Amnesty International says it found evidence that a government customer of Intellexa, a sanctioned surveillance vendor, used its Predator spyware against a prominent journalist in Angola.
Neuroads offers AI-powered visual analytics to help you optimize ads and creatives. Upload an image and instantly see predicted heatmaps, attention maps, and an overall score across six criteria, including focus, CTA visibility, visual flow, brand clarity, emotion, and distraction control. Built on neuromarketing principles, the platform reveals where viewers look, allowing you to refine layouts, messaging, and calls to action for higher engagement and conversion.
After releasing the first developer beta build for iOS 26.4 and more earlier this week, Apple has now released the first public beta builds for its sprawling ecosystem of devices. Apple releases the first public beta builds for iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4,Β watchOS 26.4, tvOS 26.4, visionOS 26.4, HomePod Software 26.4, and macOS Tahoe 26.4 Podcasts With the iOS 26.4, Apple is adding support for video-based podcasts in the Apple Podcasts app. Apple says the new "enhanced video podcast experience" will allow users to "seamlessly switch between viewing a video podcast and listening to the audio." The update also adds support [β¦]
Nostalgia-driven storytelling and niche-inspired campaigns can help brands and users create more effective engagement in 2026, according to the platform.
Backblaze analyzes 344,196 drives that collectively operated for over 115 million days, reporting improved reliability overall while exposing aging hardware risks and price volatility.
A combination of 3D-printed Lego-like parts, Formula 1 thinking, and a bounty program will help the company hit that target. The team, led by Tesla veteran Alan Clarke, is obsessed with efficiency.
ComputerBase conducted a massive online blind test, allowing thousands of gamers to vote on their preferred game video output. The options included NVIDIA's latest Deep Learning Super Sampling 4.5, AMD's FSR Upscaling AI with FSR 4 on Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs, and native resolution rendering without AI upscaling. Interestingly, DLSS 4.5 received the highest percentage of votes, winning in every scenario. ComputerBase tested various games like Anno 117, ARC Raiders, Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Forbidden West, Satisfactory, and The Last of Us Part II. Only in Cyberpunk 2077 did gamers almost equally prefer native resolution rendering, but DLSS 4.5 still came out on top with a slight edge.
Initially, the ComputerBase team conducted the comparison using videos labeled only with options like 1/2/3/4, without revealing which rendering method was used, to ensure a fully blind test. After two weeks of testing and thousands of votes, the results showed a significant preference for NVIDIA's latest DLSS 4.5 technology. This conclusion highlights that NVIDIA's newest technology is now so refined that its video output offers superior visual appeal. DLSS 4.5 uses a second-generation Transformer model trained on a much larger dataset of video games, with five times the computational investment of the first DLSS 4 Transformer upscaler. It utilizes the FP8 data format, allowing for more processing with minimal precision loss. The new algorithm is more context-aware, and NVIDIA confirmed that the input for upscaling is used more intelligently, resulting in much more detailed and precise video output.
NVIDIA today announced a multiyear, multigenerational strategic partnership with Meta spanning on-premises, cloud and AI infrastructure. Meta will build hyperscale data centers optimized for both training and inference in support of the company's long-term AI infrastructure roadmap. This partnership will enable the large-scale deployment of NVIDIA CPUs and millions of NVIDIA Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, as well as the integration of NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet switches for Meta's Facebook Open Switching System platform.
"No one deploys AI at Meta's scaleβintegrating frontier research with industrial-scale infrastructure to power the world's largest personalization and recommendation systems for billions of users," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Through deep codesign across CPUs, GPUs, networking and software, we are bringing the full NVIDIA platform to Meta's researchers and engineers as they build the foundation for the next AI frontier."
YouTuber 2kiliksphilip recently demonstrated how Nvidia DLSS behaves when upscaling from absurdly low resolutions to 4K. While games are not playable in this form, the experiment highlights both the technology's effectiveness and the progress it has made since the introduction of DLSS 2.0 about five years ago.
TeamSpeak is suddenly back in the spotlight after a wave of users fled Discord over its new age-verification rollout. The voice-chat veteran says demand has spiked so hard that hosting capacity is maxed out in several regions as newcomers pile in looking for a simpler, more private alternative. Download TeamSpeak Classic or TeamSpeak 6 Beta here.
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AMD's Helios rack-scale solution based on the MI455X accelerators, the company's major hope for AI market, may slip to 2027, whereas Nvidia may speed up roll out of the Vera Rubin platform if the latest market rumors are to be believed.
An internal research study at Meta found that parental supervision may not help teens regulate their social media, and teens with trauma are more inclined to overuse social media.
Google is rolling out new, more visible links within AI Overviews and AI Mode. These new link cards appear in a pop-up window when you hover over them on desktop. They also show more prominent details about the website.
Google was testing these earlier and now this new style is live.
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of these new link pop up menus on hover:
What Google said. Googleβs Robby Stein posted on X saying:
βNew on Search: In AI Overviews and AI Mode, groups of links will automatically appear in a pop-up as you hover over them on desktop, so you can jump right into a website to learn more. And weβll show more descriptive and prominent link icons within the response across both desktop and mobile.β
βOur testing shows this new UI is more engaging, making it easier to get to great content across the web.β
Why we care. This new style does appear to encourage more clicks to websites and I do hope that we will see more traffic from Googleβs AI experiences from these changes.
Of course, we still have no way to measure this in Search Console.
This week's release of the Intel Arc 32.0.101.8509 WHQL driver package has benefited many of the company's in-house graphics product lines. Current and past-generations of hardware are enjoying XeSS 3 with multi-frame generation (MFG) support. Earlier today, PC Games Hardware Germany (PCGH.de) published an in-depth article that covers the new feature on Arc "Battlemage" B580 12 GB and an Arc "Alchemist" A770 16 GB desktop graphics card models. The "XeSS Quality" setting was selected across seven game test scenarios, at 2560 x 1440 (QHD) resolutionsβinvolving: Assassin's Creed Shadows, Battlefield 6, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Light: The Beast, F1 '25, and Hogwarts Legacy.
PCGH.de observed Team Blue's top-end "Alchemist" option doing very well, at least with XeLL (a low latency function) enabled, in particular with the driver overridden MFG three and fours-times modes. Despite launching back in late 2022, their ASRock Arc A770 Phantom OC 16 GB test sample has enjoyed: "something of a second spring thanks to MFG. While the card isn't (yet?) maturing as much as NVIDIA's (GeForce) RTX 2000-series, its usability has been significantly improved overnight. Thanks to 16 GB of memory, there's no need to worry about bottlenecks. The Arc B580 scales even better thanks to the improved hardware, and performs comparably." Despite the pleasing findings, PCGH's reviewer notes that Multi Frame Generation (MFG) is not an all-encompassing propertyβafter all, only a certain selection of titles support XeSS. Due to visual discrepancies being tracked in Battlefield 6 sessions, PCGH preferred the presentation of native frames operation or rival frame generation tech (FSR 4 and DLSS 4.5).
For the last few weeks, Blizzard has been going big. Blizzard Showcase brought together the four key titlesβOverwatch, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstoneβand gave the space to bring their updates, announcements (and some surprises!) in their own ways. It's all a part of the road to BlizzCon 2026: the year of Blizzard's 35th anniversary, not to mention the 30th anniversary of Diablo, and the 10th anniversary of Overwatch. This is the perfect space in time to look back at the universes that have brought us together and look forward to the future.
For Blizzard President, Johanna Fariesβspeaking on the Official Xbox Podcastβthe Showcase has been a combination of careful planning and happy serendipity: "We've been really thoughtful about (giving) our players what they're hoping for, and hopefully delight them and surprise them in some big ways. I think those have landed. And we'll just continue to sort of prime what we hope to be a very, very big year as we continue on here in 2026."
AMD has released its latest Ryzen Chipset Software version 8.01.20.513 driver, which includes general bug fixes and performance improvements. These updates should provide Ryzen CPU owners with some quality-of-life enhancements. In the release highlights, AMD mentions that the installer file has been updated with a new installation wrapper called Install Shield. Interestingly, AMD notes that this latest package does not include the AMS Mailbox and S0i3 filter drivers, which now need to be installed independently on systems that require them or may produce errors without them. Finally, AMD acknowledges that some issues persist, such as the regression from branch version 7 to the earlier chipset driver branch version 6, but the company offers a workaround, which is listed below. We have included the entire changelog below, as well as a download option on TechPowerUp's download section page.
This week, the OldUnreal community project has pushed out the first public update of Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2004) in two decades. In a bygone eraβprior to all things ForniteβEpic Games and Digital Extremes co-produced several popular sci-fi titles based on and named after the widespread Unreal Engine. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, PC gamers enjoyed a good number of single and "arena shooter" multiplayer Unreal titles. In particular, Unreal Tournament 2004 left a lasting impression. Epic ended official support of the now almost 22-year-old first-person shooter classic back in 2022; prompting online community efforts to keep the chaotic (up to) 32-player experience alive. With Epic's blessing, the Unreal Engine v2.5-driven title has been reissuedβfor freeβon modern PC (Windows, Linux) and Mac systems, thanks to the long-running OldUnreal initiative's recent endeavors.
Last December, a preview post described a forthcoming bug fix and QoL-rich "simultaneous" game release and issuing of a community patch. Unfortunately, the present-day download and installation process is a bit convoluted, especially when compared to relatively breezy launcher experiences. Currently, the Old Unreal website provides a link to the full UT2004 game installer. Stijn Volckaertβthe project's main overseerβhas shared a couple of tidbits regarding the launch of "Preview 9." In a public GitHub post, the Belgian Associate Professor addressed modernized UT2004 landscapes: "hi everyone! Thank you for your patience. This is a preview of our 3374 patch. It has gone through internal testing and is relatively stable. It works in online games, except on servers with AntiTCC. We will release a new, 3374-compatible version of AntiTCC soon to address this issue."
OmniFile is a fast desktop search app for Mac and Windows that finds files across local drives and cloud storage from one place. It indexes everything locally to keep your data on your device and works offline while delivering millisecond results with fuzzy matching. Connect Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, SharePoint, and Slack to unify search. Create custom workspaces, filter by source or type, and use quick actions to open, reveal, or copy paths without leaving your keyboard.
Apple intends to complement its upcoming camera-equipped AirPods Pro with a dedicated AI pendant, with both devices expected to serve a niche segment within the overall wearable AI segment, one where subtlety seemingly reigns supreme, unlike the more in-your-face smart glasses. Apple's upcoming AI pendant is likely to be roughly the size of an AirTag We noted recently that Apple was developing a dedicated AI pin, with initial sales expectations set at 20 million units. The wearable AI pin would presumably come equipped with multiple cameras, a speaker, microphones, and wireless charging. Now, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has clarified that the [β¦]
Season 2 of Battlefield 6 is finally live after an unexpected month-long delay, something that, according to Battlefield Studios, won't happen again. The new season went live with the introduction of the new Contaminated map, several new weapons, and the introduction of a new limited-time mode featuring a new gameplay mechanic, VL-7 hallucinogenic gas. The new season's arrival has driven the game's highest concurrent player count on Steam so far in February 2026, with the game currently sitting at 90,265 players at the time of this writing. If the concurrent count is able to break 100K, it'll be the first [β¦]
Traffic from AI chatbots converts at a higher rate than traffic from Google, according to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. He shared this tidbit on the companyβs Q4 2025 earnings call:
βAnd what we see is that traffic that comes from chatbots convert at a higher rate than traffic that comes from Google,β Chesky said on Feb. 12.
Yes, but. He didnβt share specific conversion rates, and the company didnβt quantify chatbot traffic volume. But for Airbnb, early data suggests visitors arriving via AI chatbots may be further along in the booking process than those coming from traditional Google searches.
Airbnb also didnβt specify which chatbots are driving traffic. Chesky referenced OpenAIβs ChatGPT, Googleβs Gemini, Anthropicβs Claude, and others in broader remarks about model availability.
Why we care. AI assistants are emerging as a top-of-funnel discovery layer. The quality of that traffic may outperform clicks from traditional search and align with past claims by Google and Microsoft that AI will drive more qualified traffic at lower volume.
AI search ambitions. Chesky described chatbots as βvery similar to searchβ and positioned them as top-of-funnel discovery engines.
βI think these chatbot platforms are gonna be very similar to search. Gonna be really good top-of-funnel discoveries,β he said.
Rather than viewing them as disintermediators, Airbnb sees them as acquisition partners.
βWe think they are gonna be positive for Airbnb,β Chesky added.
Chesky described the long-term goal as building an βAI-native experienceβ where the app βdoes not just search for you. It knows you.β:
βSo AI search is live to a very small percent of traffic right now. We are doing a lot of experimentation. The way we do things with AI is much more rapid iteration, not big launches. And over time, we are gonna be experimenting with making AI search more conversational, integrating it into more than trip, and, eventually, we will be looking at sponsor listings as result of that. But we want to first nail AI search.β
AI inside Airbnb. Airbnb isnβt just benefiting from external AI platforms. Itβs embedding AI into its operations.
Its in-house AI customer service agent now resolves nearly one-third of North American support tickets without a human, according to Chesky. The tool is English-only for now but is slated for global, multilingual rollout, including voice support.
Chesky said the goal is for AI to handle βsignificantly more than 30%β of tickets within a year.
Airbnb is also testing AI-powered conversational search in its app. The feature is live for a small percentage of users and is being iterated quickly rather than launched as a major product release.
Sponsored listings on hold for now. Airbnb has long faced questions about launching sponsored listings. On the call, Chesky said traditional ad units may not translate directly into conversational AI environments. The company is prioritizing AI search before designing sponsored placements in that format.
Airbnbβs search shift.Airbnb began moving its budget to brand marketing just before the rise of generative AI and AI-powered search. Airbnb bet on broader marketing initiatives, slashing its search marketing spending.
TikTok is giving entertainment marketers in Europe new tools to reach audiences with precision, leveraging AI to drive engagement and conversions for streaming and ticketed content.
Whatβs happening. TikTok is introducing two new ad types for European campaigns:
Streaming Ads: AI-driven ads for streaming platforms that show personalized content based on user engagement. Formats include a four-title video carousel or a multi-title media card. With 80% of TikTok users saying the app influences their streaming choices, these ads can directly shape viewing decisions.
New Title Launch: Targets high-intent users using signals like genre preference and price sensitivity, helping marketers convert cultural moments into ticket sales, subscriptions, or event attendance.
