Weekend Reads: 4 October 2026

This week’s reads cover a prison sentence for a game cheat seller in Lelystad, a look inside a Dutch price comparison service, and a court ruling that limits licence plate surveillance.

Local

Lelystad man jailed for selling GTA V cheats

A 25-year-old man from Lelystad has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for selling software that let players cheat in Grand Theft Auto V. He is said to have earned hundreds of thousands of euros from the illegal trade. The case shows that Dutch courts treat commercial cheat selling as a serious offence, not a harmless gaming prank.

Source: NU.nl Tech

How Tweakers checks 35,000 product prices by hand

The latest Tweakers vlog goes behind the scenes at Pricewatch, the price comparison service where 35,000 products are processed manually every year. The team also unpacks a batch of new Apple devices, and colleague Yannick reports from BlizzCon, where Blizzard made major announcements about Diablo 5, StarCraft and a World of Warcraft Classic Forever mode. If you use Pricewatch to compare prices before buying electronics in the Netherlands, this shows how that data is put together.

Source: Tweakers

Trump moves on AI while rules stay on hold

In his weekly Schermtijd column, NU.nl tech reporter Rutger Otto looks at how Donald Trump is trying to bend artificial intelligence to his own ends. The column argues that this is happening while clear rules for the technology are still missing.

Source: NU.nl Tech

New version of an open source ad blocker for your home network

Technitium DNS Server 15.6 is out. The open source DNS server can block ads and malware across your network and help protect your privacy, much like Pi-hole and AdGuard Home. It runs on Windows, Linux, macOS and Docker, and Tweakers describes it as easy to set up and use.

Source: Tweakers

Also in Europe

US court rules against a warrantless licence plate search

A US federal judge has ruled that a sheriff’s deputy violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights by using Flock to search for her licence plate without a warrant. The judge described Flock as “indiscriminate mass surveillance”. The ruling adds to a wider debate over automated plate tracking, which matters to anyone who follows privacy rules on both sides of the Atlantic.

Source: TechCrunch

Capcom plans for games made together with AI

Capcom says it is preparing for a “future where we create games together with AI”. At the Capcom Open Conference RE: 2026, programmer Satoshi Ishida presented the outlook for the REX Project, which is further developing the studio’s RE Engine. That contrasts with Capcom’s game Pragmata, which is about the horrors of AI.

Source: The Verge

Weekend Reads is a curated weekend digest: we summarise and link, the reporting belongs to the publications named. Something wrong or missing? Tell us.