RedOctane, a relatively new game studio started by rhythm game veterans with the mission to "to bring rhythm gaming back with more power, more precision, and a deeper connection than ever before," has officially announced its first game, Stage Tour, which is slated to release on Steam and begin alpha testing in "summer 2026," or sometime around June or July. Console support is also planned, but there have been no concrete announcements of specific platforms or release dates. Stage Tour will feature instrument designs from Gibsonβspecifically the Gibson, Epiphone, and Kramer brandsβwith whom the studio says it has a multi-year partnership to license and feature designs.
Stage Tour follows the typical note highway rhythm game style that was popularized by games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The game studio says that Stage Tour is being developed as a "love letter to rhythm gaming," and that it is meant to "feel familiar and authentic," while also evolving the genre in what it calls "the right way," by using modern technology. The announcement itself doesn't make mention of custom peripherals beyond calling out plastic instruments, but there is a FAQ page that confirms that players will be able to buy the game bundled with a Gibson Kramer guitar controller, which has been a popular design in the rhythm game spaceβit's unclear if the Kramer's hardware will be updated for the game's launch. RedOctane is also actively recruiting for music to add to the game, although it has not revealed what music will feature in Stage Tour, aside from a mention of a "variety of music around the Rock and Metal genres."
Riot Games, the developer behind massive games like League of Legends and Valorant, recently suffered a round of layoffs after the middling console launch of 2XKO, its new 2v2 fighting game. Now, just over two weeks later, the studio has confirmed to Game Developer that it has laid off "around 12" more employees, this time in its publishing division. This round of layoffs doesn't only affect a single team after an ailing launch though, with the publication reporting that three teams have been affected by the layoffs.
Riot Games has been owned by Tencent since 2015, and it was recently revealed that Tencent shuttered a newly formed studio, TiMi Montreal, which was working on AAA, open-world, cross-platform games, but had yet to release or even announce any of those games. Tencent's other hulking Chinese rival, NetEase, also recently implemented a round of layoffs at another studio that had yet to announce or release any games, and it seems like that studio may not be in it for the long haul, if the employees posting about those layoffs are to be believed.
Windrose, formerly Crosswind, is an upcoming PvE co-op pirate survival crafting game that recently made waves during the Steam Next Fest, attracting over 22,000 concurrent players during its demo period. The Discord server for the game also ballooned to well over 20,000 members, and the hype for the game's expected release date reveal was so intense that the development team felt the need to temper expectations when it released the Raging Seas trailer for IGN Fan Fest. In the announcement following the trailer release, the developer behind the game explained that the game's potential scope made it impossible to announce a realistic launch date at the time, adding that "the full EA version of the game could be several times bigger in content and scale than the demo. Like x10 islands, x10 points of interest, more ships, enemies, crafting and building, etc."
In short, the developer asked fans to "let us cook more," explaining that the priority needs to be delivering a quality experience and shipping the game "on time and in best condition possible." The message goes on to promise fans that a release date will be revealed as soon as the development team is confident that it can deliver on all of its goals without having to delay the game. Windrose combines crafting mechanics, adventures on the high seas, and Souls-like combat in an ambitious new project. The demo offered players access to three islands, a ship and crew, early quests and boarding, and a limited selection of weapons, enemies, and survival mechanics. Obviously, the game has a pretty vast scope, and it's being developed by an indie team, so it makes sense that the developers would ask players to be patient for the release date and other information.
A Guru3D forums user named "The Creator" recently shared a beta DLL file for an unannounced update to AMD's FSR upscaler. It didn't take long for users on Guru3D and Reddit to circulate mirrors and begin publishing side-by-side comparisons. The early verdict: noticeably less blur than the public release at...
Rated Ninja is an AI shopping assistant that helps you quickly find the best products across categories like kitchen gear, desk accessories, pet supplies, and fitness. Ask for what you need and receive concise, curated shortlists of top picks. Use it to compare options, narrow choices, and shop with confidence, whether you're searching for a tea kettle, cat tree, or espresso machine.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Thursday that he "cannot in good conscience accede" to the Pentagon's demands to give the military unrestricted access to its AI systems.
Marathon, the new first-person extraction shooter from Bungie is days away from launching at the time of this writing. It'll be out on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on March 5, 2026, but you can play it right now if you want to on its Server Slam Test. So far, the test seems to be going well, at least by its player numbers. On Steam, the test has so far peaked at 143,621 concurrent players, and while we'll see how players feel about the game when the test is done, one thing that's already been called out is that, [β¦]
Copilot Tasks is a new AI feature that breaks down your task, creates a step by step process to complete that task on your behalf, and checks in when it needs your goβahead.
Razer, the global leading lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the Razer Laptop Sleeve 16" with Wireless Charging for Devices, a new addition to its lifestyle accessories lineup that blends premium protection with built-in wireless power. Designed for gamers, creators, and professionals who move between setups throughout the day, the sleeve reduces the need to carry additional cables or chargers while keeping essential devices powered and protected wherever the day leads.
At the core of the Laptop Sleeve 16" are integrated wireless charging pads housed in the sleeve's cover flap. Featuring two MagSafe-compatible charging zones, the sleeve connects to an external power source via USB-C to charge multiple devices (such as a smartphone and wireless earbuds) simultaneously. Magnetic alignment helps keep devices securely in place for consistent and efficient power delivery.
Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) announces financial results for its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter and full year ended January 30, 2026. The company also provides guidance for its fiscal 2027 first quarter and full year.
Full-Year Summary
Record full-year revenue of $113.5 billion, up 19% year-over-year
Record full-year diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $8.68, up 36% year over year, and record full-year non-GAAP diluted EPS of $10.30, up 27%
Record full-year cash flow from operations of $11.2 billion
Announcing a cash dividend increase of 20% and $10 billion increase in share repurchase authorization
FY27 guidance: Full-year revenue growth of 23% at the midpoint, diluted EPS growth of 33% at the midpoint, and non-GAAP diluted EPS growth of 25% at the midpoint
The head of Intel Foundry, Kevin O'Buckley, is leaving the company to join Qualcomm. He will take on the role of Executive Vice President of Global Operations and Supply Chain at Qualcomm, effective March 2, 2026. At Qualcomm, O'Buckley will oversee global semiconductor operations, including manufacturing engineering, foundry and supplier partnerships, supply chain, and procurement. He joins after less than two years leading Intel Foundry, where he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel Foundry Services. Previous to joining Intel, O'Buckley was working at IBM, GlobalFoundries, and Marvell. At Qualcomm, he will be responsible for scaling manufacturing partnerships and overseeing how the chip designs transition into volume production.
Intel Foundry will now be led by Naga Chandrasekaran, who steps into an expanded role overseeing both technology development and manufacturing operations. As Chief Technology and Operations Officer and head of Intel Foundry, Chandrasekaran will supervise next-generation process node development, advanced packaging, test technologies, and day-to-day execution across Intel's global fabrication and assembly network. Chandrasekaran previously led front-end process technology development and manufacturing, already overseeing both the Technology Development (TD) organization and the Foundry Manufacturing and Supply Chain (FMSC) group since mid-2024. Navid Shahriari will continue to manage packaging development and operations within Intel Foundry.
Symnote is a simple symptom diary for iPhone that helps you log how you feel, track conditions and triggers, and keep health notes in one calm place. It stores data on your device and requires no account, so you stay in control. You can use clear timelines and entries to see changes over time and walk into appointments prepared.
Sandisk introduces three portable SSD models with varying speeds, durability, and security features to meet modern creative and everyday storage needs.
An older-generation flagship doesnβt diminish its prowessΒ in any way, especially when itβs the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Sure, the iPhone 17 Pro MaxΒ has effectively succeeded it, but we can all agree that if this device were available at an exceptional price, lots of customers would flock towards it. On Amazon, this hope has now turned into a reality because the Renewed Premium version of the iPhone 16 Pro Max now starts from just $825.97. And before you ask, yes, it is the unlocked version and is available in capacities of 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The iPhone 16 Pro Maxβs A18 [β¦]
Microsoft has just rolled out its Agility SDK 1.619 with major DX12 improvements such as Shader Model 6.9 & DXR 1.2. Microsoft Agility SDK Adds Shader Model 6.9, DXR 1.2, & Various DX12 Improvements: NVIDIA RTX, AMD Radeon & Intel Arc GPUs Ready In the latest Agility SDK 1.619 release, Microsoft is making three updates: Shader Model 6.9, DXR 1.2, and DX12-related improvements. The features are listed below: The biggest part of this Agility SDK release is the introduction of Shader Model 6.9, which adds four new features: Long Vector, 16-bit float Specials, 16-bit / 64-bit shader op & wave [β¦]
The memory industry has gone wild in recent times, and consumers are struggling to get their hands on modules, yet one buyer managed to get pretty lucky with his RAM purchase. Amazon Warehouse Negligence Sent a User RAM Kits Worth Ten Times More Than the Original Order Well, the retail market has pretty surprising stories for us sometimes, and most of them involve either hitting a jackpot with the refund process or relying on Amazon FBA sellers for purchases. This time, a Redditor ordered a single Corsair Vengeance 32 GB DDR5 memory module for $300, but the package he received [β¦]
Naga Chandrasekaran promoted to Chief Technology and Operations Officer as well as the general manager of Intel Foundry responsible for development of advanced process technologies and day-to-day operations.
GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.59 is said to disable one of the fans on Nvidia RTX 30-series and newer GPUs, even without third-party apps like MSI Afterburner.
Nvidia stops downloads of its newest βGame Readyβ due to fan control issues Nvidia has confirmed that it has temporarily removed downloads for its GeForce βGame Readyβ and βStudioβ 595.59 WHQL drivers. This removal is due to the discovery of a bug that is affecting some of the driverβs users. Users are reporting a loss [β¦]
I need my photos to work everywhere, not just in iCloud. The Pix-Star LUX is the best OneDrive-ready frame Iβve found, and itβs $20 off with no monthly fees.
Running With Scissors, the (in)famous creator of the POSTAL series, which has amassed millions of fans over nearly three decades, announces its first-ever spinoff title. Flesh & Wire, a dark and violent return to POSTAL's original theme and setting, will arrive on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and GOG in 2027, as revealed in the IGN Fan Fest showcase.
Join forces with Angel, a seemingly normal college student suddenly swept up in a fever dream of conspiracy, blood, and vengeance. Along with her loyal sphinx cat Solomon, Angel runs afoul of the law, military, and an ominous cult. Discover the truth about her connection to the events of the first POSTAL game - and seek revenge on the series' protagonist, a man dubbed the Postal Dude.
The build-up for Bungie's new survival extraction shooter, Marathon, may be coming to its peak ahead of the upcoming server slam event and imminent launch in the following week. The new game has built up so much hype ahead of the play test that Marathon has officially blown past all of its similar competition in the Steam bestsellers chart. At the time of writing, Marathon sits in third place in Steam's official chart, which ranks game sales based on revenue earned. To reach that, it had to climb 58 places in the last week alone, surpassing both Arc Raiders and the ever-popular Warframe.
SteamDB reports that Marathon is the 35th most wishlisted game, which may not sound like a lot, but it also reveals that over 10,000 people have added Marathon to their wishlists in the last seven days. If Marathon continues on its trajectory, it will have come a long way since its early 2025 lukewarm reception, which resulted in a delay from its original September release date to March 5. Players will be able to test Marathon in an upcoming server slam event on February 26-March 2.
NVIDIA has officially pulled its latest GeForce 595.59 WHQL Game Ready driver from the downloads page as user reports of stability issues continue to pile up. Reportedly, users are experiencing fan detection issues on their GPU coolers, with only a single fan working. Some issues like clock stability have also occurred. On NVIDIA's official GeForce Forums, users have been complaining about driver stability, and the company has advised users to roll back the driver version to the previously stable 591.86 WHQL driver if they are experiencing any symptoms. The GeForce 595.59 WHQL Game Ready driver was launched as an optimization package to get Resident Evil Requiem and Marathon games running smoothly, which turned into a disaster that the community has reported.
NVIDIAFebruary 26th, 11am PT Update: We have discovered a bug in the Game Ready and Studio 595.59 WHQL drivers and have removed the downloads temporarily while our team investigates. For users that have already installed this driver, and are experiencing issues with fan control, please roll back to 591.86 WHQL. NVIDIA app users can reinstall their previous driver by clicking the three dots in the Drivers tab.
Microsoft today released DirectX Shader Model 6.9 alongside a host of new Direct3D 12 enhancements. The company had been previewing SM 6.9 since 2025, which now attains general release. Microsoft released the update as part of Agility SDK 1.619 and the complementary DirectX Shader Compiler (DXC) version 1.9.2602.16. The company also released Agility SDK 1.719-preview, which introduces a fresh set of experimental features. At the heart of the Agility SDK 1.619 release is Shader Model 6.9, bringing powerful new processing tools to graphics developers. A standout new feature is "Long Vector" support, allowing developers to load, store, and seamlessly perform element-wise operations on HLSL vectors up to 1024 elements in length. The update also extends specialized HLSL functions, such as IsNan, IsInf, and the newly added IsNorma, to fully support 16-bit floats. Lastly, previously optional hardware capabilities, like 16-bit and 64-bit shader operations, are now strictly required.
Besides Shader Model upgrades, some key DirectX ray tracing (DXR) 1.2 features are officially exiting preview, such as OMM and SER. Opacity Micromaps (OMMs) enable hardware to handle complex alpha-tested geometry far more efficiently, bypassing costly shader invocations. The feature was announced way back in 2022 with NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace architecture. Meanwhile, Shader Execution Reordering (SER) empowers applications to dynamically sort rays for highly optimized parallel execution. Microsoft has directly addressed developer feedback by integrating several targeted quality-of-life updates. Highlights include Revised Resource View Creation API, as well as new CPU Timeline Query Resolves that eliminate unnecessary GPU overhead. The table below compares hardware support for Shader Model 6.9 across the three GPU brands.
During this week's State of the Union address, Trump said he negotiated with leading artificial intelligence companies to establish a "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" aimed at shielding American households from rising electricity costs. The president did not identify the participating companies by name, but sources close to the administration say that...
Amazon recently emailed some of its users to explain that its list feature is about to undergo a significant change. The message, sent to users with a publicly shared list and a delivery address on file, stated that purchases from third-party sellers will no longer be restricted.
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new botnet loader called Aeternum C2 that uses a blockchain-based command-and-control (C2) infrastructure to make it resilient to takedown efforts.
"Instead of relying on traditional servers or domains for command-and-control, Aeternum stores its instructions on the public Polygon blockchain," Qrator Labs said in a report shared with The
With the Australian Grand Prix around the corner, Apple TV is readying its formal launch of broadcasting Formula 1 in the US, with multi-camera angles, and Eddy Cue teasing "this will be the highest quality."
It's pretty safe to say that the video game industry has been in a weird place for several years now, but for Christofer Sundberg, who has been at this for a long time, the state of the video game industry is in an unprecedentedly poor place. Founder of Avalanche Studios and creator of Just Cause, Sundberg is getting ready to release his next major game with his new studio he founded in 2020, Liquid Swords, which'll release Samson: A Tyndalston Story this coming April 8, 2026. Ahead of Sundberg and Liquid Swords showing off their new title and announcing its [β¦]
Samson: A Tyndalston Story, the debut project from Liquid Swords, the team founded by Avalanche Studios (that's the Just Cause and Mad Max people, not the Hogwarts Legacy studio Avalanche Software) founder, Christofer Sundberg, finally has a release date. It'll arrive on PC first on April 8, 2026. After being founded in 2020, the studio is now only weeks away from releasing its debut title, six years later. The game stars Samson McCray, a classic tough guy and driver who returns to his home town of Tyndalston with a heavy debt to pay on his shoulders. He'll have to take [β¦]
Back in 2020, Christofer Sundberg, founder of Avalanche Studios, revealed what he would be doing with the next chapter of his career after selling Avalanche with the announcement of Liquid Swords. Six years later, the studio is weeks away from its debut game, Samson: A Tyndalston Story. It's not too dissimilar to the kinds of games that Sundberg's Avalanche was known for. Like Just Cause and Mad Max, they both star a certain flavour of tough guy. The latter was also cited in a preview presentation I attended last week, with the emphasis on car combat in Samson connecting it [β¦]
All the way back in 2020, Christofer Sundberg, the founder of Avalanche Studios, established a new video game studio after taking some time off once he left Avalanche after it was acquired in 2018. That studio was (is) Liquid Swords, a new studio that, six years since its founding, is inching towards releasing its debut project: Samson: A Tyndalston Story. Last week, ahead of Liquid Swords announcing Samson's April 8, 2026, release date, I got to spend some time hearing from Sundberg and the development team about Samson before going hands-on with the game myself. I also got to ask [β¦]
The beginning of a new calendar year in the video game industry has, unfortunately, once again been marked by mass layoffs and studio shutdowns. And while last year was kicked off by a brand new free-to-play game becoming a smash success, this year is marked by the exact opposite. Highguard, the latest free-to-play game on the market from former Apex Legends developers at Wildlight Entertainment, is the first major misfire of 2026. After it was debuted at The Game Awards 2025, a lot was said online about a game that no one had played, while Wildlight kept its head down, [β¦]
NVIDIA's latest GPU driver update, which focused on optimizations for Resident Evil Requiem, has been pulled back after Team Green found a bug that had bothered several gamers. NVIDIA's Latest GPU Driver Update Brought In Black Screens, Performance Loss & Several Troubles For Gamers NVIDIA's consumer GPU segment hasn't been seeing the best of times lately, given the ongoing memory shortages. On the software front, the company might have pulled off a blunder. With the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver v595.59 released today, the primary focus has been on the latest Resident Evil release, including support for DLSS 4 MFG [β¦]
A team of researchers discovered that they can break cryptographic client isolation on a number of wireless routers by taking advantage of how Wi-Fi networks work.
Early access to AMD Radeon Software's "Vanguard" driver testing program has reportedly revealed a new Radeon FSR 4.1 DLL file, which is the next update for AMD's FSR 4 technology. According to the latest leak, AMD is preparing the FSR 4.1 update, which should bring some visual or performance enhancements, or both. Some Reddit PC enthusiasts are applying workarounds to run the file on RDNA 3 hardware, even though AMD officially doesn't support FSR 4 on the RDNA 3 generation due to some missing instructions on the older microarchitecture. Running these files can produce visible quality gains but are experimental, varying widely by title and system setup. Even when a leaked DLL carries a digital signature, running unofficial binaries can trigger instability, break driver integrity checks, or conflict with future official updates.
However, the enthusiast community has run the experiment and confirms that early side-by-side comparisons show small improvements in fine detail and edge definition when the leaked FSR 4.1 binary is forced into titles that previously used FSR 4.0.3. Testers describe sharper foliage and fabric textures and less ghosting. Other users report inconsistent results and artifacts, suggesting that the update is still a work in progress. We could have expected the update to land alongside AMD Software Adrenalin 26.2.2 WHQL drivers that launched today, as the DLL file was found in the beta test of the 26.2.2 driver, but since the update is still experimental, maybe the next Adrenalin update will bring the FSR 4.1 update as an official package.
Quantic Dream today opens a new chapter as Spellcasters Chronicles enters Early Access on Steam, now available to players worldwide. Spellcasters Chronicles is a free-to-play, 3v3 team-based action strategy game built around aerial combat and strategic deckbuilding. Players wield the power to soar across the battlefield, cast devastating spells, and summon powerful creatures and Titans to shift the tide of the battle.
The game's Early Access represents an open Workshop, a collaborative space where players are invited to actively shape the evolution of the game alongside the development team as a living, evolving experience shaped by community feedback. Unlike previous Closed Beta tests focused on performance work and technical stability, this phase shifts the focus toward gameplay depth, balance iteration, progression systems, and long-term feature development.
Aside from its recent side-quests, like the new K2 HE Concrete and Resin Editions, Keychron has been updating its Q- and V-series mechanical keyboards with the new Ultra designs, featuring new ZMK firmware and Silk POM switches, and the latest installments in that series are the V10 Ultra and the V0 Ultra, which have just been released with those same enhancements. The Keychron V10 Ultra, an Alice layout mechanical keyboard, retails at $124.99, while the V0 Ultra, a standalone wireless mechanical num pad, is launching at $69.99. Being part of the V-series means that both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra are made of ABS plastic, and, being part of the Ultra family means they will both feature 8K pollingβalthough the usefulness of this is debatable on a mechanical keyboard. The V0 Ultra is a standard num pad with a row of four macro or navigation keys above the 10-key portion and a column of five macro keys to the left of it. It also has a programmable knob in the top left corner.
The Keychron V10 Ultra 8K features a 75% Alice layout, which is meant to improve ergonomics by allowing users to angle their hands inwards, opening up the chest and shoulders, and it has an additional column of macro keys and a programmable knob along the left edge of the keyboard. Both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra have south-facing per-key RGB backlighting, and the V10 Ultra has a claimed 660 hours of battery life from a 4,000 mAh battery on 2.4 GHz with the backlighting disabled. The V0 Ultra packs a smaller 1,800 mAh battery but still claims up to 360 hours of battery life with the backlighting disabled. Both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra feature double-shot PBT keycaps in the OSA profile, and they are available with Keychron Silk POM Red linear, Brown tactile, and Banana tactile switch options. Both keyboards are also hot-swappable with any Cherry MX-style switches. Both of the new releases also use poron gasket mounts, which help reduce negative auditory feedback and soften the typing feel. Both the keyboard and the num pad also offer Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C wired, and 2.4 GHz connectivity.
AMD today released the latest version of AMD Software Adrenalin drivers for AMD Radeon GPUs and integrated graphics solutions. Version 26.2.2 WHQL comes with optimization for "Resident Evil: Requiem" and "Marathon." The drivers fix an intermittent application crash or driver timeout when playing "Roblox Player" in the Car Zone Racing and Drifting, when task-switching on machines with Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs. A texture flickering or corruption issue noticed on Windows applications with Instant Replay and Record Desktop enabled on machines with RX 7000 series GPUs has also been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.
Tech-savvy fans quickly spotted the change on social platforms, including Bluesky Social PBC, where a user named Cevian shared archived evidence of the earlier policy version. According to the company's website, the revision dates to January 14, 2026. The deleted section β Section 1, Subsection XVIII β had previously stated...