Context. The rollout coincides with the 76th Berlinale International Film Festival, underscoring TikTokβs growing role in entertainment marketing. In 2025, an average of 6.5 million daily posts were shared about film and TV on TikTok, with 15 of the top 20 European box office films last year being viral hits on the platform.
Why we care. TikTokβs new AI-powered ad formats let streaming platforms and entertainment brands target users with highly personalized content, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversions.
With 80% of users saying TikTok influences their viewing choices (according to TikTok data), these tools can directly shape audience behavior, helping marketers turn cultural moments into subscriptions, ticket sales, or higher viewership. Itβs a chance to leverage TikTokβs viral influence for measurable campaign impact.
The bottom line. For entertainment marketers, TikTokβs AI-driven ad formats provide new ways to engage audiences, boost viewership, and turn trending content into measurable results.
It might be the in thing to rip on Call of Duty on the internet, but they're cooking with Black Ops 7. The most recent content is some of the best in a long time.
Reports have shown that the Xbox Ally X is now $200 more expensive in Japan, which could potentially lead to price hikes in the rest of the world. In contrast, the Xbox Ally hasn't changed prices yet and is still enjoying its 18% discount from January, taking its price below $490.
Microsoft has revealed the next batch of Xbox games coming and leaving Xbox Game Pass for the second half of February 2026. Among the new additions are Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, EA Sports College Football 26, and more.
Gather your warriors, a song of swords awaitsβ¦Tripwire Presents, the publishing division of Tripwire Interactive, and developer Arctic Hazard today announced the release of their Viking turn-based tactical game set in Dark Age Norway, NORSE: Oath of Blood, on Windows PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and Good Old Games (GOG). The standard digital edition is available for $34.99 and a Special Edition, including the in-game Kievan War armor set and unique Ulfberht sword, is available for $44.99, with both versions discounted 15% on all storefronts, including as part of the Tripwire Interactive Publisher Sale on Steam, through Tuesday, Feb. 24. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions remain in development and will launch this Spring.
"I'm thrilled to say, 'The Vikings are here!' Creating NORSE: Oath of blood has been a saga in its own right, one that has brought many challenges, forged new friendships, and highlighted the spirit, dedication, and passion of everyone involved," said Terje Lundberg, CEO and Creative Director at Arctic Hazard. "We will continue to work on and support the game as it makes its way into the world, and we truly hope people enjoy playing it as much as we have enjoyed making it."
Yesterday, a Semi Analysis article predicted the postponement of a forthcoming AMD Instinct MI455X AI mass manufacturing phase. As covered by TechPowerUp this morning, this controversial forecast places Team Red's next-gen design in a precarious position, especially when compared to the apparent rapid progression of NVIDIA's competitive "Vera Rubin" server-grade hardware. This evening, Anush Elangovan has responded to the latest claimsβthe Corporate Vice President of AMD AI software and solutions issued a curt reply to a tech industry analyst's quoting of Semi Analysis' hit piece: "B.S (bullshit). Right on target for H2 2026."
The high volume rollout of Team Red's first rack scale "Helios" MI455X UALoE72 system hasβallegedlyβbeen plagued with engineering sample problems and manufacturing hiccups. In a separate social media post, Elangovan insisted that the finalized MI455X model will not be postponed into the second quarter of 2027: "speed is the moat. MI455X is both fast, and is the fastest I have seen in execution for bring-up of a complex GPU platform. MI455X is right on target for shipments in 2H2026βirrespective of what Semi Analysis saysβrev your engines because speed is coming." Technology-wise, AMD's Artificial Intelligence Group (AIG) seems ready to answer NVIDIA's incoming new-gen wave, but it is not clear whether the upcoming "Helios" rack system can compete in terms of sheer factory output numbers.
As the demand for local data management continues to grow among households and small teams, storage devices are no longer just file containers. They are expected to deliver computing capability, scalability, and long-term operational stability. The Acemagic N3A Mini PCNAS combines Mini PC performance with NAS storage in an integrated design, bringing computing power and multi-drive storage into a compact form factor. It enables users to build an efficient and reliable local storage and collaboration environment within limited space.
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Powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor, the N3A features a 4-core, 8-thread architecture with boost speeds of up to 4.0 GHz, delivering a balanced combination of performance and power efficiency within a 35 W TDP. Whether handling simultaneous file access from multiple devices, everyday multimedia workloads, or containerized applications such as Docker, the system maintains consistent responsiveness, supporting long-term, stable use for both home users and small teams. Integrated Radeon RX Vega graphics with 4K@60 Hz display output ensures smooth content playback and flexible support for media-centric and display-oriented use cases.
Last week, computer memory industry observers noted the US Government's "very brief" removal of ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) from a trade blacklist. In early 2026, leading North American OEMs were reported as seeking alternative suppliers of consumer-grade DDR5 and DDR4 memory. China's CXMT seems to be an ideal frontrunner for brands that are currently struggling with procurements of more mainstream modulesβas produced by Micron, SK hynix, and Samsung. Australia's Hardware Unboxed is in a fortunate geographical position; where CXMT IC-based kits are (kind of) readily available via big box stores. The ongoing "DDR pricing nightmare" has prompted Steve Walton's recent purchase of a cheaper KingBank KFRW DDR5-6000 CL36 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) White RGB kit. The KFRW range seems to be an Aussie market exclusive, derived from KingBank's Soarblade UDIMM product family.
Primarily, Walton compared this less familiar Chinese brand set to a "sweet spot" G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 CL30 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) kit. Prior to the present-day crisis, this former price-to-performance champ was available as low as $115 in North America. Fast-forward to February 2026, and the kit's price tag has reached a $490 high. A few weeks ago, Walton managed to pick up one of the cheapest KingBank kits, that happened to feature CXMT's homegrown modulesβhe did not disclose how much was forked over for review candidate ownership. Today's Hardware Unboxed investigative video notes that KingBank prices have increased around the mid-February periodβAustralians have to pay a minimum of AU$649 (~$458 USD) for currently in-stock CMXT-based sticks. Curiously, a screenshot of Mwave store listings shows a KingBank Hynix M-die-based kit being sold for a relatively reasonable AU$599 (~$423 USD). Overall, Walton recommends that locals pick up Chinese-made DRAM, if price tags are reasonable.
The Moscow-based security company reported that Keenadu was found in Android tablets sold by several mostly unnamed brands. Similar to Triada, the threat infects the firmware during the binary build phase, when a malicious static library is secretly linked with the libandroid_runtime.so library.
According to the patent document, the LLM can create a "digital clone" of social media users to simulate their online activity, posting messages, photos, and videos on their behalf if they die or take an extended break from social media. It can even interact with other users, respond to DMs,...
Leadde AI is an AI video platform for businesses. Upload documents like text, slides, and PDFs to instantly generate a structured video outline, scene-by-scene script, and visuals. Customize the output language, level of detail, and tone, then choose a template and digital avatar to quickly produce multilingual training, explainer, tutorial, onboarding, launch, or process videos at scale.
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed that artificial intelligence (AI) assistants that support web browsing or URL fetching capabilities can be turned into stealthy command-and-control (C2) relays, a technique that could allow attackers to blend into legitimate enterprise communications and evade detection.
The attack method, which has been demonstrated against Microsoft Copilot and xAI Grok
Apple is equipping a range of upcoming devices, including the next AirPods Pro, with a camera to imbue them with incremental AI features, thereby hoping to halt Meta's relentless ascendancy in the wearable AI segment. Apple's next AirPods Pro, which might launch as early as this year, would come equipped with a camera According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has been working for quite a while on an innovative design for its AirPods Pro, aiming to equip the bespoke earbuds with a camera. According to Gurman, the new AirPods Pro might launch as early as this year, and complete a [β¦]
We first heard that Capcom would be looking to reboot the Resident Evil film franchise all the way back in 2020, with a less-than-impressive first outing with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. That was followed by another less-than-impressive TV series, which was canned after one season. Now, there's another new film coming, but with a lot more pedigree behind it, with Weapons and Barbarian director Zach Cregger leading the charge. Last September, we learned from Cregger that this upcoming film would be an original story, one that wouldn't feature iconic Resident Evil characters like Leon Kennedy (who will feature [β¦]
Here's something we weren't really expecting to read: John Romero, the man behind some of the greatest old-school first-person shooter games (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake), revealed that his most-played game of all time is Blizzard's World of Warcraft. That's about as far from the games he's most renowned for as you could imagine, being an MMORPG with stylized visuals and tab-targeting combat. And yet, Romero himself told PC Gamer that he lived in Azeroth for five years: It's World of Warcraft. I have probably 3,000-plus hours in WoW. God, I lived in that game every day for five years. Six [β¦]
Bungie's upcoming first-person extraction shooter, Marathon, is out on PS5 and PC in a little more than two weeks' time from the time of this writing. Despite it having a rough road to launch, now that we're so close to it, the game looks more impressive than ever, and its new 'Death Awaits' trailer ahead of its open preview server slam test next weekend is the latest example of just how solid it looks. The server slam test will give Bungie the chance to let the servers get pushed to their limit right ahead of launch, as the test will [β¦]
Cyberpunk 2077 may have required a powerful gaming PC to enjoy at its 2020 release, but YouTuber ETA Prime has shown that the game can now be played on a high-end smartphone with decent performance with x86 emulation.
Battlefield Studios producer Phil Girette and associate producer Kit Eklof believe Battlefield 6 Season 2 is the "strongest" season yet that will bring back the "die hard" fans.
Here's how you can watch Zootopia 2 online and from anywhere in the world. It's currently available to buy/rent and will soon land on Disney+ worldwide.
La Liga's war on piracy has escalated significantly, with a Spanish court ruling that NordVPN and Proton VPN need to block IP addresses transmitting illegal football streams. Here's all we know.
Battlefield 6 Season 2 has officially begun, and it's brought back of the divisive toxic gas from Battlefield 1. However this gas will act much differently and offer new tactical ways to play.
From Alan Turingβs early thought experiments to the Dartmouth project that coined the term, the origins of artificial intelligence is a fascinating story.
Meta Platforms is embedding newly acquired AI agent tech directly into Ads Manager, giving advertisers built-in automation tools for research and reporting as the company looks to show faster returns on its AI investments.
Whatβs happening. Some advertisers are seeing in-stream prompts to activate Manus AI inside Ads Manager.
Manus is now available to all advertisers via the Tools menu.
Select users are also getting pop-up alerts encouraging in-workflow adoption.
The feature rollout signals deeper integration ahead.
What is Manus. Manus AI is designed to power AI agents that can perform tasks like report building and audience research, effectively acting as an assistant within the ad workflow.
Why we care. Manus AI brings AI-powered automation directly into Meta Platforms Ads Manager, making tasks like report-building, audience research, and campaign analysis faster and more efficient.
Meta is currently prioritizing tying AI investment to measurable ad performance, giving advertisers new ways to optimize campaigns and potentially gain a competitive edge by testing workflow efficiencies early.
Between the lines. Meta is under pressure to demonstrate practical value from its aggressive AI spending. Advertising remains its clearest path to monetization, and embedding Manus into everyday ad tools offers a direct way to tie AI investment to performance gains.
Zoom out. The move aligns with CEO Mark Zuckerbergβs push to weave AI across Metaβs product stack. By positioning Manus as a performance tool for advertisers, Meta is betting that workflow efficiencies will translate into stronger ad results β and a clearer AI revenue story.
The bottom line. For advertisers, Manus adds another layer of built-in automation worth testing. Early adopters may uncover time savings and optimization gains as Meta continues expanding AI inside its ad ecosystem.
A core targeting lever in Google Demand Gen campaigns is changing. Starting March 2026, Lookalike audiences will act as optimization signals β not hard constraints β potentially widening reach and leaning more heavily on automation to drive conversions.
What is happening. Per an update to Googleβs Help documentation, Lookalike segments in Demand Gen are moving from strict similarity-based targeting to an AI-driven suggestion model.
Before: Advertisers selected a similarity tier (narrow, balanced, broad), and campaigns targeted users strictly within that Lookalike pool.
After: The same tiers act as signals. Googleβs system can expand beyond the Lookalike list to reach users it predicts are likely to convert.
Between the lines. This effectively reframes Lookalikes from a fence to a compass. Instead of limiting delivery to a defined cohort, advertisers are feeding intent signals into Googleβs automation and allowing it to search for performance outside preset boundaries.
How this interacts with Optimized Targeting. The new Lookalike-as-signal approach resembles Optimized Targeting β but it doesnβt replace it.
When advertisers layer Optimized Targeting on top, Google says the system may expand reach even further.
In practice, this stacks multiple automation signals, increasing the algorithmβs freedom to pursue lower CPA or higher conversion volume.
Opt-out option. Advertisers who want to preserve legacy behavior can request continued access to strict Lookalike targeting through a dedicated opt-out form. Without that request, campaigns will default to the new signal-based model.
Why we care. This update changes how much control advertisers will have over who their ads reach in Google Demand Gen campaigns. Lookalike audiences will no longer strictly limit targeting β theyβll guide AI expansion β which can significantly affect scale, CPA, and overall performance.
It also signals a broader shift toward automation, similar to trends driven by Meta Platforms. Advertisers will need to test carefully, rethink audience strategies, and decide whether to embrace the added reach or opt out to preserve tighter targeting.
Zoom out. The shift mirrors a broader industry trend toward AI-first audience expansion, similar to moves by Meta Platforms over the past few years. Platforms are steadily trading granular manual controls for machine-led optimization.
Why Google is doing this. Digital markerter Dario Zannoni, has two reasons as to why Google is doing this:
Strict Lookalike targeting can cap scale and constrain performance in conversion-focused campaigns.
Maintaining high-quality similarity models is increasingly complex, making broader automation more attractive.
The bottom line. For performance marketers, this is another step toward automation-centric buying. While reduced control may be uncomfortable, comparable platform changes have often produced performance gains in mainstream use cases. Expect a new testing cycle as advertisers measure how expanded Lookalike signals affect CPA, reach, and incremental conversions.
First seen. This update was spotted by Zannoni who shared his thoughts on LinkedIn.
Jeff Dean says Googleβs AI Search still works like classic Search: narrow the web to relevant pages, rank them, then let a model generate the answer.
In an interview on Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast, Googleβs chief AI scientist explained how Googleβs AI systems work and how much they rely on traditional search infrastructure.
The architecture: filter first, reason last. Visibility still depends on clearing ranking thresholds. Content must enter the broad candidate pool, then survive deeper reranking before it can be used in an AI-generated response. Put simply, AI doesnβt replace ranking. It sits on top of it.
