitch to Middle East sedan buyers with a new Taurus that leans harder on screens, comfort features and driver-assist tech than on brand prestige. The automaker is framing the latest generation, built on what it calls a 40-year legacy, as “smart luxury” — shorthand for premium-feeling kit without the premium sticker. The headline hardware is inside the cabin.

AUTO TECHOMODA and JAECOOAI Smart Cockpit Global DebutTECHPLUGGED.COM OMODA & JAECOO is getting ready to put an AI-powered cabin into showrooms. The Chery-owned brand says it will unveil its first mass-produced AI Smart Cockpit at “Super AI Night” in Indonesia on July 27, a debut it frames as the next step in an “intelligent mobility” strategy that it plans to roll out across global markets, the UAE among them.

ESPORTSSNAPEsports World Cup 2026TECHPLUGGED.COM Snap is making its biggest play yet for gaming’s marquee event. The company and the Esports Foundation on Thursday unveiled Snap’s largest-ever activation around the Esports World Cup (EWC), stacking augmented reality, camera tech and creator content on top of the tournament as it lands in Paris — the first time the event has been staged outside Riyadh — running July 6 through August 23.

Stocking shelves is not most people’s idea of a good time. Somehow, PC gaming keeps proving otherwise — and Mall Together, a first-person shopping mall management sim, is betting it can do it with friends. The full game launches on Steam on July 24, 2026 at 2:00 PM CEST. The pitch is straightforward: you own a small, unremarkable mall, and your job is to turn it into a sprawling retail empire.