A newly published study highlights how a quick and simple blood test may help physicians provide a more accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Led by Jordi A. Matias-Guiu, a neurologist at Hospital ClΓnico San Carlos in Madrid, the study reevaluates the significance of a well-known biomarker in detecting neurodegenerative conditions...
Manifest routes your AI requests to the most cost-effective model while keeping scoring on your machine. It intercepts each query, evaluates it locally in under 2 ms, and sends it to the right model to reduce costs and avoid overusing large models. You can track spending with a dashboard for costs, tokens, and alerts. Manifest exports telemetry via OpenTelemetry, offers a native OpenClaw plugin for quick installation, and is fully open source, allowing you to inspect, extend, or self-host.
A group of privacy advocates and open-source leaders has signed an open letter urging Google to reverse its plans for mandatory developer verification, arguing the changes pose a physical threat to activists and developers.
La Liga's aggressive anti-piracy blocking has led to a series of overblocking incidents when football matches are aired. Spaniards have been turning to VPNs to navigate recurring outages, but questions remain about the approach remain.
Sony has officially announced the next batch of PlayStation Plus games for March 2026, which includes Monster Hunter Rise, PGA Tour 2K25, The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road, and Slime Rancher 2.
Apple's March event takes place next week with new products, which means it's a great time to find deals on existing models β here are today's 12 best deals.
New research reveals a growing appetite for "AI immortalityβ among younger generations β even as experts warn the technology canβt truly recreate a human mind.
Users who are part of the test can type "DM me" or "Message me" in a post or reply to automatically generate a hyperlink that invites others to start a private conversation with them.
Don't have the PC to play CAPCOM's new Resident Evil Requiem game, but you'd really love to experience it anyway? If you have a solid Internet connection (and live in a supported region of the world), NVIDIA can give you the chance through its GeForce NOW cloud platform, and they're also bundling the game with new 12-month Ultimate memberships. For the record, a year-long GeForce NOW Ultimate subscription sets you back $199.99, but the game itself is $70, which you'd be saving if you were planning on buying it anyway. With GeForce NOW Ultimate, you'd have access to nearly all [β¦]
Google DeepMind is rolling out Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image), its latest image generation model, combining Nano Banana Proβs intelligence and production controls with Gemini Flashβs speed.
Whatβs new. Nano Banana 2 introduces:
Advanced world knowledge: Powered by Geminiβs real-time web grounding to render specific subjects more accurately and generate infographics or data visualizations.
Precision text rendering and translation: Cleaner, legible in-image text, including localization.
Stronger instruction adherence: Better handling of complex, multi-layered prompts.
Subject consistency: Maintains up to five characters and 14 objects in a single workflow.
Production-ready outputs: Supports aspect ratios and resolutions from 512px to 4K.
Enhanced visual fidelity: Sharper detail, richer textures, and more dynamic lighting.
The rollout. Nano Banana 2 is launching across Googleβs ecosystem, including Google Ads, Gemini app, Search AI Mode and Lens, and more.
Why we care. Nano Banana 2 helps you produce high-quality, production-ready images faster and at scale, cutting creative time and cost. With stronger text rendering, better subject consistency, 4K-ready outputs, and direct integration into Google Ads and Gemini, you can generate, launch, test, and iterate campaign assets in minutes instead of days.
Bottom line. With Nano Banana 2, you get speed, reasoning, and production-ready visuals in one default model.
ChatGPTβs emerging ad ecosystem is gaining momentum with more brands appearing, clearer trigger patterns, and evolving ad placements, according to AI ad intelligence firm Adthena.
Whatβs happening. After identifying the first advertisers inside ChatGPT last week, Adthena now reports a clear ramp-up in advertiser participation and ad delivery behavior.
Advertisers spotted so far:
Best Buy
AT&T
Pottery Barn
Enterprise
Qualcomm
Expedia
How ads are triggering. Based on a sample of 1,500+ prompts analyzed over the past week:
Most ads appear on the first prompt.
Some only trigger on the third or fourth repetition of the same query.
High-intent modifiers like βbestβ and βnewβ appear to carry significant weight.
Example prompts include:
βI am going to buy a new phone. What is the best phone?β
βI need a new phone.β
βI need to buy a new desk, whatβs best?β
Between the lines. Keyword triggers appear relatively simple, focused on strong commercial intent rather than nuanced emotional language. In one example, Best Buy secured two ad placements in a single response for iPhone-related queries, signaling early experimentation with positioning and share of voice.
Why we care. As ChatGPT advertising scales, understanding trigger behavior β even at a basic keyword level β will be critical if youβre testing this new platform.
Spotted. Adthena CMO Ashley Fletcher shared the results of the competing ChatGPT ads, posting screenshots on LinkedIn.
If you head to Tools β Planning in Google Ads, chances are youβre clicking into Keyword Planner. Most advertisers stop there.Β
But two other planners sit in the same menu β often overlooked β that can directly influence how you forecast budgets, model performance shifts, and scale campaigns. Performance Planner and Reach Planner offer deeper insight into how spend changes affect your key metrics across channels.
Hereβs a practical breakdown of how each tool works and when to use them to forecast growth more accurately.
Why Performance Planner matters for scaling search and display
Performance Planner helps you model how metrics could change if you adjust ad spend across Search or Display.
Instead of reacting to performance, you can forecast how budget shifts may influence conversions, CPA, and overall spend before you make changes.
Performance Planner can be especially useful if youβre looking to forecast data or scale an account. It provides projections for existing campaigns based on prospective budget changes.
These forecasts are typically refreshed daily and are based on the last 7-10 days of data.
A more recent addition to the Performance Planner home screen is Suggested plans. Google indicates the potential impact of raising specific budgets or bids without requiring you to build a full plan.
How to create a new performance plan
To create a new plan, click Create new plan at the bottom of the page.
From there, a pop-up screen allows you to set the timeframe, dates, and channel. If multiple channels are represented in your account, youβll see more than one option.Β
You can also select key metrics, including specific conversion goals, as well as a CPA, conversion, or ad spend target. Finally, choose the campaigns you want included in the plan.
Only eligible campaigns will appear. Google may propose a $0 budget for certain campaigns if it determines they arenβt efficient enough to justify continued spend.
Before building a plan, itβs important to understand which campaigns qualify.
Campaign eligibility and limitations to know
Eligibility criteria vary based on the channel a campaign runs on. Here are some of the requirements for Search and Shopping campaigns.
Search campaigns
Bid strategy: Uses manual cost-per-click (CPC), enhanced CPC, max clicks, max conversions, max conversion value, target return on ad spend (ROAS), target cost-per-action (CPA) bidding strategies, or target impression share bidding strategies. Have not changed bid strategies in the last 7 days.
Run time: Have been running for at least 72 hours.
Recent clicks: Have received at least 3 clicks in the last 7 days.
Conversion minimum: Have received at least 3 conversions in the last 7 days.
Budget: Have a Search lost IS (budget) of less than 5% over the last 10 days (target impression share campaigns only).
Shopping campaigns (Standard)
Bid strategy: Campaign isnβt part of a portfolio bid strategy.
Run time: Have been active each day with a minimum spend of $10 USD or more in the last 10 days.
Impression minimum: Have received at least 100 impressions in the last 7 days.
Conversion minimum: Have received at least 10 conversions and/or conversion values in the last 10 days.
Budget: Campaign doesnβt have a status of βLimited by Budget.β Target ROAS standard shopping campaigns (only) have a Search lost IS (budget) of less than 5% over the last 10 days. A campaign with a shared budget is eligible only if all campaigns in the shared budget use a single Merchant Center account.
This is an example of what a Performance Planner plan looks like.
Performance Planner is especially effective for advertisers with existing campaigns who want KPI projections. If youβd like to learn more, visit Googleβs support documentation.
Why Reach Planner is different from Performance Planner
As a complement to Performance Planner, Reach Planner is designed to estimate reach, views, and conversions across video campaigns.Β
Itβs updated weekly based on βGoogleβs Unique Reach Methodology.β This means Google uses modeled third-party data to estimate the potential reach and scale of video campaigns.
Reach Planner is useful for account managers forecasting how a video campaign may perform at scale. It projects three primary metrics: unique reach, views, and conversions.Β
These forecasts can help determine how to allocate YouTube ad spend across campaigns. Reach Planner also provides detailed reach, demographic, and device insights when planning new video initiatives.
As with the other planners, youβll find Reach Planner under Tools β Planning. If youβre unable to access it, you may need to contact your Google account manager.
When creating a new campaign plan, youβll be asked to select your location, currency, and whether you want to build a plan for YouTube or YouTube and Linear TV.Β
Next, select your dates, demographics, sublocations, audiences, devices, and frequency caps.
You can choose In-Market, Affinity, Remarketing, Custom, and Lookalike segments while building your plan.
The next step is selecting the type of YouTube campaign you want to include.
A newer Reach Planner feature provides forecasts for a mix of video campaign types, called advanced plans.
This is an example of what a completed plan may look like after selections are made:
Reach Planner is extremely useful and often underutilized when planning current or future video ad spend.
If youβre interested in learning more, you can complete the Reach Planner learning modules on Skillshop.
When to use each planner in your workflow
The Performance Planner and Reach Planner are powerful, often underutilized tools in Google Ads for account managers managing budgets and scaling performance.
Performance Planner forecasts the impact of budget changes across Search and Display, while Reach Planner provides audience and performance projections for YouTube video campaigns.
Used together, they help advertisers move beyond basic keyword planning and make more data-driven decisions about budget allocation and growth.
Intelβs newest driver is a must for Resident Evil Requiem! Intel has just released its ARC Graphics 32.0.101.8531 driver for Windows, giving ARC GPU users access to a variety of new optimisations that promise significant performance gains in specific PC games. This driverβs highlights include significant performance gains for Resident Evil Requiem, which releases tomorrow, [β¦]
Blizzard Entertainment has announced that entries are open for the BlizzCon 2026 Community Night contests. Here are the details of how you can join these contests and potentially win huge cash prizes
Countless Army, the indie gem from Dos Estrellas has finally launched on Xbox and it is inviting players to tackle the other side of the tower defense genre. Send hordes of undead minions to topple towers and donβt let puny defenses stop you on your path to victory.
Despite recent concerns about driver updates, Lenovo's Legion Go has been a staple in the handheld gaming space since it launched, thanks to a large 8.8-inch display and the detachable controllers. Still, that large display can't compete with devices like the 11-inch OneXPlayer 2-in-1 devices as a portable general computing device. A new foldable Legion Go concept, leaked by Windows Latest, may be in development to potentially address users who want a handheld that can pull double duty as a handheld gaming device and a laptop. According to the leak, the Legion Go Fold will use a foldable POLED display that unfolds from a 7.7-inch form factor to 11.6-inches. The controllers will also allegedly connect wirelessly, enabling the display to be used in 7.7-inch mode in landscape mode or in either portrait or landscape mode while attached to the controllers in 11.7-inch modeβsuch a portrait mode display could conceivably be split to function somewhat like a Nintendo DS. Of course, there will also be a detachable keyboard accessory to use the Legion Go Fold as a mini laptop in 11.7-inch mode.
The specifications for the Legion Go Fold will also be nothing to sneeze at, featuring an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 32 GB of memory, and a 48 Wh battery. Lenovo will also keep the vertical FPS mode from the Legion Go and Legion Go 2 for the Legion Go Fold Concept. While the Legion Go Fold may launch as nothing more than a concept, Lenovo is one of a few laptop makers that brings these foldable compute concepts to market, with recent examples of this including the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. So it's not entirely impossible that Lenovo will bring something like a Legion Go Fold to market at some point. That said, it would be a niche within a niche, so it doesn't seem entirely likely that we will see a commercial version of the foldable handheld at any point soon. Regardless, Lenovo will allegedly show off the concept at MWC 2026 on March 2, 2026.
Awekeys, one of very few companies making metal keycaps for mechanical keyboards, has just announced the Awekeys Air as its latest addition to the line-up. The Awekeys Air keycaps are low-profile keycaps designed for slim mechanical keyboards, like the Iqunix Magi65 Pro, NuPhy Air series, and even split ergonomic keyboards, like the ZSA Voyager and MoErgo Go60. The Awekeys Air series is available for both cross stemsβfor Choc V2 and Gateron switchesβand Choc V1 stems, which are common on niche low-profile split keyboards, and Early Bird Kickstarter pricing starts at $109 for a 68-key DIY kit, $139 for a 95-key 80% Base kit, and $159 for a 113-key 100% kit. These prices are only for the Ivory White and Obsidian Black, with the Titanium Black and Satin Copper coming in slightly more expensive and the limited edition Satin Silver and Satin Gold costing as much as $249 for the 80% Base kit. These prices will also increase when the keycaps hit retail. The Kickstarter campaign lists MSRP of the Ivory White and Obsidian Black 100% kit colorways as $249, but keyboards and accessories often cost less than anticipated when moving from a Kickstarter to regular retail.
The Awekeys Air keycaps come in six different colorsβTitanium Black, Ivory White, Obsidian Black, Satin Copper, Satin Silver, and Satin Goldβand Awekeys is offering a hand-finished brush finish on the Gold, Silver, Copper, and Titanium colorways. The keycaps themselves are made from a recycled alloy called cupronickel, which is predominantly copper and nickel, which resists corrosion, offers some anti-microbial benefits, and is considered low allergy riskβalthough you may want to avoid it if you have a known nickel allergy. The keycaps are also available with legends or as blanks, and the profile has a uniform height with spherical tops and a total height of 5 mm.
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO), a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, today announced it has begun shipping the industry's first 2 nm custom compute SoC built on its 3.5D eXtreme Dimension System in Package (XDSiP) platform. A proven modular, multi-dimensional stacked die platform, 3.5D XDSiP combines 2.5D techniques and 3D-IC integration using Face-to-Face (F2F) technology.
3.5D XDSiP is foundational to next-generation XPUs. With 3.5D XDSiP, consumer AI customers can deliver the most advanced XPU with unparalleled signal density, superior power efficiency and low latency to meet the massive computational demands of gigawatt-scale AI clusters. Broadcom's XDSiP platform allows compute, memory and network I/O to scale independently in a compact form factor, enabling high-efficiency, low-power computing at scale.
NVIDIA today released its latest GeForce 595.59 WHQL Game Ready driver, adding day-one support for Resident Evil Requiem and Marathon. The update also addresses several gaming-related issues, particularly affecting GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs. Fixes include intermittent black bar flickering in The Ascent, green artifacts in Total War: Three Kingdoms, and crash issues in Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age following recent driver updates. NVIDIA also resolved image corruption problems in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and a significant performance drop in Act 4 Part 1 of Quantum Break.
On the general fixes side, the 595.59 driver resolves an AV1 decode crash affecting certain workflows in Blackmagic Design applications when handling multiple OBUs (Open Bitstream Unit) within a single packet.
Update 20:38 UTC: NVIDIA has pulled its GeForce 595.59 WHQL driver after users reported stability problems, including faulty fan detection leaving GPU coolers running on a single fan and clock speed issues. The company is pointing affected users back to the previous 591.86 WHQL release for now.
Researchers and developers working with large language models say these structural quirks introduce subtle but significant errors. An AI that reads lines strictly from left to right may stumble over multi-column scientific papers or misinterpret footers as part of the main text. These parsing issues can cascade into so-called "hallucinations,"...
The company has specifically declined requests that would allow its models to be used in areas such as mass domestic surveillance or lethal autonomous weapons systems β applications in which systems could operate without meaningful human oversight when making final targeting decisions.
The initiative is intended to demonstrate compliance with the European Union's Digital Markets Act, a sweeping set of competition rules that took effect last year. Regulators in Brussels allege that Google's search engine gives undue prominence to its own travel and hospitality services, limiting user exposure to competing vertical search...
DemoPolish takes your rough screen recordings and turns them into clean, narrated demo videos. Upload a walkthrough of your product, and it rephrases your narration into a clear, concise script and records a professional AI voiceover. The whole process takes under 60 seconds with no video editing, no re-recording, and no timeline to learn.
It's built for founders who keep re-recording the same demo because the explanation came out wrong. Instead of spending an hour getting one good take, you record once β messy is fine β and let DemoPolish handle the rest. Upload, polish, download.
Throb is a platform for the queer community to meet, chat, and organize with privacy at the core. Share expiring, screenshot-protected photos in private albums, express yourself with detailed kink profiles and preferences, and control your visibility with incognito browsing and status settings. Stay safe with real-time location sharing when meeting up, and keep the conversation going with read receipts, expiring photos, and group chats for friends and communities you care about.
A previously undocumented threat activity cluster has been attributed to an ongoing malicious campaign targeting education and healthcare sectors in the U.S. since at least December 2025.
The campaign is being tracked by Cisco Talos under the moniker UAT-10027. The end goal of the attacks is to deliver a never-before-seen backdoor codenamed Dohdoor.
"Dohdoor utilizes the DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH)
Nothing here looks dramatic at first glance. Thatβs the point. Many of this weekβs threats begin with something ordinary, like an ad, a meeting invite, or a software update.
Behind the scenes, the tactics are sharper. Access happens faster. Control is established sooner. Cleanup becomes harder.
Here is a quick look at the signals worth paying attention to.
AI-powered command
Machine Games has reportedly released a casting call for an unannounced project, and it sounds like it could be attached to the studio's next Wolfenstein game.
Tim Cookβs βbig week aheadβ tease hints that Apple will drop several new iPads, Macs β possibly a low-cost MacBook β and a new iPhone 17e before its March 4 showcase.
The U.S. government and its allies said hackers have been exploiting the newly identified bug in Cisco networking gear around the world for years, and urged organizations to patch.
A group of well-known open source programmers and a VC have launched the Open Source Endowment. They hope this new method will provide funding for good.
X has launched an expanded set of aspect ratio support for both image and video ads, so advertisers can now reuse assets they've created for other platforms.
Over the past few years, plenty of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 exclusive games have made their way to PC, including tentpole franchises like The Last of Us, Marvel's Spider-Man, Horizon, and God of War. However, there is a chance that in the future, only PlayStation live service games will launch on PC. Noted journalist Jason Schreier has suggested that traditional single-player experiences may remain console exclusives for the foreseeable future. Speaking on the latest episode of the Triple Click podcast, the Bloomberg journalist commented on SIEβs strategy moving forward: "I think for them, their strategy is like, live service [β¦]
After the massive flop that was 2024's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the whole industry could feel that Warner Bros' games division was not in a good place. So when we learned that Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and San Diego Studio had all been shut down just two months into 2025, it was upsetting, especially in the case of Monolith, but we couldn't exactly call it surprising, even if Hogwarts Legacy continued to sell like gangbusters. What followed was a major reorganization of how Warner Bros. would approach games, focusing in on four verticals: Harry Potter, Game of [β¦]
The fastest gaming CPU can deliver much higher FPS than any Intel CPU in the latest Resident Evil title, but percentile FPS show a different story. AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D Pushes Resident Evil Requiem Past 300 FPS With RTX 5090, Beating Core i9 14900KS by Over 100 FPS Resident Evil Requiem launches tomorrow, and fans can't wait to see how the game runs on their current hardware. We have also published our optimization guide for the game, which will help you achieve the best performance with your current hardware. That said, while the developers recommend just an RTX 2060 or [β¦]
Remedy has delivered a new update for Alan Wake Remastered on PC, and it is arguably one of the most significant updates the game has received in a long time, because this update finally adds HDR to the PC version. The addition of HDR is the big highlight, but it's not the only one in terms of visuals and some much-needed quality of life updates. For speedrunners and anyone who simply loves the game and is playing it again for the umpteenth time, you can now skip the intro cutscene to get into the game faster. Not that Alan Wake [β¦]
A new AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme GPU update for the Asus ROG Ally has alleviated some concern about its deprecation, although some questions remain about its longevity.
Corsair's Sabre v2 Pro Wireless CF is an ultra-lightweight wireless mouse made of carbon fiber. It works well and comes with a fancy carrying case, but it also costs $200.
The last year has had many of us trying to understand how to report on AI visibility and understand what it takes to be seen and cited by AI.
But Rand Fishkinβs latest study on AI response variability has emphasized that LLM outputs arenβt as stable and predictable as search rankings, making this KPI an inconsistent piece of the puzzle.
The study found thereβs less than a 1 in 100 chance that ChatGPT or Google AI will return the same list of brands across two responses. They analyzed thousands of prompts across multiple LLMs to highlight just how varied they are.
This has left some of the SEO community questioning the value of rank tracking at scale. But, rank tracking is far from useless. Itβs just misapplied.
AI response tracking is an unstable performance KPI in its current state, but it becomes extremely powerful when used as an analysis tool to inform content strategy.
Letβs take a look at why you should still be investing in prompt tracking and how it can be used to inform your content strategy.
Why AI visibility tracking is unstable (for now)
LLMs arenβt deterministic ranking engines. Theyβre probabilistic language models that can gather and synthesize information from their own training data or live searches. These models use context windows and understanding of intent to serve different answers at any moment.
Weβve seen that responses change based on the prompts, and we know that the same question can be written in so many different ways, which opens the door for your CMO to question why youβre not showing up for a specific prompt when they just saw your brand mentioned or cited.
Tracking visibility remains an area of uncertainty until thereβs greater clarity on user prompting. But itβs still valuable.
If prompt response tracking isnβt a stable KPI, then what is it? Itβs pattern analysis, something SEOs are very familiar with.
Instead of only focusing on whether or not you are cited or listed, you should be trying to understand:
In traditional SEO, we reverse engineer whatβs already ranking.Β With AI search, we can apply the same thinking by reverse engineering the patterns we see in results.Β
Traditional SEO
AI pattern analysis
Measures rankings
Understanding concept synthesis
Content gap analysis
Topic associations
Fixed results (SERPs)
Dynamic responses
Determined signals
Probability-based responses
Analyzing prompt response patterns can help us understand how models synthesize concepts, and not just from the technical level, but at the content level.Β
To define a pattern, youβre not looking for exact response consistency. Youβre understanding the structure, themes, and recurring topics.Β
Each LLM model formats its outputs differently, but patterns can still emerge in the structures, despite differences in retrieval methods and how each one functions.