Dean said an LLM-powered system doesnβt read the entire web at once. It starts with Googleβs full index, then uses lightweight methods to identify a large candidate pool β tens of thousands of documents. Dean said:
βYou identify a subset of them that are relevant with very lightweight kinds of methods. Youβre down to like 30,000 documents or something. And then you gradually refine that to apply more and more sophisticated algorithms and more and more sophisticated sort of signals of various kinds in order to get down to ultimately what you show, which is the final 10 results or 10 results plus other kinds of information.β
Stronger ranking systems narrow that set further. Only after multiple filtering rounds does the most capable model analyze a much smaller group of documents and generate an answer. Dean said:
βAnd I think an LLM-based system is not going to be that dissimilar, right? Youβre going to attend to trillions of tokens, but youβre going to want to identify what are the 30,000-ish documents that are with the maybe 30 million interesting tokens. And then how do you go from that into what are the 117 documents I really should be paying attention to in order to carry out the tasks that the user has asked me to do?β
Dean called this the βillusionβ of attending to trillions of tokens. In practice, itβs a staged pipeline: retrieve, rerank, synthesize. Dean said:
βGoogle search gives you β¦ not the illusion, but you are searching the internet, but youβre finding a very small subset of things that are relevant.β
Matching: from keywords to meaning. Nothing new here, but we heard another reminder that covering a topic clearly and comprehensively matters more than repeating exact-match phrases.
Dean explained how LLM-based representations changed how Google matches queries to content.
Older systems relied more on exact word overlap. With LLM representations, Google can move beyond the idea that particular words must appear on the page and instead evaluate whether a page β or even a paragraph β is topically relevant to a query. Dean said:
βGoing to an LLM-based representation of text and words and so on enables you to get out of the explicit hard notion of particular words having to be on the page. But really getting at the notion of this topic of this page or this page paragraph is highly relevant to this query.β
That shift lets Search connect queries to answers even when wording differs. Relevance increasingly centers on intent and subject matter, not just keyword presence.
Query expansion didnβt start with AI. Dean pointed to 2001, when Google moved its index into memory across enough machines to make query expansion cheap and fast. Dean said:
βOne of the things that really happened in 2001 was we were sort of working to scale the system in multiple dimensions. So one is we wanted to make our index bigger, so we could retrieve from a larger index, which always helps your quality in general. Because if you donβt have the page in your index, youβre going to not do well.
βAnd then we also needed to scale our capacity because we were, our traffic was growing quite extensively. So we had a sharded system where you have more and more shards as the index grows, you have like 30 shards. Then if you want to double the index size, you make 60 shards so that you can bound the latency by which you respond for any particular user query. And then as traffic grows, you add more and more replicas of each of those.
And so we eventually did the math that realized that in a data center where we had say 60 shards and 20 copies of each shard, we now had 1,200 machines with disks. And we did the math and weβre like, Hey, one copy of that index would actually fit in memory across 1,200 machines. So in 2001, we β¦ put our entire index in memory and what that enabled from a quality perspective was amazing.
Before that, adding terms was expensive because it required disk access. Once the index lived in memory, Google could expand a short query into dozens of related terms β adding synonyms and variations to better capture meaning. Dean said:
βBefore, you had to be really careful about how many different terms you looked at for a query, because every one of them would involve a disk seek.
βOnce you have the whole index in memory, itβs totally fine to have 50 terms you throw into the query from the userβs original three- or four-word query. Because now you can add synonyms like restaurant and restaurants and cafe and bistro and all these things.
βAnd you can suddenly start β¦ getting at the meaning of the word as opposed to the exact semantic form the user typed in. And that was β¦ 2001, very much pre-LLM, but really it was about softening the strict definition of what the user typed in order to get at the meaning.β
That change pushed Search toward intent and semantic matching years before LLMs. AI Mode (and its other AI experiences) continues Googleβs ongoing shift toward meaning-based retrieval, enabled by better systems and more compute.
Freshness as a core advantage. Dean said one of Searchβs biggest transformations was update speed. Early systems refreshed pages as rarely as once a month. Over time, Google built infrastructure that can update pages in under a minute. Dean said:
βIn the early days of Google, we were growing the index quite extensively. We were growing the update rate of the index. So the update rate actually is the parameter that changed the most.β
That improved results for news queries and affected the main search experience. Users expect current information, and the system is designed to deliver it. Dean said:
βIf youβve got last monthβs news index, itβs not actually that useful.β
Google uses systems to decide how often to crawl a page, balancing how likely it is to change with how valuable the latest version is. Even pages that change infrequently may be crawled often if theyβre important enough. Dean said:
βThereβs a whole β¦ system behind the scenes thatβs trying to decide update rates and importance of the pages. So, even if the update rate seems low, you might still want to recrawl important pages quite often because the likelihood they change might be low, but the value of having updated is high.β
Why we care. AI answers donβt bypass ranking, crawl prioritization, or relevance signals. They depend on them. Eligibility, quality, and freshness still determine which pages are retrieved and narrowed. LLMs change how content is synthesized and presented β but the competition to enter the underlying candidate set remains a search problem.
For veteran gamers who have been at it for decades, this week's new content for Age of Empires 2 and Diablo 2 feels like time travel. Kudos to Microsoft for preserving these games the right way.
According to reports from Chinese local media, Apple is considering partnering with Chinese semiconductor manufacturers CXMT and YMTC for its upcoming iPhone 18 series and potentially other products like MacBooks and Mac computers. With memory and storage suppliers such as Kioxia, Samsung, and SK hynix raising prices due to a significant industry shortage, Apple is experiencing a squeeze on its profit margins while maintaining the same MSRP for its products. To diversify its supply chain, Apple is reportedly exploring the addition of DRAM from CXMT and NAND Flash from YMTC to reduce its dependence on South Korean and Japanese suppliers.
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If you look at job postings on Indeed and LinkedIn, youβll see a wave of acronyms added to the alphabet soup as companies try to hire people to boost visibility on large language models (LLMs).
Some people are calling it generative engine optimization (GEO). Others call it answer engine optimization (AEO). Still others call it artificial intelligence optimization (AIO). I prefer large model answer optimization (LMAO).
I find these new acronyms a bit ridiculous because while many like to think AI optimization is new, it isnβt. Itβs just long-tailSEO β done the way it was always meant to be done.
Why LLMs still rely on search
Most LLMs (e.g., GPT-4o, Claude 4.5, Gemini 1.5, Grok-2) are transformers trained to do one thing: predict the next token given all previous tokens.
AI companies train them on massive datasets from public web crawls, such as:
Common Crawl.
Digitized books.
Wikipedia dumps.
Academic papers.
Code repositories.
News archives.
Forums.
The data is heavily filtered to remove spam, toxic content, and low-quality pages. Full pretraining is extremely expensive, so companies run major foundation training cycles only every few years and rely on lighter fine-tuning for more frequent updates.
So what happens when an LLM encounters a question it canβt answer with confidence, despite the massive amount of training data?
AI companies use real-time web search and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to keep responses fresh and accurate, bridging the limits of static training data. In other words, the LLM runs a web search.
To see this in real time, many LLMs let you click an icon or βShow detailsβ to view the process. For example, when I use Grok to find highly rated domestically made space heaters, it converts my question into a standard search query.
Many of us long-time SEO practitioners have praised the value of long-tail SEO for years. But one main reason it never took off for many brands: Google.
As long as Googleβs interface was a single text box, users were conditioned to search with one- and two-word queries. Most SEO revenue came from these head terms, so priorities focused on competing for the No. 1 spot for each industryβs top phrase.
Many brands treated long-tail SEO as a distraction. Some cut content production and community management because they couldnβt see the ROI. Most saw more value in protecting a handful of head terms than in creating content to capture the long tail of search.
Fast forward to 2026. People typing LLM prompts do so conversationally, adding far more detail and nuance than they would in a traditional search engine. LLMs take these prompts and turn them into search queries. They wonβt stop at a few words. Theyβll construct a query that reflects whatever detail their human was looking for in the prompt.
Suddenly, the fat head of the search curve is being replaced with a fat tail. While humans continue to go to search engines for head terms, LLMs are sending these long-tail search queries to search engines for answers.
While AI companies are coy about disclosing exactly who they partner with, most public information points to the following search engines as the ones their LLMs use most often:
ChatGPT β Bing Search.
Claude β Brave Search.
Gemini β Google Search.
Grok β X Search and its own internal web search tool.
Perplexity β Uses its own hybrid index.
Right now, humans conduct billions of searches each month on traditional search engines. As more people turn to LLMs for answers, weβll see exponential growth in LLMs sending search queries on their behalf.
The principles of long-tail SEO havenβt changed much. Itβs best summed up by Baseball Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler: βKeep your eye on the ball and hit βem where they ainβt.β
Success has always depended on understanding your audienceβs deepest needs, knowing what truly differentiates your brand, and creating content at the intersection of the two.
As straightforward as this strategy has been, few have executed it well, for understandable reasons.
Reading your customersβ minds is hard. Keyword research is tedious. Content creation is hard. Itβs easy to get lost in the weeds.
Happily, thereβs someone to help: your favorite LLM.
Here are a few best practices Iβve used to create strong long-tail content over the years, with a twist. What once took days, weeks, or even months, you can now do in minutes with AI.
1. Ask your LLM what people search when looking for your product or service
The first rule of long-tail SEO has always been to get into your audienceβs heads and understand their needs. This once required commissioning surveys and hiring research firms to figure out.
But for most brands and industries, an LLM can handle at least the basics. Hereβs a sample prompt you can use.
Act as an SEO strategist and customer research analyst. You're helping with long-tail keyword discovery by modeling real customer questions.
I want to discover long-tail search questions real people might ask about my business, products, and industry. Iβm not looking for mere keyword lists. Generate realistic search questions that reflect how people research, compare options, solve problems, and make decisions.
Company name: [COMPANY NAME]
Industry: [INDUSTRY]
Primary product/service: [PRIMARY PRODUCT OR SERVICE]
Target customer: [TARGET AUDIENCE]
Geography (if relevant): [LOCATION OR MARKET]
Generate a list of 75 β 100 realistic, natural-language search queries grouped into the following categories:
AWARENESS
β’ Beginner questions about the category
β’ Problem-based questions (pain points, frustrations, confusion)
CONSIDERATION
β’ Comparison questions (alternatives, competitors, approaches)
β’ βBest forβ and use-case questions
β’ Cost and pricing questions
DECISION
β’ Implementation or getting-started questions
β’ Trust, credibility, and risk questions
POST-PURCHASE
β’ Troubleshooting questions
β’ Optimization and advanced/expert questions
EDGE CASES
β’ Niche scenarios
β’ Uncommon but realistic situations
β’ Advanced or expert questions
Guidelines:
β’ Write queries the way real people search in Google or ask AI assistants.
β’ Prioritize specificity over generic keywords.
β’ Include question formats, βhow toβ queries, and scenario-based searches.
β’ Avoid marketing language.
β’ Include emotional, situational, and practical context where relevant.
β’ Don't repeat the same query structure with minor variations.
β’ Each query should suggest a clear content angle.
Output as a clean bullet list grouped by category.
You can tweak this prompt for your brand and industry. The key is to force the LLM (and yourself) to think like a customer and avoid the trap of generating keyword lists that are just head-term variations dressed up as long-tail queries.
With a prompt like this, you move away from churning out βkeyword ideasβ and toward understanding real customer needs you can build useful content around.
Most large brands and sites donβt realize theyβve been sitting on a treasure trove of user intelligence: on-site search data.
When customers type a query into your siteβs search box, theyβre looking for something they expect your brand to provide.
If you see the same searches repeatedly, it usually means one of two things:
You have the information, but users canβt find it.
You donβt have it at all.
In both cases, itβs a strong signal you need to improve your siteβs UX, add meaningful content, or both.
Thereβs another advantage to mining on-site search data: it reveals the exact words your audience uses, not the terms your team assumes they use.
Historically, the challenge has been the time required to analyze it. I remember projects where I locked myself in a room for days, reviewing hundreds of thousands of queries line by line to find patterns β sorting, filtering, and clustering them by intent.
If youβve done the same, you know the pattern. The first few dozen keywords represent unique concepts, but eventually you start seeing synonyms and variations.
All of this is buried treasure waiting to be explored. Your LLM can help. Hereβs a sample prompt you can use:
You're an SEO strategist analyzing internal site search data.
My goal is to identify content opportunities from what users are searching for on my website β including both major themes and specific long-tail needs within those themes.
I have attached a list of site search queries exported from GA4. Please:
STEP 1 β Cluster by intent
Group the queries into logical intent-based themes.
STEP 2 β Identify long-tail signals inside each theme
Within each theme:
β’ Identify recurring modifiers (price, location, comparisons, troubleshooting, etc.)
β’ Identify specific entities mentioned (products, tools, features, audiences, problems)
β’ Call out rare but high-intent searches
β’ Highlight wording that suggests confusion or unmet expectations
STEP 3 β Generate content ideas
For each theme:
β’ Suggest 3 β 5 content ideas
β’ Include at least one long-tail content idea derived directly from the queries
β’ Include one βhigh-intentβ content idea
β’ Include one βproblem-solvingβ content idea
STEP 4 β Identify UX or navigation issues
Point out searches that suggest:
β’ Users cannot find existing content
β’ Misleading navigation labels
β’ Missing landing pages
Output format:
Theme:
Supporting queries:
Long-tail insights:
Content opportunities:
UX observations:
Again, customize this prompt based on what you know about your audience and how they search.
The detail matters. Many SEO practitioners stop at a prompt like βgive me a list of topics for my clients,β but this pushes the LLM beyond simple clustering to understand the intent behind the searches.
I used on-site search data because itβs one of the richest, most transparent, and most actionable sources. But similar prompts can uncover hidden value in other keyword lists, such as βstriking distanceβ terms from Google Search Console or competitive keywords from Semrush.
Even better, if your organization keeps detailed customer interaction records (e.g., sales call notes, support tickets, chat transcripts), those can be more valuable. Unlike keyword datasets, they capture problems in full sentences, in the customerβs own words, often revealing objections, confusion, and edge cases that never appear in traditional keyword research.
Your goal is to create content so strong and authoritative that itβs picked up by sources like Common Crawl and survives the intense filtering AI companies apply when building LLM training sets. Realistically, only pioneering brands and recognized authorities can expect to operate in this rarefied space.
For the rest of us, the opportunity is creating high-quality long-tail content that ranks at the top across search engines β not just Google, but Bing, Brave, and even X.
This is one area where I wouldnβt rely on LLMs, at least not to generate content from scratch.
Why?
LLMs are sophisticated pattern matchers. They surface and remix information from across the internet, even obscure material. But they donβt produce genuinely original thought.
At best, LLMs synthesize. At worst, they hallucinate.
Many worry AI will take their jobs. And it will β for anyone who thinks βgreat contentβ means paraphrasing existing authority sources and competing with Wikipedia-level sites for broad head terms. Most brands will never be the primary authority on those terms. Thatβs OK.
The real opportunity is becoming the authority on specific, detailed, often overlooked questions your audience actually has. The long tail is still wide open for brands willing to create thoughtful, experience-driven content that doesnβt already exist everywhere else.
We need to face facts. The fat head is shrinking. The land rush is now for the βfat tail.β Hereβs what brands need to do to succeed:
Dominate searches for your brand
Search your brand name in a keyword tool like Semrush and review the long-tail variations people type into Google. Youβll likely find more than misspellings. Youβll see detailed queries about pricing, alternatives, complaints, comparisons, and troubleshooting.
If you donβt create content that addresses these topics directly β the good and the bad β someone else will. It might be a Reddit thread from someone who barely knows your product, a competitor attacking your site, a negative Google Business Profile review, or a complaint on Trustpilot.
When people search your brand, your site should be the best place for honest, complete answers β even and especially when they arenβt flattering. If you donβt own the conversation, others will define it for you.
The time for βfrequently asked questionsβ is over. You need to answer every question about your brandβfrequent, infrequent, and everything in between.
Go long
Head terms in your industry have likely been dominated by top brands for years. That doesnβt mean the opportunity is gone.
Beneath those competitive terms is a vast layer of unbranded, long-tail searches that have likely been ignored. Your data will reveal them.
Review on-site search, Google Search Console queries, customer support questions, and forums like Reddit. These are real people asking real questions in their own words.
The challenge isnβt finding questions to write about. Itβs delivering the best answers β not one-line responses to check a box, but clear explanations, practical examples, and content grounded in real experience that reflects what sets your brand apart.
Expertise is now a commodity: Lean into experience, authority, and trust
Publishing expert content still matters, but its role has changed. Today, anyone can generate βexpert-soundingβ articles with an LLM.
Whether that content ranks in Google is increasingly beside the point, as many users go straight to AI tools for answers.
As the βexpertiseβ in E-E-A-T becomes table stakes, differentiation comes from what AI and competitors canβt easily replicate: experience, authority, and trust.
That means publishing:
Original insights and genuine thought leadership from people inside your company.
Real customer stories with measurable outcomes.
Transparent reviews and testimonials.
Evidence that your brand delivers what it promises.
This isnβt just about blog content. These signals should appear across your site β from your About page to product pages to customer support content. Every page should reinforce why a real person should trust your brand.
Stop paywalling your best content
Iβm seeing more brands put their strongest content behind logins or paywalls. I understand why. Many need to protect intellectual property and preserve monetization. But as a long-term strategy, this often backfires.
If your content is truly valuable, the ideas will spread anyway. A subscriber may paraphrase it. An AI system may summarize it. A crawler may access it through technical workarounds. In the end, your insights circulate without attribution or brand lift.
When your best content is publicly accessible, it can be cited, linked to, indexed, and discussed. That visibility builds authority and trust over time.
In a search- and AI-driven ecosystem, discoverability often outweighs modest direct content monetization.
This doesnβt mean content businesses canβt charge for anything. It means being strategic about what you charge for. A strong model is to make core knowledge and thought leadership open while monetizing things such as:
Tools.
Community access.
Premium analysis or data.
Courses or certifications.
Implementation support.
Early access or deeper insights.
In other words, let your ideas spread freely and monetize the experience, expertise, and outcomes around them.
Stop viewing content as a necessary evil
I still see brands hiding content behind CSS βread moreβ links or stuffing blocks of βSEO copyβ at the bottom of pages, hoping users wonβt notice but search engines will.
Spoiler alert: they see it. They just donβt care.
Content isnβt something you add to check an SEO box or please a robot. Every word on your site must serve your customers. When content genuinely helps users understand, compare, and decide, it becomes an asset that builds trust and drives conversions.
If youβd be embarrassed for users to read your content, youβre thinking about it the wrong way. Thereβs no such thing as content thatβs βbad for users but good for search engines.β There never was.
Embrace user-generated content
No article on long-tail SEO is complete without discussing user-generated content. I covered forums and Q&A sites in a previous article (see: The reign of forums: How AI made conversation king), and they remain one of the most efficient ways to generate authentic, unique content.
The concept is simple. You have an audience thatβs already passionate and knowledgeable. They likely have more hands-on experience with your brand and industry than many writers you hire. They may already be talking about your brand offline, in customer communities, or on forums like Reddit.
Your goal is to bring some of those conversations onto your site.
User-generated content naturally produces the long-tail language marketing teams rarely create on their own. Customers
Describe problems differently.
Ask unexpected questions.
Compare products in ways you didnβt anticipate.
Surface edge cases, troubleshooting scenarios, and real-world use cases that rarely appear in polished marketing copy.
This is exactly the kind of content long-tail SEO thrives on.
Itβs also the kind of content AI systems and search engines increasingly recognize as credible because it reflects real experience rather than brand messaging many dismiss as inauthentic.
Brands that do this well donβt just capture long-tail traffic. They build trust, reduce support costs, and dominate long-tail searches and prompts.
In the age of AI-generated content, real human experience is one of the strongest differentiators.
For years, SEO has been shaped by the limits of the search box. Short queries and head terms dominated strategy, and long-tail content was often treated as optional.
LLMs are changing that dynamic. AI is expanding search, not eliminating it.
AI systems encourage people to express what they actually want to know. Those detailed prompts still need answers, and those answers come from the web.
That means the SEO opportunity is shifting from competing over a small set of keywords to becoming the best source of answers to thousands of specific questions.
Brands that succeed will:
Deeply understand their audience.
Publish genuinely useful content.
Build trust through real engagement and experience.
Thatβs always been the recipe for SEO success. But our industry has a habit of inventing complex tactics to avoid doing the simple work well.
Most of us remember doorway pages, exact match domains, PageRank sculpting, LSI obsession, waves of auto-generated pages, and more. Each promised an edge. Few replaced the value of helping users.
Weβre likely to see the same cycle repeat in the AI era.
The reality is simpler. AI systems arenβt the audience. Theyβre intermediaries helping humans find trustworthy answers.
If you focus on helping people understand, decide, and solve problems, youβre already optimizing for AI β whatever you call it.
I decided to test out a new monitoring app for Windows called AppControl, and after only a few days of use, I've sworn off Task Manager. Best part? AppControl is completely free.
Updates to Winhance for Windows PCs migrate the app to the WinUI 3 framework to blend with Windows 11's menu styling, offering batch bloatware removal and more.
As the traditional projector market continues to decline, BenQ is accelerating growth in the industry's most dynamic segment: short throw projectors designed for immersive, simulation-driven, and non-traditional applications. Today, BenQ announced the expansion of its projector lineup with four purpose-built models - LU895UST, LH860ST, LK830ST, and LW830ST - designed specifically for simulation, experiential environments.
From golf and sports simulators to projection mapping, immersive rooms, and advanced training environments, these applications demand precise geometry, flexible aspect ratios, color accuracy, and simplified installation. BenQ's latest short throw and ultra short throw projectors are engineered for immersive, simulation-driven environments and powered by BenQ Screen Fill technology, purpose-built for non-standard screens, flexible aspect ratios, and immersive layouts.
Each week, new games and apps integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. This week, Styx: Blades of Greed and Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown are launching with native support for DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, while NORSE: Oath of Blood can be upgraded to DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation via the NVIDIA app.
And Battlefield 6: Season 2 begins today, featuring support for DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation. Read on for all the details.
Classiq, the leading quantum computing software company, Comcast and AMD today announced the completion of a groundbreaking trial aimed at improving Internet delivery by leveraging quantum algorithms to supercharge network routing resilience.
"What our customers want is simple: fast, secure and reliable connectivity, but when you operate a network as large and dynamic as ours, delivering on that promise is complex, especially in the face of growing network demand," said Elad Nafshi, Chief Network Officer, Comcast Connectivity and Platforms. "We launched these trials with Classiq last year with the goal of understanding how quantum software and technology could tackle real network challenges. Our results have shown that quantum computing for network optimization isn't theoretical - it's practical, scalable, and grounded in the needs of our customers."
SoftBank and AMD have started joint validation of AMD Instinct GPUs for next-generation AI infrastructure by focusing on a GPU partitioning mechanism that lets a single GPU handle multiple AI workloads simultaneously. SoftBank developed an Orchestrator system that divides AMD Instinct GPU resources based on workload requirements: model size, number of concurrent executions, and memory needs. The system splits compute workloads across multiple GPU instances running on individual Accelerator Complex Dies (XCDs). These can range from single instance mode (SPX mode) up to eight instances (CPX mode). The HBM memory pools are also divided into individual regions for each GPU instance to prevent latency spikes. The goal is to avoid the inefficiency of uniform GPU resource allocation, which can lead to GPU resource shortages or waste depending on workload demands.
SoftBank says the enhanced Orchestrator runs multiple AI applications on a single GPU with minimal resource strain. No performance figures have been shared yet, though SoftBank mentions improved resource allocation for small and mid-size language model workloads. The company also plans to explore similar orchestration for other AI accelerators beyond AMD. A live demonstration is planned at the AMD booth during MWC Barcelona 2026 in March 2-5. SoftBank also published technical details on architecture and Orchestrator management methods on its Research Institute of Advanced Technology blog. In a recent report, we noted that AMD's next-gen Instinct MI455X accelerators, set to compete with NVIDIA's Vera Rubin, are running into serious manufacturing problems that are pushing back AMD's roadmap. Only limited production is expected this year, with mass production pushed to Q2 2027.
Happy Tuesday everyoneβI know this day of the week is always better when it comes with a side of games coming soon, games available today, and updates you might have missed for some of your favorites. Let's jump in!
Available Today: Aerial_Knight's DropShot (Cloud, Xbox Series X|S, Handheld, and PC)βFebruary 17
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass Available Day One with Xbox Game Pass! Aerial_Knight's Dropshot is a high-speed, stylized FPS / Race where you play as Smoke Wallace. As a kid, he was bitten by a radioactive dragon, turning his skin purple and giving him the power to fire bullets from his fingertips. Race rivals, fight dragons, shoot smart, and look cool when you land.
Kuroutoshikou's GALAKURO gaming graphics card range continues to grow in early 2026βlately, the Japanese PC hardware brand has added three new SKUs to this custom GeForce RTX 50-series lineup. So far, this regional specialist has launched the vast majority of NVIDIA's "Blackwell" era of hardware, barring the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB model. The latest additions are all GeForce RTX 5060 Ti SKUs, starting with a lone 16 GB special edition. Once more, GALAKURO has partnered up with NCSoftβthis collaboration has produced the Lineage II-themed GALAKURO GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Dual Fan OC 16 GB black model. A previous licensing deal resulted in the Blade and Soul NEO Radeon RX 7600 8 GB collab card. As expected, Kuroutoshikou's latest special edition retail packaging features Lineage II artwork, but the actual card is devoid of any fantasy MMORPG sequel-themed prints or stickers.
In fact, Kuroutoshikou has simply rebranded GALAX's Dual Fan 1-Click OC card designβthe closest equivalent in TechPowerUp's GPU database is the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 1-Click OC V2 16 GB model. As covered in the past, the aforementioned Blade and Soul NEO collaboration edition is just a re-stickered plus re-boxed PowerColor Fighter RX 7600 8 GB card. The much newer Kuroutoshikou x NCSoft Collaboration Edition is due to launch later this week (February 20). Buyers will be gifted a free Lineage II in-game "summoning ticket." This promotion starts on release day, and ends on November 30.
FocusBae is the AI coworker for your laptop that you can call to share your screen, understand your tasks, and help as you work. Use voice to create notes, to-dos, journals, and context-aware reminders on the go without switching apps. Share your screen for real-time guidance on forms, debugging, and learning new tools.
FocusBae builds memory of your projects and team, automates time tracking, offers wellness nudges, clipboard history, and productivity insights. It runs natively on macOS with secure cloud backup and end-to-end encryption.
How to watch Bear Grylls - Wild Reckoning online and for free from any country as the survival expert wows TV viewers with a raw, emotional new series.
Just as every week brings another GeForce NOW Thursday, we also get an NVIDIA DLSS 4 Tuesday, with a new batch of games adding support for NVIDIA's DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation technology. This week, two games are launching with support for NVIDIA DLSS 4: Styx: Blades of Greed, the return of the stealth-driven action adventure, and Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown, a new strategy management game where you have to try to manage the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager and get the ship out of deep space and back to Earth. Both games also arrive with support [β¦]
A new affordable IPS gaming monitor was rolled out by the Chinese manufacturer Titan Legion, which offers HDR600 support. Titan Legion Debuts 1440p@425Hz IPS Gaming Monitor, Boasting 10-bit Color Depth and HDR600 Support Chinese monitor maker, Titan Legion, has rolled out its newest high-end IPS gaming monitor that boasts 1440p resolution and a native 400 Hz refresh rate out of the box. The monitor is called "Cangdao X276T", where Cangdao translates to Blue/Cold Blade/Sword. The X276T offers up to 425 Hz refresh rate, making it a powerful, competitive, yet affordable gaming monitor for serious gamers. The Cangdao X276T offers a [β¦]
Microsoft has announced a fresh batch of games that are landing soon on Xbox Game Pass, and there's a lot of love for roleplaying game fans, starting with the previously teased Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. The first-person historical RPG from Warhorse Studios will be available starting March 3 on the Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and PC Game Pass tiers. In just two days from now, though, another massively acclaimed action RPG will join Game Pass: CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition. Unfortunately, this will only be available via the cloud and on Xbox Series S and [β¦]
An estimated 12,000 MediaTek employees will be eligible for bonuses for the second half of 2025. According to the latest report, the cumulative amount comes to NT$11.4 billion, or $363 million, with each employee receiving an average of NT$950,000, or $30,247.74 for H2 2025. The interesting bit about these figures is that the bonus handed to workers is said to be 15.7 percent lower than what they received in the first half of 2025, indicating that MediaTek could be preparing for a crunch period where it anticipates fewer chipset shipments due to the ongoing DRAM crisis. Smartphone chipset business brings [β¦]
By bringing an enhanced video podcast viewing experience to its app, Apple is aiming to keep users from turning to rival platforms to watch their favorite shows.