I define a pattern by:
It appears in 75% or more of outputs.
Appears in two different AI models (Like GPT vs. Gemini).
Similarities across multiple iterations of the same prompt.
The 75% goal felt consistent enough for my sample sizes to highlight a strong pattern versus just randomness. How you define this is truly up to you. Thereβs no statistical significance in this number.
You can adjust this based on your content and space, but for me, this has been the best way to spot consistency over noise.Β
So, say the theme of βpricing transparencyβ appears in 9 out of 12 responses and across two AI models, thatβs not randomness. Thatβs semantic relevance, and thatβs insight.Β
The framework
To test this out for yourself, you need a framework that breaks down what youβre looking for.Β
You can break it out into three types of patterns:
Structural patterns.
Conceptual patterns.
Entity patterns.
Structural patterns
This is where you focus on how the response is organized. Youβre looking for:
Header/section frequency.
List formatting consistency.
Order or steps.
Pro/con framing.Β
Comparison tables.
Decision frameworks.
These signals can help show how models organize topics.Β
For example, if the outputs for your prompt show:
Definition > Criteria > Tools > Implementation.
Thatβs a structural pattern. You can leverage this to understand what might be helpful to your user, but AI isnβt always right. This is just another tool to identify patterns and decide how it applies to your content.
Conceptual patterns
These will vary based on your topic focus, but think about the concepts you are targeting. These can be harder to plan for and sometimes take a bit of analysis to start seeing the patterns.Β
For me, Iβm focused on βBest domain registrarsβ as an example, and Iβm looking for:
So if I start seeing that renewal prices are commonly discussed across models and variations of this prompt, that signals to me that I need to pay attention to how I frame and discuss it in my articles and product pages.Β
These conceptual patterns help you understand what these models are associated with decision-making.Β
Entity patterns
This is where you can view the tools, brands, and other mentions that appear in responses, regardless of their order.Β
This might look like:
Brand mentions.
Tool mentions.
Feature to brand association.
Category positioning.
Cited sources.
In practice, youβd pay attention to how certain features appear with specific brands, or which sites are commonly cited. This helps you evaluate your positioning and identify opportunities with affiliate partners or third-party sites, including which sites you work with and how your brand is positioned on them.
You donβt have to invest in prompt-tracking tools to do this, though they make it easier. I handle it manually. Itβs not perfect, but it works.
If you canβt involve multiple team members, adapt the structure to fit your resources. You may need to track over a longer period or lower your pattern threshold. Instead of 75% consistency, you might set it at 60%.
Step 1: Select and cluster your prompts
Identify three priority topics you want to track. For each of those topics, come up with 3-5 versions of prompts that would align with that topic.
For example, one of my priority topics is finding a domain registrar, so this cluster for me includes:
How do I register a domain name?
How can I get a domain name?
Where can I buy a domain?
Step 2: Set up your tracking sheet
Youβll need a place to track the responses, like an old-fashioned spreadsheet with the following columns:
Prompt
LLM
Web Search? Y/N
Date
Response
Sources (If Applicable)
Is My Brand Mentioned?
In the LLM column, note the platform and model to help control for when new versions are released.
This is just to start gathering your data. When you know what patterns to look for, add those to the sheet. Consider using Claude or ChatGPT to help with the analysis, so you donβt have to do everything manually.
Step 3: Create a tracking plan and start tracking
To do this effectively, you need to define:
Which models you want to track.
Whether search mode is on or off, or left to the model to decide.
How many times you want to run each prompt on each model.
What frequency you want to track.
Itβs also helpful to involve other team members, if possible, and use private modes to minimize context influence.
Once a week, a handful of my team members run each prompt through ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Perplexity. Each person tests every prompt across each model, giving me 3-5 responses per prompt, per model, per week.
Step 4: Analyze
Once youβve gathered 20β30 responses per prompt, start analyzing. You can use the tool of your choice to streamline this process.
From there, identify recurring patterns and map them to relevant pages on your site. Where can you address these themes? Are you answering the right questions, and does your content reflect the patterns youβve uncovered?
This is ongoing work. Track consistently and review patterns quarterly to identify shifts. Over time, this becomes your optimization framework.
AI is based on probability, and it wonβt always be right. This isnβt the only way of optimizing for AI, but it can be part of your playbook.
You still run the risk of bias in the training data, inconsistency in whether search or training data was used, and variations in the new βmodelsβ launched across the different LLMs.
You shouldnβt be blindly aligning with the AI outputs, but you can use your best judgment and understanding of your target audience to understand if itβs the context you want to use for your optimization.
How to connect this to performance
Now this is the tricky part. Weβve learned just how random AI responses can be, but there are still a few signals you can measure to see how this impacts your content.
βTraditionalβ metrics: Are you seeing more clicks? Better positions in GSC or keyword tracking tools? What about conversions?
AI traffic: If youβre able to pull your AI traffic data from Adobe, GA4, or any other analytics tools, you can track to see if thereβs any movement on the pages you update.
AI tracking tools: And while yes, thereβs a lot of variability in this as a KPI, if youβre using AI visibility tools, they will give you an indication of whether your methods are working. You can leverage the same manual tracking outlined here to see if you start noticing your brand emerge as a pattern.
There are still many unknowns with LLMs, and it feels like theyβre changing every day.Β
But one thing remains consistent: these tools provide answers. If thereβs any level of understanding you can get on those answers, you can try to use it.Β
The patterns in the responses can reveal how topics are understood and how brands are discussed, and give you an idea of how to adapt your content strategy.
Googleβs AI Overviews now appear across search results with varying frequency. However, in certain categories, they dominate entirely. According to Adthena:
Retail shows 84% visibility for comparison and product discovery queries in the 9-10 word range.Β
Healthcare also triggers high AI Overview penetration even when users are searching short medical questions of 1-3 words.
You know organic traffic faces headwinds. What you might underestimate is how severe the downstream impact on paid search can be. Hereβs what that looks like in practice.
AI Overviewsβ impact on paid search
AI Overviews are systematically changing paid search, affecting everything from click volume to auction dynamics and conversion behavior. They are accelerating structural trends that are already reshaping search, including SERP saturation, automated bidding, Performance Max adoption, and broad match expansion.Β
What makes AI Overviews significant is the speed of the rollout. In many verticals, Google had compressed what would have normally been a multi-year transition into mere months. Understanding the impact on your own paid search efforts requires examining how AI answers have reshaped each component of your campaign performance.
So, how much have response rates been impacted by AI Overviews? Recent data from Seer Interactive reveals the scale of the decline. Paid CTR on queries featuring AI Overviews plummeted by 68%, dropping from 19.7% to 6.34% between June 2024 and September 2025.
At the same time, we saw organic CTR fall 61% on the same queries, but the steeper paid decline suggests AI Overviews reshape where paid ads appear and who clicks them, not simply their overall presence.
The trend accelerated sharply in July 2025 when paid CTR collapsed from approximately 11% to 3% in a single month. One month. This happened as Google expanded AI Overviews more aggressively into commercial and navigational queries, demonstrating AI Overviewsβ direct impact on paid search response rates.
What weβre finding is that these declines are the most severe for non-branded informational queries. But itβs not all bad news. Branded search and high-intent transactional queries are showing greater resilience, with many advertisers seeing minimal impact on their core conversion-driving terms.
AI Overviews contribute to higher CPCs through inventory compression
Weβre also finding a direct correlation between AI Overviews and the cost of paid search campaigns. Thatβs because the response rate decline is directly driving cost-per-click (CPC) inflation through supply and demand mechanics.
AI Overviews amplify this CPC inflation through several mechanisms. Some of that has to do with ad positioning. Research on ad positioning shows that ads that appear above an AI Overview still perform reasonably well. But the ads below are seeing a dramatic reduction in impression share and CTR.Β
At the same time, double-serving policies are concentrating impression share among larger advertisers, which is forcing smaller ones to bid more aggressively. Automated bidding systems optimize toward conversion predictions rather than cost efficiency, which means campaigns are paying premium CPCs as the click inventory shrinks.
AI Overviews collapse the consideration phase
Weβre also seeing a dip in the consideration phase of the buyerβs journey. Customer journeys that used to take up to a few days, AI Overviews can now compress into minutes by handling the research and comparison activities that traditionally occurred across multiple search sessions.
For example, think back to how in, say, 2023 a search for [best project management software for remote teams] would have triggered a multi-day sequence for users who would first, perhaps, click through to organic results, then read some comparison articles, then perhaps visit some vendor websites, and, finally, after maybe 7-14 days, they might finally convert.Β
Today, when you search for [best project management software for remote teams], you could convert in a single session. An AI Overview can give users everything they need at once: a comparison table with features, pricing, and use cases, then refined recommendations for two or three options. People could decide in hours instead of weeks.
This compression reshapes campaign performance in three ways:Β
Smaller retargeting pools: Retargeting pools shrink dramatically because fewer clicks during research means there are fewer users entering remarketing audiences. WhileΒ Google has lowered audience minimumsΒ from 1,000 to 100 users, the shift is meant to help boost small business campaigns, but it still means that a campaign that historically would have built up a 10,000-user pool from informational traffic might now capture only 3,000 users.
Less brand awareness: Brand awareness suffers when users never visit your site during research, entering the purchase decision having consumed AI-generated comparisons rather than experiencing your messaging directly.
AI Overviews mentions are a must: AI citation creates a winner-take-all dynamic. Being mentioned in AI Overviews becomes a primary determinant of visibility. Brands that appear in the AI answer capture disproportionate traffic, while those excluded lose ground entirely.
AI Overviews create a quality-over-quantity trade-off
The journey compression caused by AI Overviews is producing a counterintuitive economic outcome. As click volume declines, conversion rates improve.
A benchmark analysis of 16,446 campaigns confirms the pattern. While overall click volume declined across nearly all query types in 2025, 65% of industries actually saw improved conversion rates.
For many of those industries, the jump was substantial. For example, education and instruction saw conversion rates jump 43.87% year-over-year, while sports and recreation climbed 42.43%.Β
So why is this happening?
The improved conversion rates are reflective of AI Overviews pre-qualifying users by answering their basic questions before they click ads. This filters out a lot of the users who are simply seeking general information without any intention to convert and leaving only high-intent prospects.
These improved conversion rates could also potentially partially offset CPC inflation in many scenarios. For example, letβs say a business software campaign is generating 1,000 clicks at $2.00 CPC. The campaign generated a 5% conversion rate, resulting in 50 conversions at a $40 CPA.Β
Then, letβs say, Google rolled out AI Overviews for their keywords, and it compressed the customer journey. The same campaign might then generate fewer clicks, say 700, at $2.90 CPC and a higher 7% conversion rate, producing 49 conversions at $41.43 CPA. The effective cost increase is only 3.6% despite 45% CPC inflation and 30% volume decline.
Paid search still offers opportunities for advertisers who adapt quickly. Letβs look at four strategies you can incorporate into your own campaigns that align with the new realities of AI-mediated search.
1. Monitor informational intent performance and optimize accordingly
Since AI Overviews are fundamentally changing the economics of informational queries, they require extra scrutiny from you. Implement systematic monitoring rather than blanket exclusions of informational keywords to identify which keywords still deliver value and which have become budget drains.
Begin by understanding which informational keywords still hold value. Informational keywords like βwhat is,β βhow to,β and βguide toβ are being cannibalized by AI Overviews at substantial rates. In finance, AI Overviews appear on 79% of longer queries, while in retail they show up on 84% of comparison searches.
However, transactional keywords like βbuy,β βbest,β βcompare,β and βnear meβ maintain higher CTRs because AI typically doesnβt complete transactions. The user needs to click away from AI Overviews to complete their transaction.
Weβre still seeing 69% of transactional searches in AI Mode result in clicks to websites. Branded search remains largely intact, with AI Overviews primarily affecting non-branded informational queries.
To identify which informational keywords still perform, follow these steps:
Start by pulling 90 days of Google Ads query data.Β
Next, youβll want to flag queries that contain informational trigger words.Β
Then, cross-reference that data with Google Search Console, since GSC now tags these in performance reports, to identify which queries trigger AI Overviews.Β
Finally, you can calculate CTR and conversion rate for informational versus transactional queries to establish your baselines.
For the informational queries that show less than 1% CTR and less than 50% of your average conversion rate, you have three options:Β
Test whether you can improve performance by focusing on creative optimization for unique offers rather than information.Β
Reduce your bids on those queries to maintain presence at a lower cost while continuing to monitor for changes.
Shift your budget toward transactional and navigational keywords that are performing better, while maintaining minimal informational presence to bolster brand visibility.
Note: An important exception applies for brands that are consistently being cited in AI Overviews. Since cited brands are seeing a 91% paid CTR lift, this suggests that these informational keywords could become strategic assets.Β
If your brand appears in AI Overviews for informational queries like βbest accounting software for freelancers,β it may warrant maintaining or increasing bids on those terms. Youβll also want to scrutinize for any uncited queries more aggressively to see if youβre missing any opportunities.
2. Prioritize feed quality
Yes, generative AI can summarize and compare, but it canβt invent price, inventory, or availability from thin air. This creates a structural advantage if you have robust product feeds in Google Shopping, Hotel Ads, and local inventory.
Googleβs AI Mode shopping experience, powered by the Shopping Graph with 50 billion product listings refreshed hourly, relies entirely on structured product data from Merchant Center feeds. When users search, for example, for βbreathable bamboo crib sheets under $40,β the AI can only surface products whose feeds include that level of attribute specificity.Β
Attribute enrichment must include contextual details like βwaterproof for rainy commutesβ or βred couch for small apartmentβ that match natural language queries.Β
Real-time accuracy matters as Google updates listings hourly and outdated data filters products out of AI Mode entirely.Β
Structured data completeness determines visibility. Googleβs AI prioritizes products with rich, complete attribute data over listings with minimal information.Β
Since users have already learned about the features and benefits they were querying in AI Overviews before clicking, your ad must answer why they should choose you and why they should choose you now.
Lead with unique value propositions instead of generic benefits. For example:
βProject Management Software for Teamsβ is generic and would convert less often than a specific offering like β14-Day Free Trial + Free Migration from Asana/Monday.β
An overly-general value prop like βTax Preparation Servicesβ would be expected to underperform something much more specific and unique like βSame-Day CPA Review | $50 Off Filing This Week.β
Youβll also want to leverage ad extensions aggressively. Research shows that ads can appear above or below AI Overviews depending on query type and industry. When AI Overviews pushes everything down the page, extensions are your way to stay visible.Β
Ads that use all available sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets can occupy 2-3 times the SERP real estate of basic ads. Taking up that extra space is critical as ads now appear within AI Overviews themselves for commercial intent queries.
You can use responsive search ads to test value proposition hypotheses at scale. Start by loading Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) with diverse headlines that test:
Social proof (i.e., β4.9 Stars, 5,000+ Reviewsβ).
Differentiation (i.e., βOnly Platform with Native Zapier Integrationβ).Β
Then let Googleβs machine learning identify which messages resonate with high-intent users whoβve already completed their research.
If your brand is cited in AI Overviews for specific use cases, reference those directly. For example, if AI Overview consistently recommends your accounting software for βfreelancers,β youβll want to include βBuilt for Freelancersβ in headlines to align with the recommendation users just consumed.
4. Embrace audience data
These days, itβs all about the data. As keyword-based targeting becomes less reliable in an AI-dominated search environment, first-party audience data is becoming more and more your sustainable competitive advantage. When AI answers queries without regard to keyword precision, your existing customer relationships represent what AI canβt disintermediate.
What we mean is that you know your audience already. Take advantage of that.
Customer Match lists allow you to upload email lists, phone numbers, and CRM data, with Google lowering the minimum from 1,000 to 100 users in 2025. Remember, users whoβve already engaged with your brand will convert at significantly higher rates than cold traffic and search with intent to re-engage rather than research.
Itβs also important to build granular website visitor segments based on the behaviors that signal purchase intent. You want to represent all prospects who have moved beyond research:Β
Product page viewers who didnβt convert.
Abandoned cart users.
Visitors to pricing and comparison tools.
Users with 10+ minute sessions.
Target these audiences with messaging that assumes theyβve already completed their evaluation through AI-powered search.
Use similar audiences and lookalikes to help Googleβs AI identify users who match your highest-value customer profiles. Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns work best when fed customer lists and purchase history, which allows for identifying intent patterns beyond keywords.
In the AI Overview environment, shift your budget from old-school, keyword-heavy Search campaigns to audience-driven Performance Max and Demand Gen formats that prioritize first-party data. Build email capture mechanisms through gated content and progressive profiling. Then, integrate your CRM with Google Ads to activate customer data for targeting and bidding.Β
A good place to start is by reallocating an underperforming informational query budget to audience-based campaigns, and then scaling based on results.
First-party data provides higher signal quality than behavioral targeting alone, which gives advertisers with robust data infrastructure measurable advantages in conversion rates and customer acquisition costs.
ChatGPT ecommerce traffic converted 31% higher than non-branded organic search across 94 ecommerce sites in 2025, but it still drove a small share of revenue. Thatβs based on a 12-month GA4 analysis by Visibility Labs covering January through December 2025.
Why we care. This data shows that AI referral traffic converts at a higher rate than traditional non-branded search traffic, but the volume remains small. This signals emerging value, not a replacement channel.
Higher conversion rate. ChatGPT traffic converted at 1.81% vs. 1.39% for non-branded organic (31% higher). It outperformed organic in 10 of 12 months.
Visibility Labs attributes the higher rate to intent compression. Users often refine product needs in ChatGPT before clicking. By the time they reach a product page, they may be closer to purchase than a typical search visitor still comparing options.
Key findings. ChatGPTβs conversion advantage is clear, but growth is slowing and volume remains small.
Massive traffic growth: ChatGPT visits grew 1,079%, from 1,544 in January to 18,202 in December. Non-branded organic grew 17% over the same period.
Lower AOV: Average order value was $204 for ChatGPT vs. $238 for organic, a 14.3% gap.
Higher revenue per session: Despite lower AOV, ChatGPT generated $3.65 per session vs. $3.30 for organic (10.3% higher).
Small revenue share: ChatGPT drove $474,000 in revenue vs. $32.1 million from non-branded organic β 1.48% of organic revenue, rising to 2.2% in the second half of 2025.
Growth tied to product updates: Visibility Labs links the first-half spike to shopping carousel features introduced in April 2025. Growth began flattening around August.
Still dwarfed by organic: Non-branded organic traffic was 70x larger than ChatGPT overall, narrowing to 47x in Q4. Early 2025 volatility included months with just 15 to 37 ChatGPT-attributed conversions, limiting statistical confidence until midyear.
The attribution gap. GA4 referral data likely understates ChatGPTβs influence. According to Visibility Labs:
Many users get product recommendations from ChatGPT, then search for the brand or product on Google before purchasing. Those conversions are typically attributed to branded organic search.
Set up post-purchase surveys to better capture AI-influenced revenue.
About the data. Visibility Labs analyzed 12 months of GA4 data (January to December 2025) from 94 seven- and eight-figure ecommerce brands, comparing 9.46 million non-branded organic sessions to 135,000 ChatGPT referral sessions. The study excluded homepage and blog traffic to focus on commercial-intent visits more likely to evaluate and purchase products.
AMDβs RDNA 5 flagship could be a $2K gaming MONSTER If AMDβs next-generation Radeon flagship is as powerful as leakers claim, it will be an incredible gaming GPU. AMDβs RDNA 4 Radeon RX 9070 XT features 64 Compute Units (CUs) and 4,096 Stream Multiprocessors. If the rumours surrounding this GPU are to be believed, AMDβs [β¦]
Valve's Steam Deck handheld is facing shortages triggered by a component crisis, leaving its upcoming Steam Machine PC in an ominous position on pricing.
GeForce NOW's anniversary celebration reaches a chilling crescendo as Capcom's Resident Evil: Requiem creeps into the cloud - and the horrors look better than ever on a GeForce NOW Ultimate membership. To mark the occasion, a special launch bundle rises from the shadows, pairing the game with a yearlong Ultimate membership for a limited time. It's not a celebration party without treats. GeForce NOW is also offering members a new reward to use in Delta Force. Suit up and grab it alongside 11 new games joining the cloud this week.
The Nightmare Returns in the Cloud
A new era of survival horror dawns with Resident Evil: Requiem, the iconic Capcom series' most immersive entry yet. Follow FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft and veteran agent Leon S. Kennedy as their stories and playstyles intertwine in a chilling, emotional fight for survival. Return to Raccoon City, the ruined heart of a 1998 bioweapon disaster now buried in government secrecy. Grace investigates her mother's mysterious death while Leon, hardened by years of battling outbreaks, uncovers a new bioterror threat spreading through the Midwest. Classic Resident Evil survival horror returns with tense combat and clever puzzles - now enhanced with seamless switching between firstβ and thirdβperson views for a more personal nightmare.
TCL CSOT, a global leader in advanced display technologies and a subsidiary of TCL Technology (000100.SZ), is setting the tone for the industry ahead of Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026. Under the theme "Super Pixel Beyond Limits", TCL CSOT will debut its groundbreaking Super Pixel technology on the global stage, alongside a spectrum of future-shaping products including advanced FMM OLED, inkjet-printed OLED (IJP OLED) and MLED applications. Guided by its core APEX philosophy, the company is delivering immersive, sustainable, nextβgeneration experiences across smartphones, tablets, notebooks, monitors, and beyond.
Introducing Super Pixel: Seeing Beyond Limits
At the forefront of TCL CSOT's showcase is Super Pixel technology, an innovation poised to redefine next-generation display performance. It delivers a powerful trifecta of benefits:
High Clarity: Achieves sharpness comparable to WQHD SPR. By increasing subβpixel quantity by approximately 1.8%, it renders images that are more accurate, clear, and finely detailed.
Smart Power Use: Optimized data processing reduces power consumption by up to 25% while maintaining image quality.
Rapid Refresh: Leveraging a Real RGB pixel layout, Super Pixel requires less bandwidth than SPR, enabling refresh rates up to 40% higher.
JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of its highly anticipated JESD220H and JESD223G: Universal Flash Storage 5.0 and UFS Host Controller Interface (UFSHCI) 5.0. Designed for mobile applications, automotive and computing systems that demand high performance with low power consumption, UFS 5.0 will deliver faster data access and improved performance compared to its predecessor while maintaining compatibility with UFS 4.x hardware.
UFS offers high-performance, embedded storage with low power consumption, making it ideal for use in applications where power efficiency is essential. This includes computing and mobile systems like smartphones and wearables, as well as an expanding role in generative AI, automotive applications, edge computing and gaming consoles. Its high-speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable significant throughput for power-efficient system performance.
Phanteks today announces the 360M25-LCD AIO, a high-performance 360 mm liquid CPU cooler featuring an ultra-large 6-inch high-resolution IPS LCD as its centerpiece, combining powerful cooling performance with advanced hardware-level system customization. Built for high-end Intel and AMD platforms, the 360M25-LCD AIO features a pure copper cold plate and a 360 mm radiator paired with three M25 Gen 2 D-RGB fans, delivering strong airflow, efficient heat dissipation, and low noise under demanding workloads.
The 6-inch high-resolution (1480x720) IPS LCD offers sharp visuals with a smooth 60 Hz refresh rate and wide viewing angles while maintaining ample clearance for motherboard components and tall RGB RAM modules up to 51 mm in height. Multiple orientation options allow seamless integration across different system layouts. Customization is powered by the NEXLINQ App for Windows, enabling users to personalize the LCD with real-time system telemetry, temperatures, clock speeds, media, animations, and custom graphics. The display operates directly on the hardware, minimizing CPU overhead while ensuring smooth performance.
Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing the launch of the industry's first and highest-density blade server platform powered by the latest AMD EPYC 4005 series processors. Designed with a flexible, density-optimized blade architecture, Supermicro's new MicroBlade platform is designed for longevity and versatility. By including the latest AMD EPYC 4005 series processors, along with previous versions, the system provides seamless scalability and long-term investment protection, allowing organizations to expand and upgrade as compute requirements evolve.
"Our flexible blade architecture enables customers to mix different node types with different CPUs within a single enclosure and can incorporate up to 320 server nodes in a standard 48U rack," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "Supermicro continues to lead the industry in delivering advanced, energy-efficient platforms to market that maximize scalability, lower total cost of ownership, and protecting data center investments for the long term."
Over the past few months, RAM chips used in new PCs have nearly doubled in price. According to HP Inc. CFO Karen Parkhill, memory's share of the PC bill of materials has risen from 15 percent to 18 percent, and now to roughly 35 percent. And that may be only...
The complaint centers on three of the company's best-known titles: Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2. Each game lets players purchase digital loot boxes with real money for the chance to receive randomized items.
Redditor AccomplishedFan8690 wrote in the /pcmasterrace subreddit that he paid $300 for a 32GB RAM kit online. Given that the average price for these Corsair kits is around $400, that's already a good deal.
On June 9, over 1,000 founders, investors, and decision-makers will gather for TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026. This isnβt just foot traffic. Itβs a full day of concentrated deal flow.
Trace is launching with $3 million in seed funding, including investment fromΒ Y Combinator, Zeno Ventures, Transpose Platform Management, Goodwater Capital, Formosa Capital, and WeFunder.
NVIDIA's plans for Groq's LPU units are a topic of debate in the industry, and when Jensen was asked about them during the Q4 2026 earnings call, he hinted at rather interesting stuff. NVIDIA's Groq LPUs Will Solidify the Company's Position In Latency-Sensitive Workloads NVIDIA's acquisition spree has been aggressive this year. Still, one of the major partnerships that the company entered into was with Groq, a non-licensing agreement worth up to $20 billion, which is Team Green's biggest investment. The announcement did slip in on Christmas Eve, and NVIDIA never really followed up on actual plans. Interestingly, NVIDIA's CEO [β¦]
Apple is gearing up for one of its mostΒ launch-heavy windows of the year next week, when it might launch its much-anticipatedΒ low-cost MacBookΒ as well as theΒ iPhone 17eΒ along with the M5 Pro/M5 Max MacBook Pro, Apple Studio Displays, and possibly an iPad or two. Apple's Tim Cook starts building up the buzz for early March Apple's Tim Cook has just posted a brief message on X that reads: "A big week ahead. It all starts Monday Morning!" As we noted recently, Apple is expected to launch its much-anticipated low-cost MacBook next week, replete with aΒ new manufacturing processΒ for its aluminum shell, the A18 [β¦]
For the past six years, Samsung has retained the battery capacity of its Galaxy S lineup at 5,000mAh, meaning that users would only experience minor increments in runtimes regardless of which company flagship they purchased. Fortunately, this practice could be a thing of the past, as a rumor claims that the Korean giant is finally jumping onto the silicon-carbon bandwagon like a multitude of Chinese smartphone makers. As for why silicon-carbon batteries didnβt debut with the Galaxy S26 series, Samsungβs executive says these cells have to pass βvery rigorous validation standards.β The advantages of silicon-carbon technology are apparent, which is [β¦]
Yesterday, we learned that Clint Hocking, the creative director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and most recently, the creative director behind the upcoming Assassin's Creed Hexe, had left Ubisoft. The newly named head of content for Assassin's Creed and former Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag creative director, Jean Guesdon, is stepping in to fill his role on the project, which, according to a reliable Ubisoft insider, is showing a lot of promise within Ubisoft. So much so that it's even the project that "everyone" across the company is looking to work on "because of [β¦]
AMD's RDNA 5 GPU, codenamed AT0, might see a gaming "Radeon" release, albeit in limited quantities, if current rumors hold. AMD Might Make a Radeon Gaming Graphics Card With Its Top RDNA 5 "AT0" GPU, But Will Be A Limited Release AMD's RDNA 5 GPUs are slated for a 2027 release, and while there have been rumors surrounding the various configurations, it's evident that the information available isn't conclusive to tell what the lineup will end up looking like. With that said, a new statement has been made for the next-gen Radeon Gaming lineup by Kepler_L2 at Anandtech forums. In [β¦]
AI-powered creatives are essential for staying relevant in todayβs complex search landscape, but above all they must meet your brand standards. Thatβs why weβre expandinβ¦
Google is expanding beta access to text guidelines for all advertisers globally in AI Max, giving brands more control over how AI-generated ad copy aligns with their standards.
Whatβs happening. Text guidelines are now available worldwide across AI Max for Search and Performance Max campaigns, with full language and vertical support.
The feature lets you shape AI-generated creative using natural-language instructions β such as excluding certain terms or avoiding specific phrases β to ensure messaging stays on-brand.
Why we care. As AI-powered creative becomes central to your performance marketing, brand safety and tone control are top concerns. Text customization helps you match ads to user intent, and the new guidelines layer ensures they donβt drift from your brand positioning. You can guide AI with guardrails like βdonβt imply our products are cheapβ or βavoid language like βonly for,ββ helping you maintain consistency at scale. Early adopters like BYD have seen higher leads at lower costs, showing that combining AI speed with human-guided safeguards can directly improve your campaign results.
Bottom line. Keeping AI-generated ads aligned with your brand voice is likely high on your task list, so Googleβs expanded text guidelines meet that need, giving you practical, easy-to-use tools to stay in control while leveraging AI at scale.
AMD FSR 4.1 update reportedly leaks through Radeon Driver Preview It looks like AMD is getting ready to upgrade its FSR 4 upscaler. An alleged AMD Software 26.2.2 driver preview that includes FSR 4.1 has reportedly been released via AMDβs Invite-Only Vanguard program. Through his driver update, a leaker has released the files for AMDβs [β¦]
The Dell 14 Premium is $820 off, offering 32GB of RAM and a 3.2K OLED display. It's an XPS 14 in everything but name and a better value than the newer base models.
Best Buy is offering gamers a chance to own one of the greatest gaming headsets we've ever covered, the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro, with a generous 24% discount.
NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress confirmed that the gaming sector may struggle during the company's latest Q4 earnings call. In a short but very important note, she stated, "Looking ahead, while end demand for our products remains strong and channel inventory levels are healthy, we expect supply constraints to be the headwind to Gaming in Q1 and beyond." This sentence is rather vague but conveys the message that supply constraints will definitely impact the GeForce RTX 50 series lineup in the current quarter and possibly beyond. NVIDIA's current product inventory is in good shape, meaning that both silicon from TSMC and secured GDDR7 memory are sufficient for the time being, but once the inventory levels start to deplete, availability will become a problem.
Team Green has massive capacity secured at TSMC's facilities for manufacturing "Blackwell" GPUs, meaning that no production issues stem from that end. However, memory makers, with whom NVIDIA collaborates, are supply constrained in delivering their GDDR7 memory solutions, leaving NVIDIA with little to work with outside its high-margin server sector. As NVIDIA supplies its AIC partners with both memory and GPU dies, having no memory modules to bundle with the GPUs becomes a supply bottleneck, leaving the company waiting for weeks without a fresh inventory of memory modules. Hence, NVIDIA now expects that demand will continue to be strong among gamers, but the situation may be getting slightly worse as inventory levels start to deplete.
Intel has released its latest 101.8531 Non-WHQL Arc GPU graphics drivers, offering day-one game support for titles like Marathon, Resident Evil Requiem, and the World of Warcraft: Midnight DLC expansion pack. Intel notes that with this driver version, users of Intel Arc "Battlemage" and Arc "Alchemist" integrated and discrete GPUs will experience support and some performance improvements across other games, which are now being further optimized. For example, for "Panther Lake," this beta driver delivers a 35% FPS increase in Witcher 3 at 1080p with high settings, while Arc "Alchemist" sees a Resident Evil Requiem FPS boost of up to 40% on average at 1080p with ultra settings. Interestingly, Intel is optimizing new games for its older products, which is a promising sign for anyone considering purchasing the newer "Panther Lake" chips for gaming. With Intel planning to launch Core Ultra G3 SoCs for handhelds in a few months, consistent driver optimization is quite noteworthy.
TrendForce's latest findings reveal that the expansion of AI applications from LLM training to inference has prompted CSPs to broaden data center build-outs beyond AI servers to include general-purpose servers. This shift has extended memory procurement beyond HBM3e, LPDDR5X, and high-capacity RDIMMs to RDIMMs across multiple densities. Aggressive additional orders have driven a sharp increase in conventional DRAM contract prices, lifting total DRAM industry revenue to $53.58 billion in 4Q25, up 29.4% QoQ.
Across segments, buyers have struggled to secure sufficient supply amid a widening supply-demand gap. This has significantly strengthened suppliers' pricing power. Conventional DRAM contract prices rose 45-50% QoQ, while blended contract prices for conventional DRAM and HBM increased 50-55%, marking an accelerated upswing across all product categories.
Microsoft recently issued a correction to its Windows Roadmap regarding ongoing support for legacy printer drivers. While the company still plans to change how the operating system interfaces with printers, the Redmond giant changed its wording to emphasize that it is no longer ending support for legacy V3 and V4...
The feature set, now entering beta, allows Gemini to coordinate complex tasks directly on Android devices. That means taking cues from conversations, parsing the context of a screen, and performing real-world actions β such as placing food orders or booking rides β within third-party apps. It's the same territory Apple...
The CEO was speaking at the ExCeL London international exhibition and convention centre about the wonders of AI. Much of his keynote speech revolved around Copilot, of course.
Blueberry is an AI-native workspace for building web apps on macOS that unifies a terminal, code editor, and preview browser with pinned apps like GitHub and Figma. It gives your AI full context across files, terminal output, and the live preview via its built-in MCP server. Use a command bar to launch anything, save per-project setups, and access your workspace from any device on your local network. Enter Flow Mode, arrange tiling layouts, and control music to stay focused while you build.
Introduction: Steal It Today, Break It in a Decade
Digital evolution is unstoppable, and though the pace may vary, things tend to fall into place sooner rather than later. That, of course, applies to adversaries as well. The rise of ransomware and cyber extortion generated funding for a complex and highly professional criminal ecosystem. The era of the cloud brought general availability of
While the apps are among the 87 most popular free VPNs in Russia, users aren't limited to the country. RKS Global researchers tells TechRadar the potential risk.
Alex Hutchinson, creative director of Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 4, has discussed what went wrong with the launch of Skull and Bones, suggesting it was down to a lack of experience from the development team.
Anthropic has been given until Friday to allow the Pentagon to use its Claude model for "all lawful purposes," or risk losing its $200 million DoD contract.
The Meta-owned social platform says that while it already blocks users from searching for suicide and self-harm content, these new alerts are designed to make sure parents are aware if their teen is repeatedly trying to search for this content so that they can support them.
As PC technology moves at a rapid speed and computer games continue to push the barriers of visual fidelity, it's becoming more difficult for default graphic settings on PC games to find a happy medium between stunning graphics and smooth gameplay, even when playing these games on decently powerful PCs. Resident Evil Requiem, as a modern AAA PC release, shouldn't be any different. However, Capcom had promised that Requiem was built to run smoothly across a wide range of PC builds, and doesnβt expect to see a repeat of the performance issues seen with Monster Hunter Wilds β a reassuring [β¦]
Apple appears all set for one of its most launch-heavy windows of the year in early March, when it might launch its much-anticipated low-cost MacBook as well as the iPhone 17e along with the M5 Pro/M5 Max MacBook Pro, and Apple Studio Displays. Now, however, a new price-related tidbit has substantially doused the enthusiasm surrounding Apple's low-cost MacBook. Apple's low-cost MacBook might not be a bargain DigiTimes recently reported that Apple's upcoming low-cost MacBook is already contending with a number of price-related pressures: Apple's low-cost MacBook was previously expected to debut between $599 and $699 price points. However, given these [β¦]
The sudden leadership change at the helm of Microsoft Gaming and Xbox, with Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond leaving their roles, has inevitably dominated the gaming industry conversation over the past few days. While Phil Spencer's retirement was in the air (despite Microsoft denying it just a few months ago) after a long tenure, it was believed that Sarah Bond, who had been president of Xbox since October 2023, would be the natural successor. Bond has instead left the company, and a subsequent report by The Verge revealed that she was the main driver behind the controversial 'This Is an [β¦]
OLED TVs offer outstanding image quality, but their price drives away the majority of buyers. A tier below this category are mini-LED TVs, which donβt offer the same deep blacks and high contrast as OLED, but represent a substantial upgrade over standard LED technology. Hisense, a notable name in consumer electronics, has two 55-inch TVs up for grabs, and thanks to Amazonβs latest discounts, the price has dipped to $449.99. Fortunately, superior picture quality isnβt the only advantage of getting the 55U65QF or 55U75QG, as youβll find out soon. The latest 4K mini-LED TVs from Hisense cater to both media [β¦]
An unreleased AMD Adrenalin driver reportedly contains the upcoming FSR 4.1 DLL file, which can work on RDNA 3 GPUs with Proton FP8 emulation. User Obtains FSR 4.1 DLL from "Vangaurd" Adrenalin 26.3.1 Drivers; Works on RDNA 3 GPUs Using Linux Once again, we see newer upscaling technologies being implemented on older hardware. This time, it's not the FSR 4.0.3, but the leaked FSR 4.1, which is reportedly from a test build called "Vanguard" Adrenalin 26.3.1 driver, available through AMD's invite-only beta channel. Someone on Guru3D forums just obtained the FSR 4.1 DLL file from the upcoming Adrenalin driver and [β¦]
Sources told Reuters that some U.S. chipmaking firms are running low on scandium β a crucial rare earth material for making 5G chips β as they suffer delays from acquiring export licenses from Beijing.
A 41% saving on this Lenovo Legion Tower 7i Gen 10 gaming PC isn't one to miss. It includes an Intel Core Ultra 285K CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU, 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD, all for just $2,199.99, saving you a massive $1,570 on the list price.
Building upon his Social Truth post from last month, President Trump has formally asked the big tech players to build their own power plants. Data centers have been eating at the national grid, causing electricity prices to rise across the board β for the average household. The "ratepayer protection pledge" will combat this by ensuring companies generate their own energy.
Interim CEO Bruce Broussard told investors the company has responded by securing long-term supply agreements for the year and has "qualified new suppliers".
Remember when it was easy to rank partial-match domains and headings to commercially intended search queries?
When paired with the right methodologies and conversion-optimized widgets, you could silently earn tens of thousands of dollars in affiliate revenue per month with minimal maintenance.
It was possible to get by with just updating articles for relevancy and freshness signals, for example.
Pressure-testing Googleβs spam update
Before the experiment, I had spent several months scaling an affiliate initiative in a much more above-board way for a longstanding website in a YMYL category.
We had success with hiring subject matter experts (SMEs) to write helpful, educational content that actually informed readers.
While the new content primarily targeted commercially intended keywords, that wasnβt the websiteβs sole purpose for existing. There were also thousands of pages of user-generated content (UGC) that inspired the new content, and visitors would navigate from them to convert, as well.
We had brand trust, original research, expert insights, and everything else youβd expect from a reputable publisher.
It was a perfect mix: verticalized legacy UGC with thousands of earned backlinks and a commercial lever that served a preexisting demand while adhering to industry best practices. It was a truly helpful experience.
The experiment: Scaling AI without trust
If the first model was built on trust and earned authority, this one would remove those signals entirely.Β
During that time, influencers on LinkedIn were doing the same thing. Except they were using AI to generate thousands of pages by scraping and rewriting content, or by programmatically aggregating public data.
Thatβs when I searched in my couch pillows for a few dollars and bought three domains that partially matched the following queries: βbest welding schools,β βbest plumbing schools,β and βbest electrical schools.β
The goal? Intentionally test a set of low-trust, high-scale tactics that are commonly promoted online and see how long they would persist.
I then used AI to make the websites pretty, fetched public data with a vibe-coded Python API call, and used ChatGPT to template all of the subheadings and paragraph text you would typically see ranking across the web.Β
Within a few hours, with the help of liquid content, I published thousands of bottom-funnel pages across three websites. I was able to inject public data, target superlatives by program type and state, and include a directory with individual, templated pages per school.
I even leveraged aggressive internal linking practices that prioritized crawl coverage over user intent.
The setup violated almost every long-term trust signal β which made it a useful test of how the system would react.
Confirmed: The data shows Googleβs spam updates work
The websites worked briefly. Indexation was fast, pages surfaced for long-tail queries, and impressions climbed faster than expected.
Within their first couple of months, all three websites were generating about 200 in-market clicks each.
But as you can see, they flatlined hard during the first December spam update since their inception. In fact, clicks dropped to 0.
I tried turnkey data updates and adding a few performance-boosting plugins, but they never recovered.
In isolation, Iβm not certain that any single one of these tactics caused the failure more than another. In combination, these tactics produced a site whose only defensible value was ranking in and of itself. Once that signal stopped being useful, nothing remained
The insight isnβt that the websites failed β itβs that Google tolerated them just long enough to learn from them.
Does affiliate content marketing still work?
Yes, affiliate content marketing still works as a monetization layer, but not as a growth engine.
There are plenty of websites that provide a helpful user experience while adhering to best practices and generating affiliate revenue.
As to how, refer to Googleβs documentation on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, where you can learn more about evaluating whether your website is publishing βcontent thatβs created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings.β
βIf the βwhyβ is that youβre primarily making content to attract search engine visits, thatβs not aligned with what our systems seek to reward. If you use automation, including AI-generation, to produce content for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings, thatβs a violation of our spam policies.β
However, even when following best practices, the rise of AIO, the great decoupling, and dozens of other factors have made affiliate marketing less successful than it once was.
The real takeaway isnβt that Google cracked down on spam, or that affiliate content marketing stopped working. Itβs that businesses built on a single, cheaply replicable distribution channel are exposed the moment that channel changes.
The next era of content will increasingly disadvantage businesses that treat search as their sole distribution channel.
Instead of focusing on easily replicable topics, many industry practitioners are shifting toward verticalized research and benchmarks that spark real conversations within communities.Β
Content is no longer a series of pages intended to rank. Rather, itβs a combination of discovery, discourse, and thought leadership that spans many channels.
Discovery, discourse, and thought leadership
Hypothetical: Youβre a SaaS business in the financial technology space that provides businesses with enhanced financial forecasting.
Instead of publishing landing pages that target βbest financial forecasting softwareβ or βmost affordable financial forecasting softwareβ (the SaaS equivalent of bottom-funnel ranking pages), consider doing deep dives with industry leaders who have something valuable to add to the conversation.
Rely on their insights to identify the largest gaps in financial forecasting in 2026 and validate: Does my product truly solve this? If it does, you may have found a perfect wedge into the community.
If not, thereβs your roadmap.
Use these problem-and-solution insights to develop landing pages with interactive assessments paired with benchmarking reports informed by industry-leading organizations.
The βwhyβ is that the content exists to help organizations contextualize both where they are and where they want to be.
While these assessments or studies may not rank in the first position in Google for high-volume search queries, you can instead leverage owned channels, partner distribution, paid media, and more to put them in front of your ideal clients.
These insights serve as a launching pad for communicating learnings from real conversations that arenβt easily replicated. By doing so across many different channels, you effectively enhance your ability to be everywhere.
If you execute well and provide true value, not only do you contribute to a community, but you may unlock the growth youβve been after all along.
Googleβs AI Overviews have moved beyond the experimental phase and are now a permanent part of search. To assess their impact, Adthena analyzed data across six major industries from late December 2025 to January 2026, tracking performance metrics from hundreds of thousands of advertisers, including more than 5 million ads.
While aggregate data suggests stability, a deeper look reveals a different picture. For advertisers, these automated summaries are no longer just a visibility concern; they directly threaten PPC revenue.
What AI Overviews mean for paid search revenue
Generative summaries fundamentally change the math of a successful campaign. When an AI Overview pushes paid ads below the fold, it triggers a chain reaction that impacts your profitability:
Lower CTR = fewer clicks: Reduced visibility leads to fewer visits to your landing pages, shrinking your traffic pipeline.
Fewer clicks = fewer conversions: A smaller traffic pool inevitably leads to a drop in total lead or sale volume.
Higher CPC = reduced profitability: In sectors where AI summaries trigger on high-competition terms, the cost to stay relevant rises, squeezing margins and lowering your return on ad spend (ROAS).