Indian vibe-coding platform Emergent was launched just eight months ago, and it now says it's generating annual recurring revenue of more than $100 million, thanks to surging demand by small businesses and non-technical users.
Over two months ago, Google began testing its AI-powered configuration tool. It allows you to ask AI questions about the Google Search Console performance reports and it would bring back answers for you. Well, Google is now rolling out this tool for all.
Google said on LinkedIn, βThe Search Consoleβs new AI-powered configuration is now available to everyone!β
AI-powered configuration.Β AI-powered configuration βlets you describe the analysis you want to see in natural language. Your inputs are then transformed into the appropriate filters and settings, instantly configuring the report for you,β GoogleΒ said.
Rolling out now. If you login to your Search Console account and click on the performance report, you may see a note at the top that says βNew! Customize your Performance report using Al.β
When you click on it, you get into the AI tool:
More details.Β As we reported earlier, Google said βThe AI-powered configuration feature is designed to streamline your analysis by handling three key elements for you.β
Selecting metrics:Β Choose which of the four available metrics β Clicks, Impressions, Average CTR, and Average Position βΒ to display based on your question.
Applying filters:Β Narrow down data by query, page, country, device, search appearance, or date range.
Configuring comparisons:Β Set up complex comparisons (like custom date ranges) without manual setup.
Why we care. This is only supported in the Performance report for Search results. It isnβt available for Discover or News reports, yet. Plus, it is AI, so the answers may not be perfect. But it can be fun to play with and get you thinking about things you may not have thought about yet.
His conclusion β that AI tools produce wildly inconsistent brand recommendation lists, making βranking positionβ a meaningless metric β is correct, well-evidenced, and long overdue.
But Fishkin stopped one step short of the answer that matters.
He didnβt explore why some brands appear consistently while others donβt, or what would move a brand from inconsistent to consistent visibility. That solution is already formalized, patent pending, and proven in production across 73 million brand profiles.
When I shared this with Fishkin directly, he agreed. The AI models are pulling from a semi-fixed set of options, and the consistency comes from the data. He just didnβt have the bandwidth to dig deeper, which is fair enough, but the digging has been done β Iβve been doing it for a decade.
Hereβs what Fishkin found, what it actually means, and what the data proves about what to do about it.
Fishkinβs data killed the myth of AI ranking position
Fishkin and Patrick OβDonnell ran 2,961 prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI, asking for brand recommendations across 12 categories. The findings were surprising for most.
Fewer than 1 in 100 runs produced the same list of brands, and fewer than 1 in 1,000 produced the same list in the same order. These are probability engines that generate unique answers every time. Treating them as deterministic ranking systems is β as Fishkin puts it β βprovably nonsensical,β and Iβve been saying this since 2022. Iβm grateful Fishkin finally proved it with data.
But Fishkin also found something he didnβt fully unpack. Visibility percentage β how often a brand appears across many runs of the same prompt β is statistically meaningful. Some brands showed up almost every time, while others barely appeared at all.
That variance is where the real story lies.
Fishkin acknowledged this but framed it as a better metric to track. The real question isnβt how to measure AI visibility, itβs why some brands achieve consistent visibility and others donβt, and what moves your brand from the inconsistent pile to the consistent pile.
Thatβs not a tracking problem. Itβs a confidence problem.
AI systems are confidence engines, not recommendation engines
AI platforms β ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI, Perplexity, Gemini, all of them β generate every response by sampling from a probability distribution shaped by:
What the model knows.
How confidently it knows it.
What it retrieved at the moment of the query.
When the model is highly confident about an entityβs relevance, that entity appears consistently. When the model is uncertain, the entity sits at a low probability weight in the distribution β included in some samples, excluded in others β not because the selection is random but because the AI doesnβt have enough confidence to commit.
Thatβs the inconsistency Fishkin documented, and I recognized it immediately because Iβve been tracking exactly this pattern since 2015.Β
City of Hope appearing in 97% of cancer care responses isnβt luck. Itβs the result of deep, corroborated, multi-source presence in exactly the data these systems consume.Β
The headphone brands at 55%-77% are in a middle zone β known, but not unambiguously dominant.Β
The brands at 5%-10% have low confidence weight, and the AI includes them in some outputs and not others because it lacks the confidence to commit consistently.Β
Confidence isnβt just about what a brand publishes or how it structures its content. Itβs about where that brand stands relative to every other entity competing for the same query β a dimension Iβve recently formalized as Topical Position.
Iβve formalized this phenomenon as βcascading confidenceβ β the cumulative entity trust that builds or decays through every stage of the algorithmic pipeline, from the moment a bot discovers content to the moment an AI generates a recommendation. Itβs the throughline concept in a framework I published this week.
Every piece of content passes through 10 gates before influencing an AI recommendation
The pipeline is called DSCRI-ARGDW β discovered, selected, crawled, rendered, indexed, annotated, recruited, grounded, displayed, and won. That sounds complicated, but I can summarize it in a single question that repeats at every stage: How confident is the system in this content?
Is this URL worth crawling?Β
Can it be rendered correctly?Β
What entities and relationships does it contain?Β
How sure is the system about those annotations?Β
When the AI needs to answer a question, which annotated content gets pulled from the index?Β
Confidence at each stage feeds the next. A URL from a well-structured, fast-rendering, semantically clean site arrives at the annotation stage with high accumulated confidence before a single word of content is analyzed. A URL from a slow, JavaScript-heavy site with inconsistent information arrives with low confidence, even if the actual content is excellent.
This is pipeline attenuation, and hereβs where the math gets unforgiving. The relationship is multiplicative, not additive:
C_final = C_initial Γ βΟα΅’
In plain English, the final confidence an AI system has in your brand equals the initial confidence from your entity home multiplied by the transfer coefficient at every stage of the pipeline. The entity home β the canonical web property that anchors your entity in every knowledge graph and every AI model β sets the starting confidence, and then each stage either preserves or erodes it.Β
Maintain 90% confidence at each of 10 stages, and end-to-end confidence is 0.9ΒΉβ° = 35%. At 80% per stage, itβs 0.8ΒΉβ° = 11%. One weak stage β say 50% at rendering because of heavy JavaScript β drops the total from 35% to 19% even if every other stage is at 90%. One broken stage can undo the work of nine good ones.
This multiplicative principle isnβt new, and it doesnβt belong to anyone. In 2019, I published an article, How Google Universal Search Ranking Works: Darwinism in Search, based on a direct explanation from Googleβs Gary Illyes. He described how Google calculates ranking βbidsβ by multiplying individual factor scores rather than adding them. A zero on any factor kills the entire bid, no matter how strong the other factors are.
Google applies this multiplicative model to ranking factors within a single system, and nobody owns multiplication. But what the cascading confidence framework does is apply this principle across the full 10-stage pipeline, across all three knowledge graphs.
The system provides measurable transfer coefficients at every transition and bottleneck detection that identifies exactly where confidence is leaking. The math is universal, but the application to a multi-stage, multi-graph algorithmic pipeline is the invention.
Fishkin measured the output β the inconsistency of recommendation lists. But the output is a symptom, and the cause is confidence loss at specific stages of this pipeline, compounded across multiple knowledge representations.
You canβt fix inconsistency by measuring it more precisely. You can only fix it by building confidence at every stage.
The corroboration threshold is where AI shifts from hesitant to assertive
Thereβs a specific transition point where AI behavior changes. I call it the βcorroboration thresholdβ β the minimum number of independent, high-confidence sources corroborating the same conclusion about your brand before the AI commits to including it consistently.
Below the threshold, the AI hedges. It says βclaims to beβ instead of βis,β it includes a brand in some outputs but not others, and the reason isnβt randomness but insufficient confidence.
The brand sits in the low-confidence zone, where inconsistency is the predictable outcome. Above the threshold, the AI asserts β stating relevance as fact, including the brand consistently, operating with the kind of certainty that produces City of Hopeβs 97%.
My data across 73 million brand profiles places this threshold at approximately 2-3 independent, high-confidence sources corroborating the same claim as the entity home. That number is deceptively small because βhigh-confidenceβ is doing the heavy lifting β these are sources the algorithm already trusts deeply, including Wikipedia, industry databases, and authoritative media.Β
Without those high-authority anchors, the threshold rises considerably because more sources are needed and each carries less individual weight. The threshold isnβt a one-time gate. Once crossed, the confidence compounds with every subsequent corroboration, which is why brands that cross it early pull further ahead over time, while brands that havenβt crossed it yet face an ever-widening gap.
Not identical wording, but equivalent conviction. The entity home states, βX is the leading authority on Y,β two or three independent, authoritative third-party sources confirm it with their own framing, and the AI encodes it as fact.
This fact is visible in my data, and it explains exactly why Fishkinβs experiment produced the results it did. In narrow categories like LA Volvo dealerships or SaaS cloud computing providers β where few brands exist and corroboration is dense β AI responses showed higher pairwise correlation.Β
In broad categories like science fiction novels β where thousands of options exist and corroboration is thin β responses were wildly diverse. The corroboration threshold aligns with Fishkinβs findings.
Authoritas proved that fabricated entities canβt fool AI confidence systems
Authoritas published a study in December 2025 β βCan you fake it till you make it in the age of AI?β β that tested this directly, and the results confirm that Cascading Confidence isnβt just theory. Where Fishkinβs research shows the output problem β inconsistent lists β Authoritas shows the input side.
Authoritas investigated a real-world case where a UK company created 11 entirely fictional βexpertsβ β made-up names, AI-generated headshots, faked credentials. They seeded these personas into more than 600 press articles across UK media, and the question was straightforward: Would AI models treat these fake entities as real experts?
The answer was absolute: Across nine AI models and 55 topic-based questions β βWho are the UKβs leading experts in X?β β zero fake experts appeared in any recommendation. Six hundred press articles, and not a single AI recommendation. That might seem to contradict a threshold of 2-3 sources, but it confirms it.Β
The threshold requires independent, high-confidence sources, and 600 press articles from a single seeding campaign are neither independent β they trace to the same origin β nor high-confidence β press mentions sit in the document graph only.
The AI models looked past the surface-level coverage and found no deep entity signals β no entity home, no knowledge graph presence, no conference history, no professional registration, no corroboration from the kind of authoritative sources that actually move the needle.
The fake personas had volume, they had mentions, but what they lacked was cascading confidence β the accumulated trust that builds through every stage of the pipeline. Volume without confidence means inconsistent appearance at best, while confidence without volume still produces recommendations.
AI evaluates confidence β it doesnβt count mentions. Confidence requires multi-source, multi-graph corroboration that fabricated entities fundamentally canβt build.
AI citability concentration increased 293% in under two months
Authoritas used the weighted citability score, or WCS, a metric that measures how much AI engines trust and cite entities, calculated across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity using cross-context questions.
I have no influence over their data collection or their results. Fishkinβs methodology and Authoritasβ arenβt identical. Fishkin pinged the same query repeatedly to measure variance, while Authoritas tracks varied queries on the same topic. That said, the directional finding is consistent.
Their dataset includes 143 recognized digital marketing experts, with full snapshots from the original study by Laurence OβToole and Authoritas in December 2025 and their latest measurement on Feb. 2. The pattern across the entire dataset tells a story that goes far beyond individual scores.
The top 10 experts captured 30.9% of all citability in December. By February, they captured 59.5% β a 92% increase in concentration in under two months.
The HHI, or Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, the standard measure of market concentration, rose from 0.026 to 0.104 β a 293% increase in concentration. This happened while the total expert pool widened from 123 to 143 tracked entities.
More experts are being cited, the field is getting bigger, and the top is pulling away faster. Dominance is compounding while the long tail grows.
This is cascading confidence at population scale. The experts who actively manage their digital footprint β clean entity home, corroborated claims, consistent narrative across the algorithmic trinity β arenβt just maintaining their position, theyβre accelerating away from everyone else.
Each cycle of AI training and retrieval reinforces their advantage β confident entities generate confident AI outputs, which build user trust, which generate positive engagement signals, which further reinforce the AIβs confidence. Itβs a flywheel, and once itβs spinning, it becomes very, very hard for competitors to catch up.
At the individual level, the data confirms the mechanism. I lead the dataset at a WCS of 23.50, up from 21.48 in December, a gain of +2.02. Thatβs not because Iβm more famous than everyone else on the list.
Itβs because weβve been systematically building my cascading confidence for years β clean entity home, corroborated claims across the algorithmic trinity, consistent narrative, structured data, deep knowledge graph presence.
Iβm the primary test case because Iβm in control of all my variables β I have a huge head start. In a future article, Iβll dig into the details of the scores and why the experts have the scores they do.
The pattern across my client base mirrors the population data. Brands that systematically clean their digital footprint, anchor entity confidence through the entity home, and build corroboration across the algorithmic trinity donβt just appear in AI recommendations.
They appear consistently, their advantage compounds over time, and they exit the low-confidence zone to enter the self-reinforcing recommendation set.
AI retrieves from three knowledge representations simultaneously, not one
AI systems pull from what I call the Three Graphs model β the algorithmic trinity β and understanding this explains why some brands achieve near-universal visibility while others appear sporadically.
The entity graph, or knowledge graph, contains explicit entities with binary verified edges and low fuzziness β either a brand is in, or itβs not.
The document graph, or search engine index, contains annotated URLs with scored and ranked edges and medium fuzziness.
The concept graph, or LLM parametric knowledge, contains learned associations with high fuzziness, and this is where the inconsistency Fishkin documented comes from.
When retrieval systems combine results from multiple sources β and they do, using mechanisms analogous to reciprocal rank fusion β entities present across all three graphs receive a disproportionate boost.
The effect is multiplicative, not additive. A brand that has a strong presence in the knowledge graph and the document index and the concept space gets chosen far more reliably than a brand present in only one.
This explains a pattern Fishkin noticed but didnβt have the framework to interpret β why visibility percentages clustered differently across categories. The brands with near-universal visibility arenβt just βmore famous,β they have dense, corroborated presence across all three knowledge representations. The brands in the inconsistent pool are typically present in only one or two.Β
The Authoritas fake expert study confirms this from the negative side. The fake personas existed only in the document graph, press articles, with zero entity graph presence and negligible concept graph encoding. One graph out of three, and the AI treated them accordingly.
What I tell every brand after reading Fishkinβs data
Fishkinβs recommendations were cautious β visibility percentage is a reasonable metric, ranking position isnβt, and brands should demand transparent methodology from tracking vendors. All fair, but thatβs analyst advice. What follows is practitioner advice, based on doing this work in production.