AI Overviews impact across six industries
Adthena tracked AI Overview frequency, content themes, and CPC/CTR performance across desktop and mobile. The findings show a fragmented landscape: impact varies by industry, device, query type, and content intent.
Content themes: The battle for mid-funnel intent
Adthenaβs analysis shows that Google is increasingly moving into comparison and instructional spaces, directly challenging high-converting paid search territory.
The comparison conflict: In Telecom, Technology, and Retail, AI Overviews are dominated by comparison content. When Google provides a side-by-side analysis, it satisfies the research phase and may stop users from clicking your ad to learn more.
The informational buffer: Conversely, Healthcare (74% News) and Financial Services (54% FAQ) see informational themes. These act as intent filters, potentially protecting ad spend by satisfying low-intent users before they reach a paid link.
The opportunity gap: Problem solving content remains virtually untouched at 0-2%. This is a safe harbour for advertisers: troubleshooting queries are still largely free from AI interference.
CPC trends: The premium for visibility
Tracking CPC fluctuations identifies where advertisers are paying a visibility tax to stay competitive.
Technology: Queries featuring an AI Overviews consistently show higher CPCs than those without, a clear signal that AI Overview presence is pushing up the cost of visibility.
Automotive & Retail: Automotive and retail show nearly identical cost levels regardless of AI Overviews presence.
Financial Services: CPC increases may look modest here, but in a sector where CPCs are already high, the hit to campaign profitability is harder than the numbers suggest.
Device splits expose desktop saturation
Segmenting by device reveals a striking divergence, but the picture is more nuanced than it first appears.
Desktop dominance: Technology and Education queries on desktop are heavily saturated by AI Overviews, meaning ads in these sectors almost always compete with an Overview.
Mobile opportunity: Mobile AI Overviews have a lower frequency across almost all industries. But the limited screen real estate on mobile means that when an Overview does appear, it displaces ads more aggressively than on desktop, where multiple ads often remain visible below the summary.
CTR trends provide evidence of traffic erosion
Analyzing CTRs over time exposes the persistent performance gaps between influenced and standard search results.
Persistent gaps: Telecom and Technology show consistently lower CTRs when an AI Overview is present, representing a direct drain on your traffic pipeline.
Consumer resilience: Financial services and retail show narrower gaps, suggesting users in these sectors still prioritize ads over AI Overviews.
Late month volatility: Sudden spikes in healthcare illustrate how quickly performance shifts as Google iterates on its AI rollout.Β
Distribution data reveals the zero click reality
This final layer of data exposes the winner-takes-all scenario that average metrics often hide.
The baseline gap: Without AI Overviews, CTR holds up well across industries β Retail in particular. Where AI Overviews are absent, CTR holds up well across industries. Where theyβre frequent, it doesnβt always and the gap between the two tells the real story.
High AI Overviews frequency, low CTR: When AI Overviews appear on nearly every query, CTR hits its floor across industriesβincluding Technology. The higher the frequency, the less traffic ads reliably capture.
Resilience in Automotive: Automotive shows a healthier spread across mid-range frequency buckets, suggesting users are more likely to bypass the summary to find verified brand information.
Three immediate steps to adapt your paid search strategy
To safeguard your margins, start here:
Monitor Click Through Rates (CTR) and Cost Per Click (CPC) changes: While not the full picture, shifts in CTR or CPC can act as early indicators of AI Overviews impact.
Segment performance by device: Break out desktop and mobile reporting to uncover device-specific trends that combined data can hide.
Gaining visibility with Adthenaβs AI Overview solution
Understanding AI Overview impact requires continuous, query-level intelligence. Adthenaβs AI Overview solution indexes search results multiple times per hour, giving advertisers accurate visibility into:
AI Overviews frequency patterns by query, industry, and device.
Content themes and citation sources.
Performance metrics including impact on CPC and CTR.
Ad position vs AI Overviews.
With these insights, youβll know exactly where AI Overviews are disrupting your revenue and what to do about it before your performance is impacted.
Coming soon: Adthenaβs AI Overviews solution will also include visibility into ads appearing within AI Overviews themselves, so youβll have a complete picture of how your spend is performing across the entire SERP.
The SERP has changed: Adapt or fall behind
Googleβs AI Overviews arenβt going away, but their impact isnβt universal or inevitable. The advertisers who win wonβt spend more; theyβll know exactly where AI Overviews appear, what content they surface, and how their audience responds.Β
Precision wins. Assumptions donβt.
Book a demo to see exactly how AI Overviews are impacting your campaigns.
High Bandwidth Flash aims to deliver HBM-like speeds with much higher capacities SK Hynix and SanDisk held a βHBF Spec. Standardization Consortium Kick-Offβ event to found a βdedicated workstream under OCP (Open Compute Project)β and standardise their new memory type. HBF memory, High Bandwidth Flash, aims to transform the world of AI inference by bridging [β¦]
Windows Central readers are divided over Asha Sharmaβs βreturn to Xboxβ comments, with debate centered on exclusives, multiplatform strategy, and the future of Xbox hardware. While some want a renewed focus on console-only titles, others believe it may be too late to reverse course.
Amazon has revealed UK-only discounts on multiple configurations for the Microsoft Surface 7 and Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch laptops, and we've rounded up all the best deals in one place.
HighPoint Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of high-performance PCI Express (PCIe ) switching and storage expansion solutions, is proud to announce the launch of HighPoint's External CopprLink PCIe Architecture. Anchored by the PCI-SIG CopprLink standard, this groundbreaking architecture establishes a new benchmark for disaggregated AI, HPC, and professional media workflows, delivering a massive 64 GB/s of native throughput with unprecedented interoperability.
A Vendor-Neutral Foundation for PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 6.0 Technology Interoperability
As AI and data-intensive workloads continue to outpace the thermal and power thresholds of conventional server chassis, the need for a standardized external expansion framework has become mission-critical. HighPoint's new connectivity fabric is built upon the PCI-SIG CopprLink (CDFP) specification (SFF-TA-1032) to facilitate a truly vendor-neutral hardware environment. By adhering to this open industry standard, HighPoint ensures that today's PCIe 5.0 technology investments are fully forward-compatible with the emerging PCIe 6.0 specification, providing a sustainable, long-term ROI for data centers and enterprise IT architects.
A recently released preview build of OptiScaler, a popular third-party upscaling tool, is the first publicly available method for implementing FSR 4 in games that only use the Vulkan graphics API. While the update, labeled "0.9.0-pre10," is not yet available on the app's official GitHub repository, users can download it...
Each AI model was fed detailed scenario prompts spanning border conflicts, resource shortages, and existential threats to state survival. They were provided with an "escalation ladder," a spectrum of tactical options that ranged from conventional diplomacy to all-out nuclear confrontation.
Recly.io is an interactive demo platform that helps you showcase your product through guided, click-through experiences instead of static screenshots or traditional screen recordings. Most demo tools today feel either too expensive, too complex, or heavily designed for enterprise workflows. For indie developers, early-stage startups, and small SaaS teams, this often means paying for features they do not need or struggling with tools that feel unnecessarily heavy. Recly.io strives to make interactive demos available to bootstrapped founders at an affordable price.
A "coordinated developer-targeting campaign" is using malicious repositories disguised as legitimate Next.js projects and technical assessments to trick victims into executing them and establish persistent access to compromised machines.
"The activity aligns with a broader cluster of threats that use job-themed lures to blend into routine developer workflows and increase the likelihood of code
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new malicious package discovered on the NuGet Gallery, impersonating a library from financial services firm Stripe in an attempt to target the financial sector.
The package, codenamed StripeApi.Net, attempts to masquerade as Stripe.net, a legitimate library from Stripe that has over 75 million downloads. It was uploaded by a user named
Ubisoft Assassin's Creed Hexe creative director Clint Hocking is departing the studio. The studio has confirmed Jean Guesdon, the creative director on Black Flag and Origins, will now lead Assassin's Creed Hexe.
Few games are expected to see some major improvements in performance across various Intel Arc GPU lineups. Intel Rolls Out Arc Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8531, Reportedly Delivering Significant Performance Enhancements in Various Titles Intel has released its latest Arc Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8531 for its Arc graphics products, improving performance and delivering various bug fixes, as well as adding support for a couple of new games. The new driver is reportedly improving performance in some games drastically when compared to the previous driver, 8509 (Intel also added XeSS 3 MFG support to Arc A and B-Series GPUs with this driver). In the [β¦]
Samsung is at the forefront of display innovations, and even though the company receives countless criticisms for being highly conservative with its flagship smartphone releases, no other firm can compete with the Korean giant on the aforementioned front. When the Galaxy S26 Ultraβs privacy screen kept showing up in leaks, we assumed that it was just a hardware feature baked into the software that covered the entire panel and offered nothing more. However, with Samsung opening up pre-orders, we learn that thereβs way more to this technology. The customization bit of the Galaxy S26 Ultraβs privacy screen proves that hardware-level [β¦]
We tested CPU scaling in Capcomβs Resident Evil Requiem with some fascinating results. However, we werenβt able to get through a full suite of CPUs due to Capcomβs use of Denuvo Anti-Tamper in Resident Evil 9.
A researcher made three different AI LLMs the heads of state of nuclear-powered nations and made them face off with each other using historical scenarios. Out of the total of 21 matches, 20 ended with a tactical nuke detonation while three resulted in a full-on strategic nuclear exchange, essentially ending the world.
In January's Steam Hardware Survey, adoption of 8 GB GPUs was at almost 30% despite marking a 3.11% decline, while 16 GB GPUs were up an impressive 5.85%. Unfortunately, it seems like Valve misreported those numbers as the latest Steam Client Beta update includes a patch node admitting so.
Nvidia expects βsupply constraintsβ for GeForce in 2026 During its Q4 2026 earnings call, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress confirmed that its gaming products are facing βsupply constraintsβ and that these βconstraintsβ will be a headwind for Nvidia through Q1 and beyond. Right now, many Nvidia GPU models are already in short supply. Nvidiaβs RTX 5090 [β¦]
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today introduced its latest Galaxy Buds4 Pro and Galaxy Buds4, redefining what premium earbuds can deliver in both superior Hi-fi audio and everyday wearability. Built to sound as good as they feel, the Galaxy Buds4 series pairs exceptional sound quality with a more refined, computationally designed fit, bringing Samsung's most advanced audio and wearability innovations together in one seamless experience. For the first time, Buds4 Pro features a Super Wide Woofer, combined with enhanced Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and an enhanced Adaptive Equalizer (EQ), to supply full-spectrum sound true to the original recordingβwhile intelligently adapting to real-world conditions. Thoughtful design updates, intuitive hands-free controls, and deeper AI integration further underscore Samsung's commitment to earbuds designed for how people listen, move, and live throughout the day.
"Samsung understands that a truly premium audio experience combines technical sound quality with how that sound feels throughout a user's day," said Ikhyun Cho, Corporate VP of Mobile Enhancement R&D Team, Mobile eXperience. "With the Galaxy Buds4 series, our design philosophy was uncompromising, providing all-day comfort without sacrificing audio performance, because these are what consumers value most. We engineered our most powerful Hi-fi audio and our most secure, ergonomic fit to enhance one another, delivering the best and most satisfying listening experience we've ever created."
Nvidia reported $68.1 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter and $1.62 earnings per share, beating analyst estimates of $66.1 billion and $1.54, respectively.
Gixo creates finished long-form content, slide decks, briefs, and legal documents in one system. It structures writing, applies consistent design, and produces export-ready outputs you can present or publish immediately. Write once and publish everywhere with precise multilingual translation and built-in typography, then export to PDF, HTML, TXT, JSON, and image assets.
You heard me... there's a post-credits scene at the end of Bridgerton season 4 part 2. It might be the most important in the entire series, but Netflix fans are already being caught out.
It seems like Wolfenstein 3 is finally happening. It's been over eight years since the release of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and fans were almost losing hope that the third chapter of William "B.J." Blazkowicz's story would actually happen. Developer MachineGames had started teasing it very early, just a few months after the launch of the second entry, but then they went quiet about it for a long time. With Arkane Lyon's help, the Swedish studio would instead release two spin-offs, Wolfenstein: Youngblood and the VR-only Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot, in 2019. Both of them failed critically and commercially, though, and [β¦]
NVIDIA reported its full-year 2025 results with massive revenue of $215.9 billion, with $68.1 billion coming in the fourth quarter. The company's earnings call after the results were published contained some interesting information and confirmed that the first "Vera Rubin" VR200 racks are shipping to customers as samples, with volume shipping to commence in the second half of 2026. NVIDIA confirmed that the upcoming platform, which includes the Vera CPU, Rubin GPU, NVLink 6 switch, ConnectX-9 SuperNIC, BlueField-4 DPU, and Spectrum-6 Ethernet switch, will be powering the next-generation trillion-parameter models with only one-fourth of the GPUs compared to the previous-generation "Blackwell" and will reduce inference costs by up to 10 times.
NVIDIA CFO Colette KressWe shipped our first Vera Rubin samples to customers earlier this week, and we remain on track to commence production shipments in the second half of the year. Based on its modular, cable-free tray design, Rubin will deliver improved resiliency and serviceability relative to Blackwell. We expect every cloud model builder to deploy Vera Rubin.
February was a big month as we launched a lot of new features and updates, all with one thought in mind: improving your Xbox gaming experience. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members can now stream their favorite games at up to 1440p resolution on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One X and Xbox One S consoles. On the Xbox PC app, we've added new sounds to help improve your controller navigation responsiveness. We've also listened to your feedback and added several new updates to the ROG Xbox Ally, including the ability to easily format your removable storage.
And, in case you missed it, we recently released Postgame Recaps to Xbox Insiders, which provides a recap of your recent gameplay on your PC, and the updated Xbox Cloud Gaming web experience is now in public preview for Insiders. Read all about these exciting updates, including new game additions, below.
AMD and Nutanix today announced a multi-year strategic partnership to jointly develop an open, full-stack AI infrastructure platform designed to power agentic AI applications everywhere. This agreement aligns to both companies' commitment to an open ecosystem for AI, providing customers with choice and easy-to-deploy, production ready, high-performance and efficient solutions that are optimized for Agentic AI, at the edge, inside enterprises, and across the cloud.
The partnership aligns silicon innovation, open runtime software and enterprise cloud orchestration technologies for AI to deliver scalable, production-ready agentic AI platforms across data centers, hybrid and edge environments. By optimizing the Nutanix Cloud and Nutanix Kubernetes Platforms on AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Instinct GPUs and integrating the AMD ROCm software ecosystem and the AMD Enterprise AI platform into Nutanix AI full-stack solutions, the companies are developing an open solution for Agentic AI platforms using high-performance infrastructure and supported by a broad set of OEM partners.
Team Group Inc. today announced its strong return to Embedded World 2026, one of the world's premier events for embedded technologies, following its Embedded Award-winning presence at last year's exhibition. Building on this momentum, Team Group will focus on two core themes, "Edge to Action" and "Military", highlighting AI-driven intelligent applications alongside mission-critical data security solutions for highly sensitive environments.
The showcase will feature a comprehensive portfolio spanning high-performance embedded storage and military-grade physical destruction technologies, demonstrating Team Group's continued commitment to advancing efficiency, stability, and security across industrial and defense-related sectors while delivering end-to-end solutions that seamlessly connect edge computing with real-world deployment. Embedded World 2026 will take place from March 10-12 at the NΓΌrnbergMesse Convention Center in Nuremberg, Germany. Team Group cordially invites visitors to Hall 3 / Booth 3-349 to explore its latest embedded breakthroughs designed to enable more precise, trusted, and secure intelligent applications.
How to watch FIFA World Cup 2026 for free from anywhere with a VPN. Top-ranked Spain, Kylian Mbappe's France and Lionel Messi's Argentina are amongst the favorites.
NVIDIA has started to feel the aftermath of the ongoing DRAM shortages with its gaming business, as it witnesses a double-digit percentage QoQ decline, with supply remaining tight in the coming quarters. NVIDIA's Consumer GPU Business Is Suffering As Memory Allocation Becomes a Lot More Difficult The consumer GPU industry is indeed in rough times, and with the start of this year, we have seen significant changes in the segment, including availability and launch plans. Memory shortages have intensified to the point that it has become difficult for companies to acquire supplies for their consumer products, and it appears that [β¦]
Sony is one of the gaming giants that's still stubbornly holding onto the idea of console exclusives, and Gran Turismo is one of the franchises that still sticks to Sony's living room gaming console. This isn't due to a lack of time or technical know-how, though, as is evidenced by a tidbit recently shared by industry insider, Jeff Grubb, on his podcast, Jeff Grubb's Game Mess. According to Grubb, Sony has an internal version of Gran Turismo 7 that runs on the Nintendo Switch 2, although it will seemingly never be released on Nintendo's newest handheld gaming console. This echoes previous rumors that there were other versions of Gran Turismo games with internal builds running on Windows and Linux as well as a version of Gran Turismo 6 with full VR support.
Speculation suggests that these internal, non-commercial builds of games like Gran Turismo are likely to be testing platforms for Sony's own future hardware endeavors, which the hardware and game development teams can use to gauge things like minimum required hardware specs, optimization, and even graphical fidelity options for smaller screens. The timing of this information lends credence to the existence of GT7 on the Switch 2, since Sony has allegedly been working on a full-fledged gaming portable console that is slated to launch alongside the PS6 somewhere between 2027 and 2029, depending on the state of the ongoing PC hardware shortage.
gini.so provides a Global Workforce Passport standard that allows workers, agencies, and employers to capture deployability data in a structured, portable profile. Workers can upload a CV, answer mobility questions, and receive a passport with a readiness score and verification levels they can share and control. Agencies can bulk upload and manage verifications, while employers search standardized passports by authorization, readiness, and availability to speed up cross-border hiring.
A newly disclosed maximum-severity security flaw in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller (formerly vSmart) and Catalyst SD-WAN Manager (formerly vManage) has come under active exploitation in the wild as part of malicious activity that dates back to 2023.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20127 (CVSS score: 10.0), allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to bypass authentication and obtain
AMD announced its Ryzen AI 400 series "Gorgon Point" mobile APUs based on Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores at CES 2026 earlier this year, simultaneously showing off the AM5-based Ryzen AI 400-branded desktop APUs at the same show. Now, according to a new leak by Moore's Law is Dead on X, AMD will allegedly launch the new Ryzen AI 400-series desktop processors for AM5 in the first half of 2026. MLID adds that the launch may even happen as early as Q1. He also released what he claims to be a short promotional video of an AMD Ryzen AI 400 Pro processor in an AM5 socket to lend credence to his leak.
Exact specifications for the AM5 APUs are unconfirmed, but if they're anything like the laptop counterparts, it is expected that the new APUs will launch with the same silicon as Strix Point but with adjusted power management and increased clock speeds. This means we can expect to see the Ryzen AI 400 desktop processors top out with a 12-core (4Γ Zen 5; 8 Γ Zen 5c) CPU cluster tied to a 16 CU RDNA 3.5 iGPU, and a 60 TOPS NPU.
LG Display, the world's leading innovator of display technologies, today announced that all of its large-sized OLED panels, including those for TVs and monitors, have been recognized for their "perfect dimming technology" - earning the industry's first "100% dimming consistency" verification from UL Solutions, a global leader in applied safety science. This performance, as validated by UL Solutions, objectively demonstrates the superiority of OLED's pixel-level dimming.
Dimming consistency refers to a measurement method that evaluates, in percentage terms, how effectively a display reproduces content based on its brightness performance. A reference area is set in the center of the screen and is gradually reduced from 1/10 of the panel to 11/1000, 5/1000, and finally 2/1000. The results are expressed as a percentage: if the maximum and minimum brightness values remain the same throughout the process, dimming consistency is 100%. Conversely, as the value decreases, it means that there is light intensity variation within the same screen. In such cases, brightness differs depending on the position of the light source, even for the same color.
EmotionDropZone is your pocket reset for emotions. You can talk with unique AI companions in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English for instant support. Discover your workplace role through interactive quizzes and 3D radar charts, navigate emotions with AI-guided reflection tools, and share anonymously in the Workplace Treehole and Emotion Relay. Keep a private Mood Journal to track daily feelings and relax with curated healing music and soundscapes.
A truckload of benchmark leaks surrounding the Exynos 2600Β gave us a sliver of hope for Samsungβs first 2nm GAA chipset, and it should have already been known that the SoC would be compared against Qualcommβs Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5Β shortly after the Galaxy S26 series went official. Well, hereβs your first synthetic performance results comparison, where both silicon have been tested using Geekbench 6βs single-core, multi-core, and OpenCL benchmarks, with the Exynos 2600 possessing a faster GPU, but slower CPU. Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy is up to 18% faster than Exynos 2600 in Geekbench 6βs single-core & [β¦]
The US added 57 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery storage capacity to its electric grid last year β enough to supply the annual electricity needs of roughly five million homes. The SEIA report projects an additional 21 percent increase by the end of 2026, representing about 70 GWh of new capacity in a single year.
Booking Wolf helps you book the same independent hotels, villas, tours, and activities you see on sites like Booking.com or Viator without their 15β40% platform fees. You pay less while local operators earn more. Send any listing or use the Chrome extension to auto-fill details and get a direct checkout with instant savings. Booking Wolf focuses on independent stays and local experiences worldwide, not chains. It delivers transparent pricing and quick confirmations while supporting local businesses.
PrettyFocused transforms uploaded documents into ADHD-friendly, visually organized formats that are easier to read, understand, and act on. Choose from three styles, add interactive elements like checkboxes and progress trackers, and quickly condense content with built-in summarization. It also offers text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and an OpenDyslexic mode, with a free tier to try formatting and summaries before upgrading for higher limits and exports.
Anthropic has rewritten its flagship safety policy, dropping its once-defining 'no release until safe' pledge in favor of a more flexible, transparency-based framework.
We uncovered a sneaky way to watch Survivor 50 for FREE β from anywhere in the world, without coughing up for a Premium streaming subscription or cable. Here's the trick...