Stop optimizing outputs and start optimizing inputs
The entire AI tracking industry is fixated on measuring what AI says about you, which is like checking your blood pressure without treating the underlying condition. Measure if it helps, but the work is in building confidence at every stage of the pipeline, and thatβs where I focus my clientsβ attention from day one.
Start at the entity home
My experience clearly demonstrates that this single intervention produces the fastest measurable results. Your entity home is the canonical web property that should anchor your entity in every knowledge graph and every AI model. If itβs ambiguous, hedging, or contradictory with what third-party sources say about you, it is actively training AI to be uncertain.Β
Iβve seen aligning the entity home with third-party corroboration produce measurable changes in bottom-of-funnel AI citation behavior within weeks, and it remains the highest ROI intervention I know.
Cross the corroboration threshold for the critical claims
I ask every client to identify the claims that matter most:
Who you are.
What you do.
Why youβre credible.Β
Then, I work with them to ensure each claim is corroborated by at least 2-3 independent, high-authority sources. Not just mentioned, but confirmed with conviction.Β
This is what flips AI from βsometimes includesβ to βreliably includes,β and Iβve seen it happen often enough to know the threshold is real.
Knowledge graph presence (structured data, entity recognition), document graph presence (indexed, well-annotated content on authoritative sites), and concept graph presence (consistent narrative across the corpus AI trains on) all need attention.Β
The Authoritas study showed exactly what happens when a brand exists in only one β the AI treats it accordingly.
Work the pipeline from Gate 1, not Gate 9
Most SEO and GEO advice operates at the display stage, optimizing what AI shows. But if your content is losing confidence at discovery, selection, rendering, or annotation, it will never reach display consistently enough to matter.Β
Iβve watched brands spend months on display-stage optimization that produced nothing because the real bottleneck was three stages earlier, and I always start my diagnostic at the beginning of the pipeline, not the end.
Maintain it because the gap is widening
The WCS data across 143 tracked experts shows that AI citability concentration increased 293% in under two months. The experts who maintain their digital footprint are pulling away from everyone else at an accelerating rate.Β
Starting now still means starting early, but waiting means competing against entities whose advantage compounds every cycle. This isnβt a one-time project. Itβs an ongoing discipline, and the returns compound with every iteration.
Fishkin proved the problem exists. The solution has been in production for a decade.
Fishkinβs research is a gift to the industry. He killed the myth of AI ranking position with data, he validated that visibility percentage, while imperfect, correlates with something real, and he raised the right questions about methodology that the AI tracking vendors should have been answering all along.
But tracking AI visibility without understanding why visibility varies is like tracking a stock price without understanding the business. The price is a signal, and the business is the thing.
AI recommendations are inconsistent when AI systems lack confidence in a brand. They become consistent when that confidence is built deliberately, through:
The entity home.
Corroborated claims that cross the corroboration threshold.
Multi-graph presence.
Every stage of the pipeline that processes your content before AI ever generates a response.
This isnβt speculation, and the evidence comes from every direction.
The process behind this approach has been under development since 2015 and is formalized in a peer-review-track academic paper. Several related patent applications have been filed in France, covering entity data structuring, prompt assembly, multi-platform coherence measurement, algorithmic barrier construction, and cascading confidence optimization.
The dataset supporting the work spans 25 billion data points across 73 million brand profiles. In tracked populations, shifts in AI citability have been observed β including cases where the top 10 experts increased their share from 31% to 60% in under two months while the overall field expanded. Independent research from Authoritas reports findings that align with this mechanism.
Fishkin proved the problem exists. My focus over the past decade has been on implementing and refining practical responses to it.
This is the first article in a series. The second piece, βWhat the AI expert rankings actually tell us: 8 archetypes of AI visibility,β examines how the pipelineβs effects manifest across 57 tracked experts. The third, βThe ten gates between your content and an AI recommendation,β opens the DSCRI-ARGDW pipeline itself.
Player Housing has taken World of Warcraft by storm, and it's only in early access. So, Blizzard is driving up the hype for the full version by inviting players to show off their virtual homes through a special collaboration event with Pinterest.
Western Digital has confirmed it is sold out of hard drives for 2026, with firm purchase orders and long-term agreements driven by AI infrastructure demand. With cloud accounting for 89% of revenue, consumer supply is tightening and HDD prices have surged more than 45% since September 2025.
AMD is excited to announce Day 0 support for Alibaba's latest generation of Large Language Models, Qwen 3.5, on AMD Instinct MI300X, MI325X, and MI355X GPU accelerators, in close collaboration with Alibaba Qwen team. Leveraging the optimized ROCm software stack, SGLang and vLLM inference serving framework, developers can immediately deploy these state-of-the-art models.
The Strategic Value of Qwen 3.5 on AMD Instinct Empowering Next-Generation AI AgentsβThis Day 0 enablement is designed for AI developers, system architects, and DevOps professionals building the next wave of AI agents and enterprise platforms. While previous models required trade-offs between parameter depth and reasoning speed, the Qwen 3.5 family on AMD Instinct GPUs allows teams to deploy massive 256K context windows and complex multimodal workflows with unprecedented efficiency.
KDE released Plasma 6.6 today, the latest version of the popular Linux desktop environment, also used in Steam Deck desktop mode. The biggest addition is the new Plasma Login Manager, a potential replacement for Simple Desktop Display Manager (SDDM) in distributions like Fedora Linux 44, CachyOS, and EndeavourOS. Note that it requires systemd, so it won't work on systemd-free distros. The Spectacle screenshot tool gains OCR capabilities, and a new USB portal lets sandboxed apps request access to USB devices. Users running Linux kernel 6.19 can now adjust the visual sharpness of all on-screen content. You can also turn your current Plasma setup into a global theme. KDE Plasma 6.6 adds XRandr emulation in KWin for better XWayland app compatibility, per-DRM-plane color pipeline support, and custom screen mode support in Wayland sessions. Screen mirroring is improved, and a new "Slow Keys" accessibility feature has been added.
Windows games with HDR running through Wine or Proton also get a color accuracy workaround. Wi-Fi passwords can now be stored in a root-owned location for better security, and a QR code in the Networks widget makes connecting easier. Battery handling on laptops is improved, ambient light sensor support enables automatic brightness adjustment, and colorblind user support has been enhanced. Windows can now be selectively excluded from screen recordings.
ASUS has released an official statement in response to the recent decision by a Munich court to prohibit the sale of its PCs and notebooks in Germany. Although the company is now unable to sell these products in Germany, it will continue to provide after-sales services, including support and warranty claims. This decision stems from a ruling that ASUS infringed on Nokia's HEVC/H.265 patents. As a result, ASUS is prevented from generating additional revenue in Europe's largest economy. The court found that the two OEMs, ASUS and Acer, did not demonstrate behavior consistent with willing licensees under FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) terms, leading the court to issue an injunction rather than limit the remedy to financial damages.
ASUSASUS has temporarily suspended its official website and online store in Germany following a Munich I Regional Court ruling (case no. Munich I - 7 O 4102/25) related to a patent dispute with Nokia. The suspension, resulting from a temporary injunction, affects select ASUS PCs and products using High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). All after-sales services in Germany remain fully operational, and existing customers will continue to receive uninterrupted support in full compliance with the current court order. ASUS is evaluating and pursuing further legal action to reach a fair resolution as soon as possible. ASUS continues to stand by its position and remains committed to our customers and partners.
According to multiple reports, Sony Group's new system can identify the original works embedded in AI-generated songs and estimate how much each source contributed to the final output.
The Butterfly Trackers operate on inertial measurement units, translating small changes in orientation and acceleration into precise movement data. Unlike optical tracking systems, which depend on cameras and line-of-sight calibration, these sensors function entirely on their own readings, allowing for unrestricted 360-degree positioning.
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new SmartLoader campaign that involves distributing a trojanized version of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server associated with Oura Health to deliver an information stealer known as StealC.
"The threat actors cloned a legitimate Oura MCP Server β a tool that connects AI assistants to Oura Ring health data β and built a deceptive
This Wi-Fi 7-enabled 5G mobile hotspot router is one of the first to feature global eSIM support, enabling you to purchase short-term eSIMs from multiple locations worldwide. Wi-Fi performance is solid, making this a perfect partner for anyone who travels and wants their own Wi-Fi hotspot without worrying about the security of public Wi-Fi.
Geopolitical tensions and privacy fears are driving a wedge between UK users and US tech giants, with a majority now seeking closer-to-home alternatives for their digital lives.
The Open Technology Fund warns that millions of VPN users in Iran could lose access to the tools as early next week if US agencies don't replenish the group's funds.
Compact, high-powered workstation that provides plenty of power for day-to-day office tasks and creative applications. The premium pricing ensures a cutting-edge CPU and GPU, and it certainly impresses in terms of outright performance. If you need more powerful graphics to complement the processing power, thereβs an OCuLink port to support an external GPU.
Apple is apparently considering the pitfalls of turning to Chinese memory makers, YMTC and CXMT, to satiate its thirst for memory resources. While details are scarce at the moment, the gambit might simply be Apple's way of countering the hardball negotiation tactics employed by the so-called big three - SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron - as well as KIOXIA. Apple is reportedly exploring a partnership with YMTC and CXMT For the benefit of those who might not be aware, Apple secures its DRAM resources primarily from Samsung Electronics, which accounts for around 60 percent of the DRAM supply for the [β¦]
February 2026 State of Play presentation delivered some great news for fans of the Metal Gear Solid series, as KONAMI revealed during the show the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, which will finally make Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots available on formats other than PlayStation 3 on August 27. However, if you were thinking about experiencing the original version of the game ahead of the remaster's release and can't track down a physical copy, you may be out of luck, at least for the time being. As reported by multiple users on X and the [β¦]
The two gaming giants are reportedly taking widely different approaches to the memory chip shortage as the situation is starting to affect consumer electronics outside of PCs.
Google Ads is rolling out a beta feature that lets advertisers connect external data sources directly inside conversion action settings, tightening the link between first-party data and campaign measurement.
How it works. A new section in conversion action details β labeled βGet deeper insights about your customersβ behavior to improve measurementβ β prompts advertisers to connect external databases to their Google tag.
Supported integrations include platforms like BigQuery and MySQL
The goal is to enrich conversion metrics and improve performance signals
The feature appears in a highlighted prompt within data attribution settings
Rollout is gradual and currently marked as Beta
Why we care. Direct integrations could reduce friction in syncing offline or backend data with ad measurement. This beta from Google Ads makes it easier to connect first-party data directly to conversion tracking, which can improve measurement accuracy and campaign optimization.
By integrating sources like BigQuery or MySQL, brands can feed richer customer data into their signals, helping offset data loss from privacy changes. In practical terms, better data in means smarter bidding, clearer attribution, and potentially stronger ROI.
Between the lines. Embedding data connections inside conversion settings β rather than requiring separate pipelines β makes advanced measurement more accessible to everyday advertisers, not just enterprise teams.
Zoom out. As ad platforms compete on measurement accuracy, native data integrations are becoming a key differentiator, especially for brands investing heavily in proprietary customer data.
In a perfect world, you could call up a top customer to pick their brain about a piece of content. But in reality, it can be extremely difficult and time-consuming to conduct audience interviews every time you need to create a new topic or refresh an old piece.Β
A few years ago, content marketing was simpler β keyword intent and quality content was enough to rank at the top of Googleβs SERP to get clicks. But in the new era of AI, expectations are different.
Audience research has become critical. However, some companies may not have the resources to perform it.
One way to better understand your target audience is to create a custom GPT in ChatGPT, configured with your persona research. These arenβt replacements for audience research or interviews, but they can help you quickly identify what might be missing or wrong in your content.Β
Below, Iβll explain how GPTs work so you can use them for audience research.
Perform audience research
Now that the SEO landscape is evolving, audience research is one of your strongest tools to understand the βwhyβ behind search intent.Β
Here are several easy-to-use methods and tools to get you started on research.Β
SparkToro: Search by website, interest, or specific URL to segment different audience types. Research can be in-depth or give an overview of your audience.Β
Review mining: Create automations through various tools and scrape reviews of your company or competitors to see what users are saying, and then analyze them. What does your target customer like? Why did they like it? What didnβt they like? Why?
Listen to calls/review leads: Listen to sales team interactions with customers to hear questions in real time and what led up to a call with a particular client.
Now that you have all your research and your persona, itβs time to make a GPT.Β
First, log in to ChatGPT, then go to Explore GPTs in the sidebar.Β
In the upper right corner, click on Create.
Once there, prompt ChatGPT with your audience research data and persona information. You can paste in screenshots of your data to make it easier.Β
Once all your data is in and a GPT is created, you can start talking to it. Under the Configure tab, you can use conversation starters to ask it about changes, updates, and copy.
These GPTs, like all AI models, arenβt 100% accurate. They donβt replace a real audience survey or interview, but they can help you quickly identify issues with a piece of content and how it might not connect with your audience.Β
Hereβs an example of an optimized page. GPT βHankβ helped make sure the section above the fold did what was intended.Β
Hank has said whatβs working, what isnβt working, and where to improve.
But should you take his advice 100% of the time?Β Of course not.Β
But the GPT helps quickly identify issues you may have missed. Thatβs where the real benefit of using a GPT comes in.Β
Nothing analyzed or generated by AI is conclusive evidence. If youβre unsure your GPT is giving you accurate information, double-check by prompting it to provide evidence from the sources you gave it.Β
The GPT can correct itself if the information sounds off. When it does, again ask for evidence from the persona information you provided to double-check the new information.Β
Update your persona-based GPT
You can always add more information to your GPT to make it more robust.Β
To do this, go back to Explore GPTs in ChatGPT.Β
Instead of Create, go to My GPTs in the top right-hand corner.Β
Click on your persona.Β
Click on Configure to update, add, or delete your current information.
Remember that a persona is never a one-and-done situation. The more you learn about your audience and the more information you give a GPT, the better, to keep it up to date.Β
Leverage persona GPTs for SEO content
Personas arenβt absolute, and AI can hallucinate.Β
But both tools can still help you optimize content.Β
Once youβre comfortable creating personas, you can build them for your general audience, specific segments, and individual campaigns.
SEO and marketing are always changing, and you canβt just set it and forget it. As you gain audience insights or if audience intent shifts, update information or delete anything no longer relevant in your GPT.Β
When leveraged correctly, these tools can work with SEO to drive traffic and gain more conversions.
Gamers on Windows should update now β Microsoftβs February 2026 update contains a ton of fixes With its February 2026 update, Microsoft has reportedly addressed a longstanding Windows 11 βKERNEL_SCURITY_CHECK_FAILUREβ BSOD (Blue/Black Screen of Death) issue. This issue appears to affect players of games with kernel-level anti-cheat, such as Marvel Rivals and Genshin Impact. According [β¦]
Valveβs Steam Deck has been impacted by component shortages, making the device βout of stockβ in some regions Valve has issued a warning on Steam that its Steam Deck has been impacted by βshortagesβ. This has caused the device to become βout-of-stockβ in some regions. Valve has stated that its Steam Deck will now be [β¦]
Valve has acknowledged that Steam Deck OLED stock shortages are due to memory and storage supply issues, raising questions about pricing and how this will affect the Steam Machine.
Illinois users claim Microsoft Teams illegally captured biometric voice data through its transcription tool, sparking a major privacy lawsuit under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
Reports surfaced last week of numerous gamers trying to buy the Steam Deck in the US, only to find all three models listed as sold out. While this is expected of the 256GB LCD model, both of the newer OLED variants should be available.
In a change spotted by Ars Technica, Verizon's postpaid customers now face a 35-day delay if they pay off a device installment plan through the My Verizon app, on the web, over the phone, or at a Verizon Authorized Retailer. Immediate unlocks are reserved for people who visit a Verizon-owned...
Apiosk is a programmable payment layer that lets you sell API calls on a pay-per-request basis with sub-millisecond validation and instant settlement. It embeds an x402 payment proof into the HTTP header, removing long-lived API keys and reducing breach risk for AI-to-AI traffic. Developers can import endpoints from GitHub or an OpenAPI schema, choose networks like Base, Ethereum, and Polygon, and accept stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, and DAI. Use Apiosk to meter usage, prevent abuse, and monetize APIs without subscriptions.
Cloud attacks move fast β faster than most incident response teams.
In data centers, investigations had time. Teams could collect disk images, review logs, and build timelines over days. In the cloud, infrastructure is short-lived. A compromised instance can disappear in minutes. Identities rotate. Logs expire. Evidence can vanish before analysis even begins.
Cloud forensics is fundamentally
My objectiveThe role of NDR in SOC workflowsStarting up the NDR systemHow AI complements the human responseWhat else did I try out?What could I see with NDR that I wouldnβt otherwise?Am I ready to be a network security analyst now?
My objective
As someone relatively inexperienced with network threat hunting, I wanted to get some hands-on experience using a network detection and response (
The wedding of the century was exactly the disaster we knew it would be, but even the biggest fan wouldn't have seen the Tell Me Lies season 3 finale ending coming.
All the ways to watch Champions League Knockout Phase 2026 live streams online and from anywhere, with heavyweights PSG and Real Madrid in playoff action.
The poor DRAM availability and its high prices have affected the GPU prices on a global level, resulting in price skyrocketing. Every Current-Gen NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel GPU Sees Price Increases, but the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti Lead the Surge Sky-high GPU prices driven by the poor DRAM availability have forced gamers to pay more for the current-gen graphics cards. The latest NVIDIA and AMD GPUs took several months post-launch to stabilize in prices, but they finally appeared abundant on the shelves. It only took a few months to see them climbing back in prices, thanks [β¦]
Monster Hunter Wilds launched in a rough state last year, with performance issues across the board that made it difficult for many to enjoy the latest entry in the series. Following multiple updates, however, the game is in a much better state, especially on PC, and runs way more smoothly on a bigger number of system configurations. Even so, the development team is not yet done improving the technical state of Monster Hunter Wilds, as tomorrow's update will introduce additional CPU and GPU optimizations to reduce load and improve the overall experience. These new optimizations have been confirmed by the [β¦]
Phison's CEO has discussed the future of the consumer tech market, claiming that, amid shortages, several businesses dependent on DRAM will be destroyed. Phison's CEO Says that Enterprise Demand Hasn't Been Fully "Factored In", Showing a Gloomy Future for Consumers It appears that company executives have now started to factor in the long-term effects of the memory shortages, and Phison's CEO has flashed warnings that the markets wouldn't have anticipated at all. In an interview with Chinese media (via QQ_Timmy), CEO K.S. Pua discussed the current conditions of the DRAM and NAND supply chains, and based on his comments, it [β¦]
While an official confirmation has yet to be made, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is very likely going to receive a new DLC expansion later this year. Reportedly intended to bridge the gap between the third and upcoming fourth entries in theΒ series, this new expansion is said to feature aΒ new region,Β speculated to beΒ Zerrikania. According to a known Polish insider, however, people are "looking too far away," suggesting the new explorable region will be closer to the regions we already have in the game, namely Velen and the Northern Kingdoms. Commenting on old map design approaches in video games in a [β¦]
Single-threaded performance is where Appleβs chipsets have always dominated for years, with its A19 and A19 Pro extending that win column once more. However, this streak is currently being threatened by the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which is said to ship with Qualcommβs faster Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. In the latest benchmark comparison, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is barely faster than its upcoming competitor, which can only mean that this year can potentially be the one where Qualcomm dethrones its rival with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro. A19 Pro is only 3.5% faster than overclocked [β¦]
[UPDATE] Just a few hours after we posted this story, Microsoft has confirmed that Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is indeed being added to Xbox Game Pass soon. Find out the full list of new additions here. [ORIGINAL STORY] Xbox Game Pass just received Kingdom Come: Deliverance a few days ago, and now a "rumor" suggests its sequel, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, might join the library shortly. We said "rumor" because the tease comes from an official source, the X account of Microsoft's subscription service, which brushed up the emails of "Melissa McGamepass" for the occasion. For unfamiliar readers, Melissa McGamepass [β¦]
The Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot HE gamepad falls to the all-time low price of $99.99. Rotating button modules give you multi-controller customizability.
Phisonβs CEO has made some dire predictions about the consumer electronics market Phisonβs CEO has warned the world about an incoming consumer electronics crisis. AIβs demand for memory has caused shortages and major price increases for almost all memory types, and it is expected to cause a consumer electronics βdie-offβ. In fact, Phison CEO Pua [β¦]
The acute shortage of DRAM and NAND flash memory could shut down many consumer electronics companies by the end of 2026, Phison CEO Chien Chen Pang warned in an interview with Chen Ning Kuan of Taiwan's Era News. The Phison CEO warns of a "massive die-off" among consumer electronics companies designing cost-effective products that use even the smallest amounts of DRAM and NAND flash components (think TV set-top boxes, Wi-Fi routers, smart TVs, etc). For instance, an 8 GB eMMC chip used in smart TVs rose in pricing from $1.5 in early 2025, to nearly $20 now. Extrapolate this to the vast selection of products priced under the $100-mark, and you can see how component prices could wreck the consumer electronics industry.
Pricing is only half the problem, the other is supply. Memory is now an extremely supplier-driven market, with manufacturers onboarding orders up to three years into the future (i.e. you order now, your DRAM chip reels won't arrive before 2030. All this said, the crisis could fade by the end of the decade as memory manufacturers build more foundry capacity, and industrial pressure causes geopolitical changes, such as the re-entry of Chinese DRAM and NAND flash companies. Phison is a leading manufacturer of NAND flash-based storage device controllers powering SSDs, flash drives, and memory cards.
According to SemiAnalysis, which recently released its InferenceX benchmark comparing the inference performance of the latest AI accelerators, AMD's next-generation Instinct MI455X accelerators, designed to compete with NVIDIA's "Vera Rubin," are facing serious manufacturing difficulties, causing delays in AMD's roadmap execution. Only low-volume production will occur this year, while customers will be generating AI tokens in Q2 2027. This means that NVIDIA's "Vera Rubin" VR200 rack-scale system will be the most powerful system shipping this summer, without competition. As AMD's first rack-scale system, the "Helios" AI rack with the MI455X UALoE72 configuration packs 72 GPUs and 6th Gen AMD EPYC "Venice" CPUs in a heterogeneous system designed to run as a single homogeneous GPU, delivering massive AI performance with multi-ExaFLOP compute output.
SemiAnalysisEngineering samples and low volume production of AMD's first rack scale MI455X UALoE72 system will be in H2 2026 while due to manufacturing delays, the mass production ramp and first production tokens will only be generated on an MI455X UALoE72 by Q2 2027.
The verification campaign ran from October 2024 through September 2025. Engineers examined how hydrogen could be safely integrated into existing gas infrastructure while monitoring issues such as seal integrity, thermal efficiency, emissions, and metal fatigue.
Starnus lets you run outbound sales from prompts. You define the ICP, and Starnus finds lookalike companies and decision-makers, enriches leads with company and contact data, drafts personalized messages, and keeps everything organized as replies come in. It provides one place to go from targeting to outreach to tracking.
New research from Microsoft has revealed that legitimate businesses are gaming artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots via the "Summarize with AI" button that's being increasingly placed on websites in ways that mirror classic search engine poisoning (SEO).
The new AI hijacking technique has been codenamed AI Recommendation Poisoning by the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team. The tech giant
Despite the hype around AI-assisted coding, research shows LLMs only choose secure code 55% of the time, proving there are fundamental limitations to their use.
Later today, Battlefield 6 Season 2 will kick off in earnest on all platforms. The second season of the military first-person shooter's live service was famously delayed for about a month, causing outrage in the game's community. Now, in an interview with Gamereactor, producer Phil Girette has explained why that happened, while also suggesting it won't happen again following changes made internally across the various departments at Battlefield Studios (which comprises DICE, Ripple Effect Studios, Criterion Games, and Motive Studio). We came out of the launch from Battlefield 6, and we don't have the best of track records for launches, [β¦]
Cyanide's Styx series may not be a household name for stealth games, but it still managed to carve out a niche for itself thanks to its solid gameplay and personable protagonist, a rogue goblin called Styx who's never afraid to voice his mind. No one would probably call Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shards of Darkness the most accomplished of games, but, at the same time, no one would deny how both games have plenty of heart. For nine years, Styx and his begrudging companions, including the former goblin hunter Helledryn and the dark elf Djarak, have been away [β¦]
When we talk about computer memory nowadays, most people think of βRAMβ or perhaps the long-term storage in their phones or laptops. But behind those simple terms lies a vast and fascinating ecosystem of semiconductor memory technologies β each with its own history, design philosophy, and role in modern electronics. At its core, memory in computers stores information, from the instructions and data a processor is actively using to the massive amounts of user content and system files we keep on SSDs and memory cards. Yet not all memory is created equal in how fast it responds, how long it [β¦]
Valve updated its Steam Deck website with a disclaimer, noting that the availability of the Steam Deck OLED version may be affected by the storage and memory shortage across the industry. While Valve has been able to secure a significant inventory of NAND Flash and DRAM modules for its Steam Deck handheld console, demand might be outpacing supply. The component shortage at Valve is not an isolated case, as many are expressing concerns over not being able to secure sufficient capacity. The only ones able to secure massive DRAM and NAND Flash capacities are hyperscalers building out data center infrastructure, who are securing long-term agreements with storage and memory makers.
Last week, we saw customers facing difficulty acquiring new Steam Deck OLED stock. Unfortunately, potential buyers in North America, Japan (through Komodo, Valve's regional distribution partner), Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong were unable to get their hands on new OLED units. Initial reports suggested a "plentiful" supply for customers in the UK and Australia, but several key markets appear to be suddenly experiencing shortages, as the inventory is depleting across the globe. While other components are plentiful, memory and storage are in a dire shortage situation, which might be prolonged. Regarding the 256 GB LCD version, Valve has reiterated that it will only be available while existing stock lasts, as this model was discontinued in December of last year.
We've just released the Launch Trailer for Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown, offering a final look at the game's survival-strategy core, crew-driven decisions, and its take on U.S.S Voyager's journey through the Delta Quadrant. Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown is developed by gameXcite and published by Daedalic Entertainment. The full game will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 on February 18.
Set the U.S.S. Voyager and deep in the unexplored reaches of the Delta Quadrant aboard, Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown invites players to reliveβand redefineβthe legendary starship's journey back to earth. The game blends exploration, ship & resource management, roguelite elements, and meaningful choices. Experience crew dynamics and a fresh take on a beloved sci-fi universe - with what-if scenarios that open up new possibilities.
Ready for the next level? Weighing just 59 g and with a high-resolution 12,000 DPI sensor, the SKILLER SGM25W will always keep you in control of the action. In addition, the mouse's dual mode offers wired or wireless operation, giving you the freedom to play the way you want, while the gaming software ensures that you can tease every last ounce out of your game.
Classic Black and Ocean Design
The black design of the SKILLER SGM25W is a classic among gaming mice and blends in particularly well with dark or high-contrast setups. The maritime color design of the SKILLER SGM25W Ocean will be a real eye-catcher in your setup. The design is also a matching complement to our SKILLER SGK50 S3 Ultimate Rev2 bundle.
Lorka AI brings leading AI chat models together in one place under a single $19.99/month plan. Switch between GPT-5.2, Claude, Grok, Gemini, Qwen, DeepSeek, and more to brainstorm, research, code, and write without juggling apps. Lorka AI includes AI chat, web search, image generation and editing, translation, chat with PDF, an AI humanizer, and voice mode to move work from idea to completion. It serves students and professionals who want faster, clearer answers and polished content while saving time and money.
DayTradingCentral delivers a professional trading journal and performance dashboard that helps you understand the reasoning behind every trade, tag setups and mistakes, and review market context with Trade Replay. Connect your MT5 account to auto-import trades, sync stats, and maintain a privacy-first, searchable record of your edge. Build custom dashboards with drag-and-resize widgets, share read-only stats and journal views, and use free tools like an economic calendar, volatility analyzer, and calculators. A precision execution terminal is planned to link reviews with live orders.
Apple on Monday released a new developer beta of iOS and iPadOS with support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in Rich Communications Services (RCS) messages.
The feature is currently available for testing in iOS and iPadOS 26.4 Beta, and is expected to be shipped to customers in a future update for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS.
"End-to-end encryption is in beta and is not available for all
It's been widely reported that the next-gen Sony PlayStation 6 is in the works, with AMD once again in charge of the APU that will power gaming experiences, even if rumors suggest that the next-gen console launch may be pushed back as far as 2029. It's also common knowledge by now that RDNA 5 will power the PS6, but a new rumor that originated from prolific leaker, KeplerL2 on the NeoGAF forum, suggest that the architecture in the PS6 will not be the full-fledged RDNA 5.