Samsung and its retail partner Amazon have always issued some stunning offers every time the Korean giantβs flagshipsβ pre-orders begin, but on this occasion, the e-commerce behemoth has gone the extra mile because the Galaxy S26 series not only offers double the storage at no extra cost, but customers can also avail up to a $200 gift card and obtain a decent price cut on Samsungβs newly announced Galaxy Buds4 Pro. Speaking of the Galaxy Buds4 Pro, there are offers for the companyβs wireless earbuds, so without wasting precious time, let us get into the details. The Galaxy S26 is [β¦]
EA's Full Circle studio published the hotly anticipated Skate, a free-to-play live-service installment in the popular franchise, just six months ago, and to a booming 134,901 peak concurrent players. However, those figures quickly dropped to the little-over-2,000 daily players we see today, and it seems as though the dwindling player count may have been an indication of what's to come. According to a recent blog post put out by Full Circle, the studio will be "reshaping" itself, making changes to better support Skate's long-term future, and those changes mean that "some roles will be impacted," which is to say that the studio is laying off staff.
Neither EA nor Full Circle have commented on how many developers or team members are being laid off, but the studio says that these are individuals who helped build the foundation of Skate, suggesting that they were part of the core development and art teams. This announcement comes not too long after EA was bought out by a group consisting of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, who subsequently announced a cost-savings plan that would see EA pivot to AI in order to increase efficiency, manage debt, and cut operating costs. The news of layoffs is also only the latest in a recent slew of layoffs and studio closures across the ailing gaming industry, which has seemingly hit the live-service genre particularly hard.
The State of New York's attorney general, Letitia James, has officially taken gaming giant, Valve, to court in a state court in Manhattan, alleging that the combination of games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and Dota, wherein players can earn and use real money to buy loot boxes, and Steam's Community Market, where rare skins and items can be sold, often for exorbitant prices, amount to "quintessential gambling." There are reports of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skins selling for as much as $2.5 million, with the game touted as having the biggest in-game economy of any video game. Valve previously adjusted the way it presented loot boxes and their rewards to players, seemingly specifically to avoid EU gambling regulations.
The lawsuit, spotted by Reuters, alleges that "Valve's loot boxes are particularly pernicious because they are popular among children and adolescents," going on to state that these mechanics put children at risk of becoming addicted, with the complaint adding that children are four times more at risk of becoming addicted to gambling in adulthood if they are exposed to gambling before the age of 12. The lawsuit seeks restitution for players and a fine of three times Valve's earnings from any activities deemed to be illegal. Loot boxes are largely looked down on by gamers and lawmakers alike, because players are encouraged to spend money on them, and they provide no guarantee of any return or specific value. If James succeeds against Valve in the lawsuit, it could set a precedent that may result in sweeping changes across both Steam and the gaming industry at large.
SK hynix Inc. and Sandisk Corporation held "HBF Spec. Standardization Consortium Kick-Off" event at Sandisk Headquarters in Milpitas, California on the 25th (local time) announcing global standardization strategy of next-generation memory solution HBF (High Bandwidth Flash) aimed at the AI inference era. SK hynix said, "By making HBF an industry standard, together with Sandisk, we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow together. A dedicated workstream under OCP will be launched with Sandisk to begin standardization work."
Recently, the AI industry is shifting from training which focuses on creating Large Language Models (LLMs) to inference, which accelerates actual AI services to users. Fast and efficient memory is essential as the number of users using AI services increases rapidly. However, the existing memory structure cannot meet the high capacity data processing and power efficiency at the same time in the inference stage and HBF technology is designed to address these limitations. HBF technology is a new memory layer between ultra-fast memory, HBM and high-capacity storage device, SSD. HBF technology can fill the gap between HBM's high performance and SSD's high capacity and ensure both capacity expansion and power efficiency required for AI inferencing. While HBM handles the high level bandwidth, HBF technology serves as a supporting layer in the architecture.
Gushwork has raised $9 million in a seed round led by SIG and Lightspeed. The startup has seen early customer traction from AI search tools like ChatGPT.
Seattle-based Vercept developed complex agentic tools, including a computer-use agent that could complete tasks inside applications like a person with a laptop would.
The artificial intelligence platform was also used to generate professional complaints, according to a report from 404 Media in collaboration with Court Watch.
NuPhy is known for making some of the best mid-range low-profile mechanical keyboards, having recently launched the Node series, a $99.95-109.95 low-profile mechanical keyboard family shortly after releasing the V3 update for its Air series keyboards. Now, adding to its growing list of accessories for its aforementioned low-profile keyboard collection, NuPhy has released a NuPhy x Riel Aquarium nSA profile keycap set, which is available on the NuPhy site for $49.95.
NuPhy designed the Aquarium keycap set in collaboration with Riel, and the set will be manufactured by KeyTok, but it uses NuPhy's low-profile, uniform-height nSA profile, which can also be found on its pre-built low-profile keyboards. The keycap set employs a whimsical sea-life theme, featuring various shades of blue and off-white alphanumeric and modifier keys and orange navigation accent keycaps. There are also alternative white and blue modifier keycaps featuring aquarium doodles. The Aquarium nSA keycap set is made of five-sided dye-sublimated PBT, and the set has a total of 159 keycaps. Given that nSA is a uniform-height keycap set, compatibility with ortholinear and small form factor keyboards with split spaces should actually be quite high.
Back at CES 2026, we got a brief look at Keychron's resin and concrete K2 HE Special Edition wireless TMR keyboards, but the company has officially launched both the Concrete Edition and Resin Edition K2 HE keyboards, with both keyboards launching via Keychron's direct-to-consumer online store for $199.99. Both keyboards are based on the K2 HE, which has been one of Keychron's more popular models since it launched, and there isn't much by way of technical improvements over the original K2 HE aside from the design update. The resin edition features a smoky translucent case with an almost marbled aesthetic that shifts in the light, while the concrete edition has a simpler brutalist design, with color-matched keycaps and a solid gray aesthetic.
Both the K2 HE Concrete and Resin Editions are based on the same MCU, TMR sensor, and switch architectures as the original K2 HE, meaning they use the same Gateron Double-Rail Magnetic Nebula switches as the originalβwith 4 mm total travel and enabling all the typical analog features and online customization via Keychron Launcherβand feature the same 1 kHz polling rate and wireless connectivity via Bluetooth 5.3 and 2.4 GHz. It also goes without saying that both keyboards have the same 75% layout as the previous K2 HE keyboards. The material changes have also resulted in different dimensions. The K2 HE Resin Edition measures 321.13 Γ 131.3 mm, with a 27.06 mm listed front height and 4Β° typing angle, while the Concrete Edition comes in at 322.13 Γ 132.13 mm with a 27.39 mm front height and 4Β° typing angle. Both also use an aluminium switch plate and have a tray-mount design.
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported record revenue for the fourth quarter ended January 25, 2026, of $68.1 billion, up 20% from the previous quarter and up 73% from a year ago. For fiscal 2026, revenue was $215.9 billion, up 65% from a year ago.
For the quarter, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins were 75.0% and 75.2%, respectively. For fiscal 2026, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins were 71.1% and 71.3%, respectively.
The recently unveiled x86CSS project aims to emulate an x86 processor within a web browser. Unlike many other web-based emulators, Lyra Rebane's implementation is written entirely in CSS. More precisely, the x86CSS page hosts a C program compiled with GCC into native 8086 machine code, which is then executed through...
Turtle Savings turns saving money into simple, addictive games. Choose challenges like 100 Envelopes, 52 Weeks, or Bingo, move money to your own bank account, and mark envelopes to see your stack grow. The app tracks progress, celebrates wins, and shows a live scoreboard so you stay motivated without handing over your cash. Join thousands of savers and crush goals faster with bite-sized daily actions.
Samsungβs WAFX-P interactive display combines AI tools, dual-pen input, live captions, and multi-device integration for collaborative business environments.
Valve is facing yet another lawsuit, and it's not about the Steam company's 30% cut on all Steam sales. This time, the lawsuit comes from the state of New York, as the state's general attorney, Letitia James, has filed a lawsuit against Valve, alleging that the company has violated state gambling laws with the loot boxes available games like Counter-Strike. The news comes from a new report from Reuters, which adds that James calls Valve's loot boxes "quintessential gambling," and also accused the DOTA 2 developer of "threatening to addict children" to gambling. "Valve's loot boxes are particularly pernicious because [β¦]
God of War: Sons of Sparta plays it safe when no other entry had done so before. A Metroid-like handled by an indie studio might not be what you expected in 2026 but I enjoy seeing smaller studios try and give a unique spin on existing franchises.
The company has begun rolling out the latest BIOS updates for its motherboards to fix the BitLocker recovery issues. ASUS Releases Beta BIOS Version 2102/1642 for 600 and 800-Series Motherboards; Resolves BitLocker Recovery Problems There have been numerous reports indicating that users were facing BitLocker recovery issues on ASUS AM5 motherboards, which was reportedly caused by the Beta BIOS update 2101. This resulted in BitLocker demanding the recovery key on every boot. Despite downgrading the BIOS and even clearing TPM, the problem persisted for many users, which suggested corruption of Secure Boot logs. ASUS has finally released a new BIOS [β¦]
Today during IGN Fan Fest 2026, Swedish indie publisher Raw Fury and developer Christoffer BodegΓ₯rd announced that their fantasy CRPG, Esoteric Ebb, will launch on March 3 for PC. Players will soon be able to step into Esoteric Ebb's isometric, Disco-inspired TTRPG-turned-CRPG gameplay, which features deep, branching dialogue and staggering player choice, in a richly imagined Arcanepunk fantasy world.
In Esoteric Ebb, the player is the Cleric, one of many menial laborers of the city of Norvik. Tasked to solve the mystery of an exploded Tea Shop, players will roll dice against the voices in their head, explore a fantasy city on the brink of its first-ever election, and strive to become a hero of legends. Or completely ruin the campaign.
The Galaxy S26 lineup runs on a customized version of Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. Compared to last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, the new silicon delivers a 19% uplift in CPU performance, a 24% gain in GPU power, and a 39% boost in AI acceleration via...
PDFSlick delivers a drop-in PDF viewer that turns static documents into collaborative workspaces. Developers can embed real-time cursors, comments, and annotations with a few lines of code to quickly implement multiplayer features.
Its edge-native sync keeps latency under 50 ms, while zero document storage ensures files remain in your own bucketβonly collaboration ink is synced. You can integrate in minutes, scale from free to enterprise, and maintain privacy and performance at the core.
Under the first year of the Trump administration, the U.S. cyber agency CISA has faced cuts, layoffs, and furloughs, as bipartisan lawmakers and cybersecurity industry sources say the agency is unprepared to handle a crisis.
Crypto is creeping back into the startup conversation, but atΒ ETHDenverΒ last week, the buzz was as much about Washington as it was about tokens. Policy shifts are rippling through the market asΒ TetherΒ and stablecoins face scrutiny,Β players like StripeΒ re-enter theΒ conversation, and startups either find traction or flame out. The hype cycle isΒ over, orΒ at least taking aΒ break.Β SoΒ whatΒ comes next?Β On [β¦]
The former boss of a U.S. hacking tools maker was jailed for selling highly sensitive software exploits to a Russian broker. This is how we first learned of his arrest, reported the story, and some of the unanswered questions we still have.
Anthropic updated its crawler documentation to list separate Claude bots for training, search indexing, and user requests, with visibility tradeoffs when blocked.
The PS Plus Essential games for March 2026 have been revealed, and after February's lineup added a couple of strong indie titles, this month's lineup of four games includes a few bigger names like PGA Tour 2K25 and Monster Hunter Rise headlining this month's batch. Plays subscribed to the bottom tier of PS Plus or higher will get access to the two aforementioned games, along with Slime Rancher 2 and The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road next week starting on March 3, 2026. As always, if you want to access these games after this coming month, you'll need to [β¦]
Samsung has finally lifted the curtain off of its newest Galaxy S26 series, with the company introducing slightly changed designs for all models paired with a specifications bump and a minor improvement to the cameras. The latest lineup now starts from $899 in the U.S., which will raise some eyebrows and could manipulate your purchasing decision. However, there are some interesting bits found in the latest review roundup, so make sure you check out what content creators have pushed out before deciding on which flagship to make your daily driver. No magnets for Qi2 wireless charging and no silicon-carbon batteries [β¦]
While the star attraction of the 'Galaxy Unpacked' event has always been Samsung's S-series, the accessories that the South Korean behemoth typically unveils at the margins of the said event do garner attention, especially when some of those accessories relate to the Galaxy Buds 4 series, which now bring an innovative head gesture support, and act as a remote shutter button in the camera app. Behold the Galaxy Buds 4 Series As expected, Samsung has now unveiled the Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds Pro 4, bringing a new design to the proverbial table, replete with flat metal stems, silicone [β¦]
With Generative AI (GenAI) remaining the most controversial topic in the video game industry, any mention of GenAI or AI in general is making the hair on players' arms stand up. The latest occurrence of this comes from Genshin Impact players looking a little more closely at Hoyoverse's recent updates to the popular free-to-play game's Privacy Policy, which appears to have indicated that unless players opt-out, Hoyoverse will collect players' in-game voice chat data to train an internal AI model. Initially spotted on a now-removed Reddit post, Bluesky user Cevian shared a change to Genshin Impact's privacy policy that was [β¦]
Last year, EA brought back one of its most beloved franchises from the seventh generation of consoles with the return of Skate. It was absolutely not the Skate 4 that fans of the series had hoped they might get one day. It was EA's attempt at turning the franchise into a live service game that could churn out cash for the publisher, and despite it being the most-downloaded free-to-play PC and console game in 2025 according to a new Sensor Tower report, less than six months from its launch, developer Full Circle has been impacted by layoffs. A statement from [β¦]
Valorborn, the upcoming open-world sandbox RPG that developer Laps Games describes as a "dangerous, reactive medieval fantasy world full of freedom, tension, and possibility," officially has an early access release date. It'll arrive on PC first through Steam, and it'll be out in early access on April 15, 2026. Sim and city-building fans may already recognize Laps Games as the developer behind Land of the Vikings, the 2023 strategy city-building sim that lets you create intricate Viking colonies and challenges you to lead your people through difficult winters, military expeditions, all while managing resources so your colony can thrive instead [β¦]
Samsung has just unveiled its new Galaxy S26+ and Galaxy S26 Ultra variants within the S26 series, bringing a host of AI capabilities and the Ultra-exclusive Privacy Display. Behold the Galaxy S26+ And Galaxy S26 Ultra Physical Features The Samsung Galaxy S26+ sports a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen, with a resolution of 1440 x 3120, a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz, and peak brightness of 3,000 nits vs. the 2600 nits on the last-gen Galaxy S25+ variant. In contrast, the Galaxy S26 Ultra sports a 6.9-inch Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X screen, with a resolution of 1440 x [β¦]
The February Xbox Update introduces 1440p cloud streaming on Xbox consoles, new controller navigation sounds in the Xbox PC app, improved storage and shader features for Xbox Ally, and more.
According to the two executives, the next steps revolve around the next-gen Xbox hardware platform, which is rumored to launch around 2028 as a PC-console hybrid, and Microsoft's first-party development efforts. Sharma said "For me, the spirit of 'Return to Xbox' is about returning to the spirit that the team was founded on... It's that spirit of surprise, it's the spirit of building something nobody else is willing to try," going on to explain that "I think that our core Xbox fans and players have invested up to 25 years of themselves in these universes and our console. I want to make sure everybody knows I'm committed to Xbox, starting with the console. We're going to keep meeting players where they areβthe world continues to evolve and change. We're going to make sure Xbox is a great place for developers and players. We want to invest in reducing the artificial divide between different types of devices that they want to use with us. I think that's going to mean a lot more investment in breaking down the barriers, in helping developers build once and show up across different hardware experience."
Samsung Electronics today announced the Galaxy S26 series, powered by the most intuitive, proactive and adaptive Galaxy AI experiences yet and designed to simplify the tasks people do on their phones every day. From managing plans and finding information to capturing and refining content, Galaxy S26 reduces the effort and number of steps required to get things done. As Samsung's third-generation AI phones, Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra handle complex tasks in the background, allowing users to focus on results rather than how the technology works.
The Galaxy S26 series was engineered with Samsung's most advanced capabilities working together as one: incredible performance, an industry-leading camera system and Galaxy AI. This provides a strong foundation that gives Galaxy S26 users the confidence to depend on their phone throughout the day without compromising security or privacy.
AMD and Meta have signed what they describe as a "strategic" partnership aimed at expanding large-scale computing capacity and continuing to bankroll Mark Zuckerberg's long-running AGI ambitions. Central to the deal is a massive 6 gigawatts of total GPU capacity, which AMD will deploy in custom-built data center racks for...
YouTube said the changes were based on user feedback, noting that the additional features would make Premium Lite more attractive to people currently using the free service. They are already available to Lite users in the US and will be gradually rolled out to all eligible subscribers worldwide over the...
Rauno lets you prompt multiple AI models at once and see them discuss their responses in a single chat. You can compare perspectives from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude as they verify and refine answers, helping you spot errors and choose the best output.
Google on Wednesday disclosed that it worked with industry partners to disrupt the infrastructure of a suspected China-nexus cyber espionage group tracked as UNC2814 that breached at least 53 organizations across 42 countries.
"This prolific, elusive actor has a long history of targeting international governments and global telecommunications organizations across Africa, Asia, and the Americas,"
Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event unveiled the Galaxy Buds Pro 4, and I've found the best preorder deal: a free $30 gift card with your purchase at Best Buy.
Samsung just revealed a new collection of Galaxy S26 smartphones featuring new looks, new materials, new cameras, and lots of AI options. Here are the highlights.
Waymo this week will begin mapping and collecting data in Chicago and Charlotte. The move comes as Waymo announces it is currently operating its robotaxis fully autonomously in 10 US cities.
The debate over the future of Taiwan's chip industry has resurfaced, but for those who haven't noticed, fabless manufacturers have already begun preparing for the worst. Taiwan's Chip Production Shift Is Driven By the Worries of Big Tech CEOs Amid Their Dependency On the Region We have extensively discussed the topic of US-Taiwan and the grand shift of supply chains from the East to the West, but the NYT's latest report has revealed aspects that indicate the geopolitical constraints on Taiwan's chip industry are being taken much more seriously. But one of the more important events to spot in the [β¦]
One of the best action games of 2025 and the return of one of the best action series in video games last year, Ninja Gaiden 4, will get its first major DLC release next week, with the arrival of its previously announced The Two Masters DLC on March 4, 2026. The confirmation of its release date comes after we previously learned that the DLC would arrive sometime in early 2026. Announced in an Xbox Wire blog post, we also got a new look at gameplay from the DLC, which adds two new weapons (one for Ryu and one for Yakumo), [β¦]
There is something wrong with ASRock motherboards, as this isn't the first time we are seeing two dead CPUs back to back. Two Ryzen 9 9950X Killed on ASRock X870 Steel Legend WiFi; Each Lived for Only 3-4 Months, and Latest BIOS Couldn't Revive Them Popular Tech YouTuber, Tech Yes City, has reported killing two of his AMD Ryzen 9 9950X CPUs in a span of just a few months. The channel owner, Bryan, has been running various configurations, but this one seems to have been the most brutal to his Ryzen 9 9950X CPU. Bryan says that the first [β¦]
Even though this year's Samsung 'Galaxy Unpacked' event has been utterly tarnished by a spate of high-profile leaks - which saw an unreleased Galaxy S26 Ultra fall into the hands of a tech YouTuber as reports emerge of a plethora of those unreleased units making their way to shady online stores -Β the show must go on. As such, Samsung has just officially unveiled the base Galaxy S26, nearly copying the form factor of the base Galaxy S25, save for a slightly larger and brighter screen, a dedicated camera island, and a larger battery, all for $899. Behold The Base Galaxy [β¦]
Ubisoft has seemingly lost another one of its veteran developers as part of its ongoing organizational restructuring following the company's announcement of a "major reset" last month. After learning who would be taking charge of the Assassin's Creed franchise going forward in its new structure yesterday, today we've learned that Clint Hocking, a Ubisoft veteran who was the creative director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and most recently the creative director on the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Hexe project, has left the company. VGC initially reported Hocking's departure, and when we reached out to Ubisoft [β¦]
The user will now get a free Wireview Pro 2 for his ROG Astral RTX 5090, whose Wireview Pro connector was melted due to ignoring the temperature warning. Der8auer Appreciates The Effort and Dedication of the ROG Astral RTX 5090 User and is Sending Him The Latest Wireview Pro 2 Yesterday, we reported that a user had his Wireview Pro connector melt due to high temperatures. The user reportedly shunt-modded his ROG Astral RTX 5090 and also flashed the MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z 1000W BIOS to increase the power limit on the GPU. Due to this configuration, his Wireview [β¦]
The U.S. ad rollout of ChatGPT ads is βiterative,β according to OpenAIβs COO. The early-stage push to monetize ChatGPTβs massive free user base will evolve gradually as the company works to refine the model without eroding user trust.
What OpenAI says. Speaking at the India AI summit, COO Brad Lightcap described the rollout as βiterative,β emphasizing user trust and privacy, TechCrunch reported.
Lightcap said ads, if done right, can be βadditiveβ to the product experience β but acknowledged the company is still in early testing and will need time to refine the model.
Catch up quick. OpenAI started introducing ads to free and Go-tier users of ChatGPT in the U.S., marking a significant shift in its monetization strategy.
CEO Sam Altman recently sparred publicly with Anthropic over its Super Bowl ad campaign, defending OpenAIβs commitment to broad, free AI access. He argued that scale creates a βdifferently-shaped problemβ for OpenAI compared to rivals with smaller user bases.
Reports suggest OpenAI is charging premium rates β as high as $60 CPM β with minimum commitments reportedly starting around $200,000.
Partners like Shopify are enabling merchants to advertise in ChatGPT through Shop Campaigns, alongside early testers such as Target and Adobe.
Bottom line. Ads are now part of ChatGPTβs future. Stay tuned to see whether OpenAI can monetize without compromising the product experience that fuelled its growth.
Google is rolling out a significant update to how average daily budgets pace in campaigns that use ad scheduling β and it could materially change monthly spend totals.
Whatβs happening. Starting March 1, 2026, Google Ads will begin proactively pacing budgets to spend up to the full 30.4x monthly limit, even if campaigns only run on specific days via ad scheduling.
How it works:
The 2x daily overspend rule stays in place.
The 30.4x average daily budget monthly cap remains unchanged.
Campaigns will not run outside scheduled hours.
But Google will now attempt to hit the full monthly ceiling within the allowed schedule.
Why we care. Until now, advertisers running limited schedules β like weekends only β effectively spent less per month because Google paced against active days. Campaigns using ad scheduling may start spending significantly more per month β even though daily budgets and billing caps havenβt changed.
Google will now push harder to hit the full 30.4x monthly limit within scheduled days, which could double spend for weekend-only or limited-hour campaigns. Without adjusting daily budgets, marketers risk unintentionally overshooting their intended monthly targets.
Example. A campaign set to weekends only with a $100 daily budget previously spent about $800/month (roughly eight weekend days).
Under the new pacing logic, it could spend up to $1,600/month β hitting $200 (2x daily budget) on each scheduled day.
What Google says. According to Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin, the goal is to better align pacing behavior with advertisersβ expectations around monthly spend limits. Spend will still be driven by campaign objectives like conversions or conversion value, and no campaign will exceed the existing billing caps.
Ginny also clarified that only advertisers who received notifications about this update will be affected and the change will be slowly rolled out.
Between the lines. This is less about raising limits β and more about how aggressively Google uses existing ones. For advertisers relying on ad scheduling to naturally suppress spend, this could lead to unexpected increases unless daily budgets are recalibrated.
What to do now:
Review campaigns using ad scheduling.
Recalculate daily budgets based on true monthly goals.
Lower daily budgets if you want to maintain previous monthly spend levels.
The bottom line. Google isnβt changing how much you can spend β itβs changing how quickly you will spend it. Flighted and part-time campaigns should adjust before March 2026.
First spotted. This updated was mentioned by Jordan Fry who shared the Google message he got on LinkedIn.
The leading system integrator iBUYPOWER is pleased to announce the official launch of its new Gen 10 series of prebuilt and custom gaming PCs. Built for those that demand cutting-edge gaming performance with contemporary aesthetics, iBUYPOWER is evolving its prebuilt computers by redefining how a modern gaming system should look and perform. To learn more, please visit: https://www.ibuypower.com/gaming-pcs/signatures/gen-10-series
iBUYPOWER's Trace X and Element Pulse X cases are at the heart of its Gen 10 lineup, as both cases feature refreshed, architectural-inspired designs that emphasize clean lines, panoramic views into your system, and eye catching RGB aesthetics. Both cases are also performance optimized, supporting high-end components like large GPUs, PSUs, and air coolers, and are backed by iBUYPOWER's comprehensive three-year labor and two-year parts warranty and nationwide Micro Center service support.
Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) introduces the Dell PowerEdge XR9700 server, a first of its kind closed-loop liquid-cooled, fully-enclosed, ruggedized server engineered to run Cloud RAN and edge AI workloads in unprotected outdoor environments. Designed to mount on utility poles, rooftops and building exteriors, the PowerEdge XR9700 brings high performance computing into dense urban areas, remote locations and space-constrained facilities where traditional data center infrastructure cannot reach.
Why it matters
Telecommunications operators and those working at the edge often struggle to deploy compute due to lack of power and space. The PowerEdge XR9700 solves this, delivering high performance compute directly at the point of need in an ultra-compact, zero-footprint IP66-rated enclosure that's sealed from the elements. For telecommunications operators, it provides a flexible, software-defined alternative to traditional RAN solutions, supporting Cloud RAN and Open RAN processing at the cell site. At the same time, the platform can run edge and AI applications directly where data is created and consumed.
Valve has steadily been adding features to SteamOS and the Steam Client since the release of the Steam Deck and leading up to the Steam Machine, but the latest Steam Deck Beta client update aims to address two main issues that have apparently been prevalent in the Steam Hardware Survey, which should result in more accurate GPU data reporting. The first change fixes incorrect VRAM reporting on some GPUs, although Valve doesn't provide any explanation about which GPUs are affected by this bug, while the second change makes it so that the Steam Client automatically detects the display adaptor with the most VRAMβtherefore likely the most performant or the least likely to be an iGPUβwhen collecting Steam Survey information.
Aside from weird edge cases, like users running both a workstation GPU and a gaming GPU in one system, these changes should result in more accurate data from the Steam Hardware Survey. It's unclear how widespread these reporting issues were or how far back they go, but the changes are unlikely to have an effect before a wider roll-out, and it's unclear when the wider roll-out will happen. The beta client update also includes two minor updates to Steam Input. The update adds a multi-button selector for the button chord activator, which Valve says will improve compatibility with extra grip buttons on modern controllers. Valve has also changed the way the Gyro to Joystick Camera output works, matching the Gyro to Joystick Deflection behavior, which it says is useful for "identifying a game's internal joystick deadzone." Polishing both the Steam Hardware Survey results and Steam Input might be steps to prepare for the launch of the Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame.
ACEMAGIC's K1 Mini PC, powered by Intel's 12th Gen Core i5-12600H, is currently available at a substantial discount on Amazon US. Originally priced at $579.99, the system is now listed at $399.99, with an additional 10% off promo code bringing the final price down to $359.99. The promotion runs from February 4, 2026 (04:00 PST) through March 31, 2026 (23:59 PST).
Alder Lake-H Performance in a Compact Form Factor
The ACEMAGIC K1 is built around the Intel Core i5-12600H, a 12-core (4P + 8E) / 16-thread processor based on Intel's Alder Lake architecture. With boost clocks up to 4.5 GHz, the chip offers significantly higher multithreaded performance compared to typical low-power U-series mini PC CPUs, and even outpaces processors such as the i5-12450H in many workloads.
To purchase from the United States, visit this page (Amazon link).
To purchase from Canada, visit this page (Amazon Canada link).
Micron chose to unveil its latest developments in graphics memory via a blog post titled "The new performance bottleneck: How more GPU memory unlocks next gen gaming and AI PCs" which explains that its latest GDDR7 memory will allow for graphics cards with as much as 96 GB of VRAM. Micron isn't the first company with 24 Gbit or 3 GB density GDDR7 memory chips, as Samsung sampled partners back in November of last year.
Samsung's 3 GB GDDR7 chips are also offering 36 Gbps bandwidth, so Micron doesn't stand out here either and this might be why the company snuck out the details of its new product in a blog post rather than putting out a press release. Micron claims that its new GDDR7 chips offer improved efficiency, but doesn't go into any details as to what this means. The rest of the blog post is mostly about the benefits of GDDR7 at higher density and speeds and the benefits it will bring to graphics cards, AI PCs and what not. The chips aren't listed on Micron's website as yet, despite the blog linking to Micron's GDDR7 product page.
Rather than halting the simulation, Sony's design keeps the game active while shifting it into a lower-intensity state. The patent describes scenarios in which time may slow down, enemy pressure may decrease, and assistance systems may quietly become more active, allowing players to glance at messages or notifications without losing...
MarketInsights delivers a clean, citation-backed market report straight to your inbox. After a short intake, youβll receive a professionally formatted report covering market size and opportunity, competitive dynamics, customer segments, and growth opportunities. Itβs not a full consulting engagement, and it doesnβt pretend to be. But itβs a fast, affordable way to get a professional starting point for validation and planning. Built for founders, strategists, and investors, each report costs $19 and is delivered in 30 minutes.
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed multiple security vulnerabilities in Anthropic's Claude Code, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding assistant, that could result in remote code execution and theft of API credentials.
"The vulnerabilities exploit various configuration mechanisms, including Hooks, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and environment variables β executing
Proton VPN is closing the feature gap between its applications, introducing city-level map pins for iOS and confirming that a major visual overhaul for its Linux and Mac clients is finally underway.
Samsung is expected to unveil its newest Galaxy Buds earbuds today, which means you can find an excellent deal on the fantastic-sounding Galaxy Buds Pro 3.
NordVPN has launched a redesigned mobile app focused on usability, featuring a cleaner interface, an expanded map view, unified search, and enhanced protection statistics. Hereβs what changed and how it benefits users.
As the popular show celebrates its half-century season, here's how to watch Survivor 50 online from anywhere β including FREE streams and without cable TV.
Herman Miller's Embody has the features I look for in a high-end ergonomic chair, including dynamic support that adapts to your movements during long hours at the desk.
COO Brad Lightcap noted that ads can add to the product experience of users if they are done right. He urged to give OpenAI a few months to see how the company fares in rolling out the product.
Samsung will introduce the privacy display to the Galaxy S26 Ultra for the first time, making it a useful feature under a certain number of conditions, but a godsend for those who donβt appreciate prying eyes all over their private conversations when sitting in a crowded space. Before Galaxy Unpacked kicks off, one YouTuber got hold of the flagship and decided to test out the aforementioned feature. Based on his testing, it is useful, but it all depends on where the other person is sitting and how much effort they are making to invade your personal space. The privacy display [β¦]
A new tip from a relatively well-known tipster now suggests that Samsung'sΒ recent channel leaksΒ - which saw an unreleased Galaxy S26 Ultra fall into the hands of a tech YouTuber amid concurrent reports of a plethora of those unreleased units making their way to shady online stores - were the result of a collective distributors' strike against the South Korean behemoth's supposedly extractive policies. Samsung's MX division, pressured by its semiconductor arm, tried to gain some financial room by squeezing its distributors, with disastrous results As we detailed recently, a Dubai-based tech YouTuber, Sahil Karoul, was able to get his hands [β¦]
For a very long time, it was rumored that Bluepoint Games was working on a Bloodborne remaster for modern hardware, but dreams of seeing Yharnam in all of its haunting glory on PlayStation 5 were crushed by the studio's unfortunate closure last week. Still, PC players can enjoy the classic FromSoftware action role-playing game with a slew of improvements on PC, thanks to the ShadPS4 emulator and the Bloodborne Remaster Project by fromsoftserve, which was updated this week to a new version featuring some major overhauls. The modding project's 0.99.2 version biggest changes involve modified classic gparams, bringing the art [β¦]
NVIDIA's next-gen Vera Rubin is currently under full production, and the company has provided us with an extensive overview of the rack architecture, diving into individual components. NVIDIA's Vera Rubin Features Six New Upgraded Chips, Enhanced Liquid Cooling, and High-End NVLink 6 Spine When we talk about rack generations, NVIDIA is set to feature major upgrades with Vera Rubin, which we'll discuss in depth, but based on a recent video by CNBC diving into the Vera Rubin architecture, we saw an extensive look at multiple components, ranging from the main compute node to networking and cooling elements. More importantly, NVIDIA's [β¦]
An OLED gaming monitor is one of the biggest upgrades that you can make to your system because the colors, contrasts, deep blacks, and overall picture quality trump every other alternative. Also, you wouldnβt believe how pocket-friendly Samsungβs Odyssey G5 is going on Amazon, because the online retailer has slashed $200 from the total, meaning that you can grab each unit for $349.99. However, thatβs not even the best part, because each purchase will give you a free copy of Resident Evil Requiem, with the gameβs official launch right around the corner. The Odyssey G5 has an ultra-fast 0.03ms Gray [β¦]
Although Sony has brought some of its biggest PlayStation 5 games to PC, there are still a few that have yet to make the jump, such as Gran Turismo 7. While there is no indication of the game ever making the jump to other platforms (although a GeForce NOW leak from September 2021 seemed to suggest a PC version was in the cards), Sony and developer Polyphony Digital reportedly had it run on the system least expected to receive a port: the Nintendo Switch 2. Speaking during a recent episode of the Games Mess Decides podcast, Jeff Grubb revealed an [β¦]
AMD and Meta's blockbuster deal could see the company signing away 10% of shares in the business to Meta. We examine why AMD is keen to secure AI hardware orders, and explore Meta's AI compute strategy.
LLMs and their influence on traffic to a brandβs website are a major topic in our client conversations. Everyone wants to know whatβs happening, how they can do better, and what the best practices are.
My recommendation to brands right now is to start with the data and focus on what they can know for sure.
To glean insights into how LLM traffic is influencing key metrics, we analyzed our dataset of LLM prompt referral traffic in Google Analytics across our customer base over the last 13 months (Jan. 1, 2025 to Feb. 7, 2026).Β
We focused on traffic from various LLM models to brand sites and the conversion events closest to true business outcomes. In some cases, thatβs a purchase. In others, itβs a generated lead.
When we look at this dataset, four major findings rise to the surface:
LLM referral traffic is still small.
LLM traffic is growing fast.
The sources referenced in responses are shifting.
LLMs convert at a very high rate compared to other channels
LLM referral traffic is still small
LLM referral traffic accounts for less than 2% of total referral traffic on average, according to our dataset. In other words, fewer than 2 out of 100 visitors to a site come from an LLM referring source.
The range is 0.15%-1.5% of referral traffic coming from various LLMs, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude.
So while this is a major topic of conversation, it isnβt the highest priority for near-term bottom-line impact for many businesses.
LLMs, as a referral source, are growing quickly, according to our data. Comparing the first half of 2025 with the second half, we saw an average growth rate of 80% in LLM referral traffic.
There was a wide range across the dataset. Some companies saw just 10% growth, while others experienced 300% increases.
Below is the aggregate referral traffic by month in 2025. It shows a steady month-by-month increase, building to 3x referral traffic growth from January to December.
That means itβs not enough to understand your volume of LLM traffic. You also need to monitor the velocity of that growth.
LLMs are expanding as consumer adoption grows, and prompt algorithms keep changing. Between those two variables, you can see dramatic swings that you need to monitor.
The sources cited in LLM responses are changing quickly.
Hereβs a look at our dataset since September of last year. The data comes from monitoring more than 5,000 prompts and their responses across various LLM APIs, including Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
YouTube links and citations have increased over the last 30 days. Reddit saw similar growth, though that traffic recently leveled off.
These shifts in citations and links will affect the traffic that eventually reaches your site, and they may also influence your ad and content strategies.
If you donβt monitor this data, you wonβt see these changes. LLMs donβt provide this information directly β you can only access it through a third-party tool.
LLMs convert at a very high rate compared to other channels
This is likely the most interesting and important finding. When you compare conversion rates alongside the total percentage of traffic, the contrast becomes clear.
LLM referrals are the highest-converting traffic source across our customer base, with an approximate 18% conversion rate. Thatβs higher than any other tactic, including paid shopping, SEO, and PPC.
However, they account for the lowest percentage of total traffic to a brandβs website, about 25 times less than SEO or direct.
Based on these findings, you should take the following actions to prepare for the evolving LLM landscape.
1. Establish dedicated monitoring
While LLM traffic volume is still low, its growth rate and volatility, including shifts between sources like YouTube and Reddit, make monitoring essential.
Track velocity: Donβt just look at volume. Monitor the rate of growth in LLM referrals to understand when this channel crosses a meaningful threshold for your business.
Monitor citation sources: Use available third-party tools to understand which LLMs and which types of platforms, including forums, videos, and news, are driving the most citations and subsequent traffic.
2. Capitalize on high-value traffic
An 18% conversion rate suggests LLM-referred users are highly qualified. They often arrive with clear intent or after their query has already been answered or validated by the LLM.
Analyze high-converting journeys: Review the user journey for LLM referrals. What content are they landing on? What queries are being answered that lead to conversion?
Optimize for intent: Focus content and landing page optimization on the high-intent needs reflected in the LLMβs citation context. Treat this traffic as a premium audience.
3. Plan for future growth
Given rapid LLM adoption, todayβs low traffic volume wonβt last.
Develop a content strategy for AI: Build a strategy that anticipates how LLMs summarize, cite, and reference your material. This isnβt traditional SEO. Itβs about being the authoritative source LLMs choose to link to.
Allocate budget: While this may not drive immediate bottom-line impact, dedicate a small budget to tools and resources focused on understanding and optimizing the LLM referral channel.
This space is evolving fast. Hopefully, this dataset shows how things are progressing and motivates action within your organization.
This is a time of change. If you innovate, stay focused, and use data, you have a clear opportunity to outperform your competition.
LLM referral traffic is still a small share of overall volume, but itβs growing fast, shifting where it cites, and driving strong conversions.
Donβt overreact. Monitor the trend lines, understand where citations come from, and watch how this audience behaves once it lands. This space is moving fast, and if you stay close to the data, youβll be better positioned as it evolves.
Google Discover runs on a structured, multi-stage pipeline with hard publisher blocks, strict image requirements, freshness decay, and heavy experimentation shaping what users see, according to new SDK-level research by Metehan Yesilyurt.
Why we care. Google Discover can drive massive traffic, but it often feels unpredictable. This research gives you a clearer view of how your content qualifies, gets ranked, or gets blocked β and where things can break before ranking even begins.
The details. Yesilyurt analyzed observable signals in Googleβs Discover app framework and mapped a nine-stage flow. Google:
Crawls and understands your content.
Reads key meta tags like your image and title.
Classifies your content type (e.g., breaking news or evergreen).
Checks whether youβre blocked.
Matches your content to user interests.
Applies a server-side click-through rate prediction model.
Builds the feed layout.
Delivers your content.
Records user feedback.
One key finding. The publisher-level block happens before interest matching and ranking. If a user blocks you, your content never reaches the ranking stage.
Publisher blocking is powerful. One βDonβt show content from this siteβ action can suppress your entire domain. Thereβs no similar sitewide βboostβ mechanism.
The ranking model. Your title, image quality, and engagement history are part of the evaluation process. The system uses a predicted click-through rate (pCTR) model on Googleβs servers to estimate how likely someone is to click. The model isnβt visible, but the app shows which signals are sent to Google before ranking decisions, including:
Your page title (from og:title).
Your image size and quality.
How new your content is.
Past click and impression data for your URL.
Whether your images load successfully.
Freshness matters. Google Discover groups content into time windows:
1 to 7 days old: strongest boost.
8 to 14 days: moderate visibility.
15 to 30 days: limited visibility.
30+ days: gradual decline.
Thereβs a separate classification for strong evergreen content, but by default, newer content has an advantage.
Image and meta tag requirements. Google Discover reads six key page-level tags, including og:image and og:title. No image means no card.
To qualify for large, prominent cards, your images must be at least 1200px wide. Smaller images typically appear as thumbnails and often earn fewer clicks.
If certain tags are missing, Google Discover looks for backups β for example, it will try the Twitter title tag or the HTML title if og:title isnβt present.
Two specific meta tags β βnopagereadaloudβ and βnotranslateβ β can stop your page from entering Google Discover entirely.
Personalization layers. Google Discover personalizes content using:
Googleβs broader interest data tied to user behavior.
Publisher signals, including Publisher Center registration.
Individual actions like follows, saves, and dismissals.
Engagement signals, such as time spent reading.
If a user dismisses your story, the system stores that action permanently for that specific URL. It wonβt resurface.
Experiments everywhere. During one observed session, about 150 server-side experiments were running simultaneously. Another 50+ feature controls affected how cards were displayed.
That means two similar users could see noticeably different feeds simply because theyβre in different experiment groups.
Real-time feed updates. Google Discover isnβt static. The system can add, remove, or reorder content while someone is browsing, without a refresh.
The big takeaways. Success in Google Discover depends less on tricks and more on eligibility, trust, strong visuals, and sustained engagement β in a system that can filter you out before ranking even starts.
Hereβs when you can start playing Resident Evil Requiem Capcom has just unveiled the global launch times for Resident Evil Requiem, which will be available on February 27th (in most regions). Note that the gameβs console and PC release timings differ across regions, while Requiemβs PC version will launch worldwide at the same time. In [β¦]
Gaming laptops keep getting more expensive, which is exactly why I'm always happy highlighting big sales like Dell's Tech Days event. If you want an Alienware laptop, this is your chance to save big.
Xbox has undergone some major changes in the past week, and that includes the exit of former Xbox President Sarah Bond. Was it a necessary move, or is Bond being scapegoated? Here's what our readers are saying.
Microsoft plans to make Edge open Copilot automatically when you click Outlook links. It's an odd addition at a time when people are already tired of forced AI features.
Microsoft Outlook displayed an advert promoting the sale of Dota 2 and other gaming accounts for up to $1,000, despite Steamβs Subscriber Agreement prohibiting account transfers. The incident raises concerns about automated ad review systems and platform responsibility.
Resident Evil Requiem is another fantastic entry in the industry's most legendary horror franchise. Sometimes the split protagonist experience can feel a little disjointed, but the dizzying highs are so plentiful you might not even notice.
The CP152-1 is a concept PCIe storage adapter card designed to explore market demand for a compact, rear-swappable 2.5" SATA SSD/HDD solution with built-in RAID 1 functionality. By utilizing a dual-slot PCIe form factor, the CP152-1 enables the installation of two 9.5 mm 2.5" SATA drives with RAID 1 or JBOD support, delivering a simplified approach to data protection and storage expansion without the need for traditional drive cages or backplanes.
The CP152-1 adopts a rear-accessible removable tray architecture, allowing system integrators to evaluate alternative service workflows and chassis layouts while maintaining a clean, cable-free PCIe installation.
Blizzard's recent rebrand of Overwatch 2 to just Overwatch also saw the game studio announce a series of new heroes coming in the first season of Overwatch's new era, one of which is Jetpack Cat, who quickly became a fan favorite. In a recent appearance on The Omnic Podcast, Overwatch's associate director, Alec Dawson, said that the popularity of Jetpack Cat, and other unorthodox characters, has led the development and design teams to consider more "oddball" heroes for future releases. Blizzard has promised to add one hero to the game every season for the first yearβmeaning a new hero every two monthsβbut there was no word on whether the plan was to continue at this cadence indefinitely. In the podcast, though, Dawson clarifies that this is the goal as long as it's sustainable and there's no big gameplay event or similar to get in the way. He also says that this release cadence also gives the developers "a lot more opportunities to take some chances" on gameplay differentiation, different roles, and "something a little bit different" so that players can find characters they enjoy playing with or whose design they enjoy. He adds that the response to Jetpack Cat has been heard in the Overwatch team, and it "helps us think about what sort of characters and heroes we want to do in the future, as well."
At the same time, in a recent interview with PCGamesN, Dawson commented that Jetpack Cat is the most banned character in Overwatch at the moment, and that is a situation Blizzard would like to address so that she can be used more frequently in competitive matches. "We love the cat, but we are going to tone down a little bit of her aggression," he continued to explain that Jetpack Cat's ability to dive a backline will likely be somewhat suppressed in an upcoming nerf: "When she gets both her minor perk, Claws Out, and her major perk, Territorial, the combination allows her to be an absolute menace that's diving backlines and taking 1v1s. So we're going to tone that down just a little bit and see how that goes, but the cat won't be scratching as much as she is currently." He added that the hero ban feature has been helpful to guide the balance and development of heroes, which will likely only become more complicated with the new hero release cadence. Notably, Blizzard has also been responding to community feedback on topics like hero design, as was the case with another new hero, Anran, who was criticized for looking generic after her announcement.
AMD has announced its EPYC 8005 series server processors, codenamed "Sorano". These new CPUs are filling the gap between the EPYC 9005 high-end Zen 5 lineup and the lower-tier EPYC 4005 parts. The new 8005 series succeeds the EPYC 8004 "Siena" family and targets single-socket (1P) platforms with an emphasis on telecom, edge, and vRAN (Virtual Radio Access Network) workloads. Built on the Zen 5 architecture, EPYC 8005 is designed around performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar rather than peak multi-socket scalability. With these new server CPUs, AMD is targeting the telco sector where power and space-constrained environments are key factors in cell sites and distributed edge locations. AMD has not yet published a full SKU list or detailed specifications about the EPYC 8004 CPUs. However, the company says the lineup will scale up to 84 cores in a single-socket configuration, with SKUs operating in power envelopes up to 225 W.
AMD is also highlighting wide thermal operating ranges and support for NEBS (Network Equipment-Building System) compliant platforms. For vRAN specifically, EPYC 8005 adds targeted LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check) decoding optimizations to improve Layer 1 acceleration for 5G workloads. AMD claims improved uplink throughput and more efficient forward-error-correction processing, while maintaining the deterministic behavior required in RAN environments, thanks to the updated Zen 5 execution pipeline and vector capabilities. The EPYC 8005 "Sorano" CPUs should become available in the following months, with more details about the platform and performance likely closer to launch.
The disappointing launch of Highguard has been well documented by now, but the game has just hit a new low, despite recent developer efforts to keep things afloat following a round of layoffs. According to SteamDB, Highguard's player count has continued to trend downwards, reaching a new low of just 743 peak concurrent players in the 24-hour period preceding publication. February 23 marked the first time the game dipped below 1,000 peak concurrent players in a 24-hour periodβdown from a launch peak of 97,249βand player counts haven't recovered since then.
No Man's Sky had a similar launch trajectory, releasing with a massive 212,000+ peak player count which quickly dwindled to just over 1,000 in 2018 before the game's surprise resurrectionβit now sits at around 20,000 peak concurrent daily players. Highguard's dwindling player count is despite recent content updates reportedly bringing a bit more excitement to the gameplayβrecent reviews show an uptick in positive feedback and a reduction in negative reviews.
A few days ago, we reported that AMD is seemingly ending driver support for its Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC, just two and a half years after its launch. Since Lenovo issued product guidance that the company will no longer provide updates, and ASUS's own ROG Ally handheld console had not received an update in over six months, the situation was dire. However, ASUS today released a new driver update for its ROG Ally handheld console, which had been stuck with six-month-old SoC drivers from August 2025. This changes the situation from the platform being completely abandoned for half a year to a periodic update window that will likely continue unless gamers encounter a surprise change.
Initially, we couldn't determine the "blame" for this irregular driver update cycle, as it could have been either AMD or OEMs being slow with the driver updates. As AMD offers configurable TDP (cTDP) for the Z1 Extreme with values ranging from 9 to 30 W, this means that OEMs can get SoCs in various configurations, each needing to be tested and verified before distributing an official driver. To add more to the mess, Lenovo Korea has confirmed that their own driver update plan for the product has stopped, leaving users to switch to other platforms or use Linux-based operating systems that carry their own drivers for these platforms to extract maximum longevity. Hence, the entire situation is now more complicated.
Distant Shore is proud to announce the launch of the Distant Shore: BRETAGNE demo during Steam Next Fest! You can download this free taste of the Distant Shore: BRETAGNE world on Steam and prepare for the full release.
Distant Shore: BRETAGNE landed with a bang during its breakout reveal at the first edition of the New Game+ Showcase. We can't wait to share Distant Shore: BRETAGNE for the first time publicly during the Steam Next Fest. It's a major milestone for us, and we're excited to see how the community reacts. Distant Shore: BRETAGNE is a first-person parkour physics based game, where you wield your magnetic gauntlets to move, bend and break metal obstacles. Navigate through a ravaged world to complete the mission given by your employer.
Samsung is officially ending the production of its 2D NAND flash storage this year, and the company will be repurposing its old production lines to better fit the AI-driven demand. According to The Elec Korea, Samsung plans to officially stop 2D NAND production at its Hwaseong site, with Line 12 being the one carrying this aging technology. Instead of completely abandoning this facility, which houses plenty of chip-making tools, Samsung will repurpose them for DRAM metallization, which is the process of applying actual pathways within the DRAM itself to connect memory cells. Interestingly, the Hwaseong Line 12 holds a monthly wafer production capacity of 80,000 to 100,000 12-inch wafers. This is a significant number of wafers, which are now only used for 2D NAND Flash, a technology that is no longer needed in the wake of 3D NAND Flash technology.
Continuing the Line 12 legacy will be Samsung's 6th-generation 10 nm-class 1c DRAM, a technology used for HBM4, and Samsung expects the total wafer capacity for 1c DRAM to reach about 200,000 wafers per month in the second half of the year. Adapting the old 2D NAND Flash production site will definitely help, and Samsung will run this production along with Pyeongtaek Line 3 and Line 4.
TSMC's vast complex outside Phoenix is central to that effort. The 2,000-acre site is slated to host six fabrication plants along with supporting infrastructure. Apple is positioning itself as the anchor customer: the company plans to purchase more than 100 million chips from TSMC's Arizona facilities this year.
Uber is positioning itself as the booking layer. Joby supplies the aircraft and, eventually, the operations. The preview suggests that the companies believe they're close enough to a working air service to start showing off the booking system. If air taxis are going to work at scale, the first challenge...
The notorious cybercrime collective known as Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters (SLH) has been observed offering financial incentives to recruit women to pull off social engineering attacks.
The idea is to hire them for voice phishing campaigns targeting IT help desks, Dataminr said in a new threat brief. The group is said to be offering anywhere between $500 and $1,000 upfront per call, in addition to
Triage is supposed to make things simpler. In a lot of teams, it does the opposite.
When you canβt reach a confident verdict early, alerts turn into repeat checks, back-and-forth, and βjust escalate itβ calls. That cost doesnβt stay inside the SOC; it shows up as missed SLAs, higher cost per case, and more room for real threats to slip through.
So where does triage go wrong? Here are five triage
More than just an emulation of the iconic home computer, the Commodore 64 Ultimate is a fantastic project for fans of that era. Itβll take some practice and memory recall from a bygone time, but itβs worth pursuing with some great quality of life improvements.
Resident Evil Requiem offers a good mix of survival horror and action in its first half, but the bombastic latter sequences and sloppy plot stray a little too far from those strong foundations.
Our guide explains how to watch Scrubs season 10 online and stream episodes wherever you are as J.D. and co make their long awaited return to Sacred Heart.
Apply to speak at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 by April 17 for a chance to lead a roundtable or breakout session for 1,000 founders and investors. IfΒ youβveΒ built, backed, orΒ operatedΒ inside high-growth startups, your experience could shape how the next wave ofΒ foundersΒ scales.
Just 3 days left to save up to $680 on your TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 ticket. Offer ends on Friday, February 27 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Don't miss unparalleled, curated networking and valuable insights from 250+ tech leaders, and discover 300+ breakout innovations. Register now.
The Trump administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against countries' attempts to regulate how American tech companies handle foreigners' data.
If you are a tech-savvy person, it is quite probable that you would already be aware of the fact that Samsung is preparing to unveil its latest and greatest smartphone flagship lineup, the Galaxy S26 series, at a dedicated 'Galaxy Unpacked' event later today. Yet, even before the said event gets going, Samsung has begun issuing random store credits. Samsung really wants you to splurge on its goodies, and is sending you store credits to nudge you in that direction According to several anecdotal posts on Reddit, some users have received a $50 credit into their Samsung account literally hours [β¦]
The Resident Evil series has largely gone from strength to strength in recent years, with Capcom serving up a number of distinct takes on the series, from the hardcore horror ofΒ Resident Evil 7Β to the intense action and zingers of the Resident Evil 4 remake. And now, Capcom is preparing to roll out Resident Evil Requiem, a game that promises to combine a lot of what theyβve been doing with the series recently into one terrifying concoction. Is Resident Evil Requiem destined to be another horrific hit for Capcom? Or does this Requiem lay the Resident Evil series' recent hot streak [β¦]
The State of Gaming 2026 report from global data firm Sensor Tower is here, looking back on 2025 across several metrics, including which games sit atop the global sales charts - not just regional charts like Circana's US-specific reports. We knew that Battlefield 6 was the best-selling game in the US last year, but now Sensor Tower's data confirms it to be the best-selling game on a global scale, and it's not the only EA game at or near the top of the charts. EA Sports FC 25 and EA Sports FC 26 took the number two and number three [β¦]
Global data firm Sensor Tower has released its State of Gaming 2026 report, which looks back at the video game industry in 2025 across a wide range of metrics, including where publishers are spending their marketing money and which publishers have the most downloaded portfolios. Last year, Microsoft was the publisher that spent the most on marketing for its PC and console games, but it came second in terms of cross-platform game downloads for its portfolio of titles, behind Electronic Arts (EA) in first, while Take-Two came in third. At least that's how it shakes up when you're not including [β¦]
Micron continues to innovate its GDDR7 memory solutions with higher capacities, faster bandwidth, and optimizations for gamers & AI workloads. Micron Says Its Upcoming GDDR7 Memory With 24Gb Capacities & 36 Gbps Bandwidth Are Designed For Immersive Graphics & High-Performance AI In a new blog post, Micron has listed the benefits of its 24 Gb GDDR7 memory modules, which not only feature higher capacities but also deliver much faster speeds than current-gen G7 solutions. For starters, the GDDR7 memory standard was first introduced on the GeForce RTX 50 series GPU last year. The RTX 5090 was the first graphics card [β¦]
The web has strong opinions about what βAI-writtenβ content looks like, and even stronger ones about whatβs supposedly wrong with it. Scroll any content marketerβs LinkedIn feed, and youβll find confident claims that em dashes and other AI βtellsβ signal bad, automated writing.
The problem with these debates is that they often confuse taste with performance. What counts as βbad writingβ will always be subjective. But if the goal for content marketers is to communicate clearly and compete in the information marketplace, the practical question should be: which LLM habits actually turn readers off?
To find out, we analyzed a large dataset of content marketing pages to identify which AI writing βticsβ we see most often called out to understand which are turning off readers β and the ones we may be calling out for no reason.
How we built our βAI ticsβ study
At this point, youβve probably all seen them, too:
βIn todayβs fast-paced digital landscapeβ¦β
βItβs important to note thatβ¦β
βNot onlyβ¦ but alsoβ (repeated over, and over and overβ¦)
βIn conclusionβ (even when nothing has been concluded)
The second you notice them, itβs hard not to see them everywhere an LLM has helped produce copy. Many readers report hating these LLM patterns. But how exactly are they impacting user engagement?
To find out, we gathered a list of the most common AI writing tells we and others have noticed. These include:
βNot onlyβ¦ but alsoβ constructions: βNot only does X do Y, but it also does Z.β
Sentence starts with βthen,β βthis,β orβ thatβ: βThen you shouldβ¦β βThen the systemβ¦β βThis showsβ¦β βThis meansβ¦βΒ
Introductory filler: βIn this article,β βWeβll explore,β and βLetβs take a lookβ.Β
βConclusionβ starters: βIn conclusion,β or other AI equivalents of clearing your throat.
10 domains of varied site size and monthly traffic, in a wide array of industries including tech, ecommerce, healthcare, education, analytics, and more
1,000+ content marketing URLs, built from a mix of workflows including posts that were either fully human-written, written collaboratively by humans and AI, or completely AI-generated.
Then we standardized our dataset by:Β
Aligning shorter posts and cornerstone content by standardizing every writing tic as occurrences per 1,000 words. Since longer articles naturally contain more of, well, everything, a 3,000-word guide would otherwise look βworseβ than a 600-word post simply because it has more sentences.
Excluding any page under 500 words. Very short pages donβt give enough room for stylistic patterns to emerge, and their engagement metrics are likely driven more by intent than by engagement alone.
Prioritizing engagement rate as the primary performance metric. Engagement rate best captures a readerβs first real decision: βDo I stay, or do I leave?β GA4 registers an engaged session as any lasting 10 or more seconds. While 10 seconds may sound brief to assess whether a post is AI, itβs long enough for a user to skim an introduction, notice awkward or repetitive writing patterns, and scan headings to decide whether the content feels worth continuing.
Our first instinct was to average the number of AI tics per 1,000 words and compare the pagesβ performance.
At a glance, this seemed like a clean way to separate human writing from AI-influenced writing. But the picture quickly got complicated by one tic in particular β the infamous em dash β which dominated the dataset and heavily skewed the averages.
The issue pointed to a larger problem: AI tics are messy by definition. AI is trained on human writing. So if certain patterns show up frequently, that doesnβt mean theyβre uniquely βAI.β It may just mean theyβre common in English prose.Β
To compare, we ran the same tic counter on two known controls: a novel I published in 2021 (which I could guarantee was written without ChatGPT, Grammarly, or other AI-assisted tools). This scored a startlingly above-average 6.9 tics per 1,000 words.
Next, we scored βHamlet,β the famous Shakespearean play, which scored an even higher β11.4 tics per 1,000 words. Shakespeare, it turns out, is more βAI-codedβ than many AI-generated blog posts.
Ultimately, we assessed that this is almost entirely due to the em dash, which is likely to appear in droves in many human writersβ prose as well as AI-produced copy.
With this in mind, we analyzed each βtellβ individually, still standardizing per 1,000 words. The story became much clearer β and far more useful for writers trying to decide whatβs actually worth avoiding.
Not all posts are the same, and many different factors impact the success or failure of any page of content marketing. Thatβs perhaps why our data showed that most AI βtellsβ didnβt correlate strongly with performance or non-performance.
Anything smaller than plus/minus .1 correlation is statistically insignificant. However, there were a handful worth noting with a larger impact than others.
βNot onlyβ and βnot justβ structures may be driving users away
Phrases built around βnot onlyβ¦β or βnot justβ¦but alsoβ stood out with larger-than-average negative correlations with engagement rate. While these constructions, when used occasionally, can add emphasis, the data shows that frequent use is associated with high user bounce rates.Β
AI-assisted writers and editors should take note, as many of the AI-generated posts we reviewed tripped over themselves with these constructions. In one instance, we found a single blog post that used βnot onlyβ and βbut alsoβ 12 separate times.
Starting headers with βconclusionβ was the strongest negative signal
The strongest negative correlation in the entire dataset was observed in sentences beginning with βConclusion,β typically section headers preceding a call to action. The clearest AI stylistic red flag we found, posts with headers starting with βConclusionβ had the largest negative correlationΒ (β -0.118) with post engagement rate.
Since this tic traditionally comes at the conclusion of a post, itβs clear readers may quickly scroll down over the entirety of these posts before bouncing β or else that posts with these final headings tend to be lower-quality on average.
Em dashes correlated slightly positively
Em dashes were by far the most common stylistic tic in the dataset. They also produced one of the most surprising results: a slight positive correlation with engagement rate.
Despite widespread online chatter treating em dashes as an βAI artifact,β this data suggests theyβre not hurting performance, and they may even align with better engagement. (As someone who genuinely likes em dashes β this was deeply validating.)
A plausible explanation may be that writers who use em dashes tend to write more explanatory, nuanced sentences rather than short, flat declarations. Those kinds of sentences often appear in longer, more thoughtful content that many readers actually engage with.
That said, this doesnβt mean em dashes cause engagement. Too much of a good thing is still too much of a good thing. But it does challenge the idea that em dashes are the bugbear content marketers make them out to be.Β
Google doesnβt issue SEO rankings like a monotonic punishment score for βAI style.β Most phrases we looked at didnβt correlate with engagement at all.
Donβt rewrite content just because someone declared a phrase βAI writing.β Write for reader usefulness and clarity above all.
2. Be mindful of how you wrap up
Explicit conclusion blocks arenβt bad β but generic, formulaic patterns are likely turning readers away.
Consider blending conclusions into analysis, using subtler transitions, or adding new value with headers, instead of signposting obvious structure.Β
3. Use the punctuation that makes senseΒ
If your style calls for em-dashes? In this dataset, they were actually associated with better reader engagement. Use them.
Donβt miss the forest for fake plastic trees
AI is likely here to stay in content workflows. But the issues with βbadβ AI writing arenβt limited to linguistic tics and punctuation. While we all have our stylistic opinions, we should be careful about turning stylistic hot takes into editorial law.Β
Write valuable writing. Think about readers first. And donβt panic every time someone on Twitter or LinkedIn decrees that βX phrase = AI.β
Anthropic updated its crawler documentation this week, clarifying how its Claude bots access websites and how you can block them.
Anthropicβs document explains what each bot does, how it affects AI training and search visibility, and how to opt out through robots.txt.
Why we care. If you publish or own content, you want control over how AI systems use it. Anthropic separates training crawlers, user-triggered fetches, and search indexing. Blocking one bot doesnβt block the others. Each choice carries different visibility and training trade-offs.
The robots. Anthropic uses three separate user agents:
ClaudeBot collects public web content that may be used to train and improve Anthropicβs generative AI models. If you block ClaudeBot in robots.txt, Anthropic said it will exclude your siteβs future content from AI training datasets.
Claude-User retrieves content when a user asks Claude a question that requires access to a webpage. If you block Claude-User, Anthropic canβt fetch your pages in response to user queries. The company says this may reduce your visibility in user-directed search responses.
Claude-SearchBot crawls content to improve the quality and relevance of Claudeβs search results. If you block Claude-SearchBot, Anthropic wonβt index your content for search optimization, which may reduce visibility and accuracy in Claude-powered search answers.
How to block them. The bots respect standard robots.txt directives, including βDisallowβ rules and the non-standard βCrawl-delayβ extension, Anthropic said. To block a bot across your entire site:
User-agent: ClaudeBot Disallow: /
You must add directives for each bot and each subdomain you want to restrict.
IP blocking may not work reliably because its bots use public cloud provider IP addresses, Anthropic said. Blocking those ranges could prevent the bot from accessing robots.txt. The company doesnβt publish IP ranges.
Dell has started offering discount deals on several gaming laptops and desktops. One of the lucky PC rigs getting the price slash treatment is several configurations for the Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop, with the cheapest one being under $1,300.
Fans are split on Asha Sharma as Xboxβs new CEO, but many hope fresh leadership can refocus the brand after years of mixed decisions and shifting strategy.
Billet Labs has unleashed their latest custom PC build on the world, and I can't get over the fact that someone turned an ancient cast-iron radiator into a working, high-end gaming PC.
NVIDIA job listings show the company hiring for Vulkan performance and Linux graphics roles, signaling growing interest in Linux gaming as Proton and SteamOS continue to mature.
Microsoft has introduced a new AI watermark policy for Microsoft 365, allowing administrators to enable audio watermarking now, with video support arriving in March 2026. Even when disabled, AI-generated content will still include metadata indicating Copilot involvement.
Just ahead of CES, LG announced a range of new monitors and now, the biggest one of the new models, the UltraGear EVO 52G930B is available for pre-order. Back then, LG didn't reveal much in terms of details about its 52-inch giant, but the company did reveal the 5120 x 2160 pixel resolution, the 240 Hz refresh rate and the 1000R curvature. Now we know that the 52G930B will also support DisplayHDR 600 and 95% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. The panel is likely to cause some disappointment, as it's a VA panel with a contrast ratio of 4000:1 and a 1 ms grey to grey response time. Unfortunately LG doesn't provide any details with regards to what type of backlight is being used, but HDR600 doesn't require FALD. The 52G930B also has AMD FreeSync Premium support and a range of built in gaming features.
Somewhat disappointingly, the LG 52G930B only sports a single DisplayPort 2.1 input, but the two HDMI 2.1 ports also support the full resolution and refresh rate on offer here. The USB Type-C port seems to still be limited to DP 1.4 with DSC and possibly lower chroma subsampling, as even though it can support the full resolution, it tops out at 200 Hz. The monitor also has a pair of USB 3.0 Type-A ports and a headphone jack that supports DTS Headphone:X. There's also a pair of built in stereo speakers and some RGB lights around the rear. As with many other of LG's more premium monitors, KVM support and Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture is supported. Finally the stand is height adjustable and the display can be tilted and swiveled. LG is asking for US$1999.99 and the monitor is said to start shipping around the 22nd of March.
The Android app, Nearby Glasses, comes from Swiss sociologist and hobbyist coder Yves Jeanrenaud. It scans for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) activity associated with manufacturers such as Meta, Luxottica Group, and Snap β companies behind the most recognizable smart glasses on the market β and issues an alert if it...
The term vibe coding is often used when developers rely heavily on AI tools to generate, modify, and refine code. The name comes from steering development by vibes while AI does much of the coding.
Kratic connects to apps you already useβWhoop, Fitbit, YNAB, Google Calendar, Notion, and moreβand shows you cross-domain patterns that no single app can reveal. Why do you overspend when you sleep badly? Why does your productivity crash every Thursday? Kratic answers questions like these by unifying your health, finance, productivity, and mood data in one dashboard with AI-powered insights. Free to start, $20/month for Pro.
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered four malicious NuGet packages that are designed to target ASP.NET web application developers to steal sensitive data.
The campaign, discovered by Socket, exfiltrates ASP.NET Identity data, including user accounts, role assignments, and permission mappings, as well as manipulates authorization rules to create persistent backdoors in victim applications.
Breakout time is the clearest signal of how intrusion has changed, researchers say, as they see data exfiltration within minutes of initial compromise.
Amazon has added three customizable personality styles to Alexa+, letting users control how the assistant responds without changing its core functionality.