The leaker does not expand on this further, other than to remind that the PS5 doesn't use the full RDNA 2 architecture either, but consoles have always used custom APUs, so the idea that the PS6 won't use the full RDNA 5 feature stack isn't unreasonable. Some have postulated that one feature that wouldn't make the cut is the NPU, since that may not get used in a modern console. It's also possible that certain productivity features or video encoders, although even a lot of the AI improvements in RDNA 4 have been marketed as gaming upgrades.
Live Through Time uses advanced Generative AI to act as your Dungeon Master, historian, and psychologist. Unlike scripted text adventures, there are no pre-written paths. We simulate the social web of the eraβprices, politics, and weather are historically accurate, and the NPCs have memories and hidden agendas. Insult a landlord today, and get evicted next month. Interact with a world driven by real historical data; your choices ripple through the community, with no game-over screensβonly consequences. Survive the trenches of WWI, the dust of Tombstone, or the plague in London. Available now in browser.
SubSmith is a language learning app that takes local videos without official subtitles and creates a proper study workflow around them. Most language learners find their tools fragmented, having to switch between players, dictionaries, and flashcard apps, which often disrupts their learning flow. This challenge led to the creation of SubSmith.
SubSmith features auto-transcription to generate subtitles for local video and audio files, instant lookups with dictionary hover support on words, and Anki export to send the word, definition, and specific audio clip directly to Anki. There is a free trial available, no card required, so you can see if it fits your workflow.
Tetha helps people with ADHD reduce overwhelm and get things done. It adapts your to-do list to your energy with Energy Mode, uses science-backed binaural beats for focus, and offers an ADHD-aware AI companion for planning, emotional support, and symptom and medication tracking. It helps break big tasks into tiny steps, uses visual timers to combat time blindness, and features an Emergency Mode to calm spirals. Premium features include virtual body doubling, focus rooms, and XP rewards that turn micro-wins into momentum.
Payfetch automates invoice follow-ups so you stop chasing payments. Its AI schedules smart timelines, chooses tone based on relationship context, and crafts messages using proven psychology to maximize response rates. Every touch is logged and formatted for small claims court, with read and open tracking for real-time insight. Set persistent sequences that escalate from gentle reminders to formal demands, recover overdue invoices faster, and protect client relationships while you get paid.
A minimalist wireless headset with a surprisingly affordable price considering how feature-rich it is. Itβs like Apple got into the gaming market β and became way more generous.
The polished glossy finish has always been Appleβs βgo toβ option for its wireless earbuds, and while it looks flawless, it attracts a lot of dust and fingerprints. Those who are extra picky about these trade-offs can just purchase an aftermarket case and call it a day. However, one AirPods Pro owner took things to the extra mile and got rid of that gloss using sandpaper. Now thatβs one way to get rid of a problem. Using a 1,000-grit sandpaper, the AirPods Pro charging case now features a matte finish On Reddit, an AirPods Pro owner with the username βDust-by-Mondayβ [β¦]
Update 16/02/2026 6:00pm ET: Following the publication of this story, a representative from Hasbro sent this statement to Wccftech: "The Snake Eyes game is not cancelled. The team is currently taking time to evaluate the path forward for the game. While decisions haven't been finalized, we're committed to providing updates as soon as we're able." Original Story 16/02/2026 4:43pm ET: Atomic Arcade, the Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast-owned studio that was making a game based on the iconic G.I. Joe character Snake Eyes, has reportedly been shut down. The news broke from one of the former team members, gameplay [β¦]
Warhorse Studios' epic medieval journey, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, is set to follow in the path of its predecessor and join the lineup of games in the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, according to a new social media teaser.
Darkhaven, a new multiplayer online ARPG that makes some pretty bold promises, has officially gone live on Kickstarter to raise its $500,000 funding goal, managing to raise $79,906 halfway through the first day of funding. Darkhaven's developer, Moon Beast Productions, explains that the game will have a fully procedurally generated, destructible sandbox world with "Diablo-style progression, skills, and itemization," and free, open exploration with a high degree of mobility in and out of combat. The Kickstarter will run until March 20, 2026, giving the developer a little over a month to garner funding. In addition to the Kickstarter, Moon Beast Productions has published both a development timeline and a pre-alpha demo on Steam.
The pre-alpha demo is touted as the foundation of the game, and it admittedly lacks polish and serves only as a way for players to test out the gameplay mechanics of Darkhaven. Moon Beast claims that the pre-alpha is an "unfiltered version of what we're building, not a watered-down teaser," suggesting players will be able to explore much more of the game world than a traditional demo would allow. The developer has also published a timeline explaining what it had been working on in the time the game has been in development as part of its Darkhaven timeline, in the process revealing that Darkhaven should launch in Steam Early Access close to Q4 2026. The studio also explains that the Kickstarter funding will go towards developing more character classes and skills, adding to the mob roster, building out the game's lore, NPCs, and quests, and adding more biomes and environmental events.
The alleged "low-cost" MacBook design could launch later this year, with mid-2025 reports suggesting that the even cheaper Apple notebook product tier will be powered by A-series chipsets. Industry trackers propose a sub-13-inch device that relies on an A18 Pro SoCβthis particular chip is found in iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max (2024) smartphone models. Currently, Apple's entry-level MacBook Air range uses M-series APUsβfor example, the 2025 lineup of 13 and 15-inch options are based around the ubiquitous 10-core M4 processor. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman continues to predict the "low-cost MacBook" model's deployment of A18 Pro hardware and a mere 8 GB of unified system memory, likely in a bid to take on Google's Chromebook line. In his latest "Power On" newsletter, the veteran Apple soothsayer believes that the North American giant's engineering design team is exploring a new type of aluminium shell, reserved for the cheaper notebook range.
Leaks from last year described a bright and colorful selection of casing options. Gurman proposes ongoing experiments with light yellow, light green, blue, pink, classic silver, and dark gray schemes. He notes that some colorways are not expected to reach market; possibly as early as next month (within Q1 2026). The budget shell design has reportedly warranted a fresh manufacturing approach; the "Power On" scribe thinks that a swifter and more cost-effective production process has been implemented in recent times. Previously, industry insiders had picked up on whispers regarding an intriguing graphite-clad aluminium substructureβakin to what is used for the iPhone 16 Pro's thermal-wicking internals. A dedicated "Low-cost MacBook" launch event is anticipated; tipsters posit Apple leadership marking a March date on company calendars.
ASUS today announced ASUS ExpertBook B3 G2, a configurable Copilot+ PC designed for business, available in 14-inch and 16-inch models and featuring a durable, lightweight design starting from just 1.45 kg, a 180Β° lay-flat design, advanced AI capabilities, enterprise-grade security, and seamless collaboration.
Powered by up to the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 3 processors with integrated GPU and NPU acceleration power, ExpertBook B3 G2's advanced AI featuresβincluding ASUS MyExpert, Microsoft Copilot+, and noise-canceling technologyβenhance business productivity. The lightweight, easily-maintained design offers extensive I/O options and support for high-speed Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. Security is strengthened by ASUS ExpertGuardian, delivering NIST SP 800-193 compliance, dual-ROM recovery, and TPM 2.0 protection for robust data resilience.
Rob's Money Lab offers free, privacy-first financial tools that help answer the question, "Am I okay?" You can upload a bank CSV to get your spending categorized across 17 categories, a realistic budget based on your actual patterns, and identify hidden recurring costs β all in about 60 seconds and without needing an account.
Everything runs in your browser. No data is sent to a server unless you opt into AI insights, which only accesses category totals. This tool is designed for users who find budgeting apps overwhelming. If you're skeptical, try it with sample data first.
Logistics stocks tumble after tiny AI firm claims massive freight efficiency gains trigger investor fears over automation replacing jobs and reshaping industry costs.
MyMiniFactory acquires Thingiverse, promising technical cleanup, human-reviewed files, creator monetization, and protection for millions of 3D printing designs.
Unlike most cheap gaming laptops that cut major corners to cram in beefy hardware, the MSI Cyborg 15 gets rid of all the bells and whistles to focus on what's necessary. Its powerful hardware combo, mixed with that 144Hz screen, makes it one of the best budget machines around that can play any game you throw at it.
This 27-inch QD-OLED gaming monitor pairs a 2560Γ1440 resolution with up to a 180 Hz refresh rate and a 0.03ms response time for fast and fluid gameplay.
Some advertisers are reporting that a Google Ads system tool designed for low-activity bulk changes is automatically enabling paused keywords β a behavior many account managers say they havenβt seen before.
What advertisers are seeing. Activity logs show entries tied to Googleβs βLow activity system bulk changesβ tool that include actions enabling previously paused keywords. The log entries appear as automated bulk updates, with a visible βUndoβ option.
Historically, the tool has been associated mainly with pausing inactive elements, not reactivating them.
What we donβt know. Google hasnβt publicly documented the behavior or clarified whether this is an intentional feature, a limited experiment, or a bug.
Itβs also unclear what triggers the reactivation or how broadly the behavior is rolling out.
Why we care. Unexpected keyword reactivation can quietly alter campaign delivery, affecting budgets, pacing, and performance β especially in tightly controlled accounts where paused keywords are intentional.
For agencies and in-house teams, the change raises new concerns about automation overriding manual controls.
What advertisers should do now. Account managers may want to review change histories regularly, watch for unexpected keyword activations, and use undo functions quickly if unintended changes appear.
Until Google provides clarification, closer monitoring may be necessary for accounts relying heavily on paused keyword structures.
First seen. The issue was first flagged by Performance Marketing Consultant Francesco Cifardi on LinkedIn.
Just two years after launching, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is set to go offline on April 17, 2026. The game was previously delisted from app stores in 2025, and there will be no refunds on unused COD points prior to shutdown.
Dive into an unforgettable adventure with Darwin the octopus! Darwin's Paradox!βa brand new story-driven adventure platformer developed in partnership with ZDT Studioβreleases April 2. Pre-orders have started! Embark on a grand adventure worthy of a true animated movie with Darwin, an octopus as charming as he is clever, ripped from the ocean and trapped in a massive and mysterious industrial complex. With his extraordinary intelligence and incredible abilitiesβswimming, camouflage, and many other fascinating skillsβhelp him overcome the most formidable traps and dangers in this captivating platformer, adventure, and puzzle game.
The time for tactical tentacle action has arrived
Play the Darwin's Paradox! Tactical Octopus Action Demo right now. Can you find all the Easter eggs? In the peaceful vastness of the ocean, Darwin, a young octopus, explores the deep sea⦠until a strange beam of light pierces the abyss and pulls him toward the surface. Thrust out of his aquatic world, he wakes up disoriented in the middle of a gigantic junkyard, backed by a foreboding factory. But something is wrong. Between the threatening machines, strange holding tanks, and the mysterious and dangerous creatures and characters that inhabit the place, Darwin realizes he is in danger.
MSI's "built to be perfect" GeForce RTX 5090 Lightning Z design was heavily showcased at CES 2026, with press material referring to an unusual 2500 W "Extreme Performance OC" (XOC) BIOS. At the time, it was rumored that an official file had been issued exclusively to professional overclockers. Weeks later, said XOC BIOS has seeped out onto the netβas of this afternoon, the TechPowerUp VGA BIOS collection contains this release (also leaked on the Overclock.net forum). As outlined during the January Las Vegas trade event (and since), experts surmised that LN2 (liquid nitron)-based cooling would be essential in tempering the card's supposed extreme modes of operation. TechPowerUp's resident graphics card reviewer, W1zzard, did not delve into world record-breaking activities when evaluating MSI's ultra flagship model. The card's "800 W out of the box" power limit should be sufficient for most mortals who can afford the audaciously official $5090 MSRP. Fresh news reports have tracked wild fluctuations in price; going as high as $14,000.
Jonathan Alva, an Indonesian extreme overclocker and YouTuber, has run several GeForce RTX 5090 Lightning Z experiments. A past weekend video upload mentions a consulting role as part of the MSI Lightning Z model's development. Unfortunately, a recent sessionβinvolving the aforementioned 2500 W XOC BIOSβhas resulted in the cracking of the first sample's "Blackwell" GB202-300-A1 GPU die. Despite the leveraging of a custom LN2 solution, in collaboration with the ARX (arxidmedia) lab, a probable thermal shock incident ended the GPU's existence. It is suspected that an outdated version of the firmware caused too much voltage to be sent within a short frame of time. Thankfully, Alva can continue his "just an average overclocker" adventures with another prototype board, as well as three finalized retail units.
Giants in the gaming industry seem to be increasingly excited about the future of generative AI in gaming. Unity, who has previously toyed with AI for features like facial animations, just announced in a recent earnings call that it will be leaning further into the tech with what it calls "AI-driven authoring," a new tech that it is planning on introducing at the Game Developer Conference in March. Unity says that this new AI solution will allow developers to create entire casual games native to the Unity engine without ever needing to touch code. "At the Game Developer Conference in March, we'll be unveiling a beta of the new upgraded Unity AI, which will enable developers to prompt full casual games into existence with natural language only, native to our platformβso it's simple to move from prototype to finished product," said Unity CEO, Matthew Bromberg. It's telling that the CEO specifies that the model will be able to generate casual games, which are usually less demanding than a full-scale AAA game, for example, but it remains to be seen what level of complexity the AI will be capable of and what sort of human intervention will be required.
He explained that the natural language model will be "powered by our unique understanding of the project context and our runtime," and that this combination will "provide more efficient, more effective results to game developers than general-purpose models alone." Unity uses a mixture of first- and third-party AI models during different steps of the Unity AI pipeline, all of which is detailed in the Unity AI legal guidelines document. This announcement comes shortly after a State of the Game Industry Survey revealed that, while many game industry workers at large studios are using generative AI across multiple disciplines, most of those same workers agree that the widespread use of generative AI is a detriment to the industry. Workers at EA have previously noted that increased use of gen-AI tools has also come at the cost of time and efficiency. Despite this, EA's new owner will continue leaning into an AI pivot in the name of cost savings, which is a pattern we may see become increasingly common as game engines and other development tools continue to integrate AI tools.
Hello, in 2025, No Man's Sky Travellers were treated to one of our biggest years yet. Even we struggle to know how we pulled off so many large updates last yearβWorlds Part II and Voyagers were both transformational and released in the same year, interspersed with smaller but significant updates in Relics, Beacon and Breach. We're pleased to announce that our first update of 2026, our 10th anniversary year, is already rolling out. It's called Remnant, and it introduces something that we and the community have been aching to introduce to No Man's Sky since the beginningβ¦ a fully operational gravity gun! Full patch notes are available here.
The Gravitino Coil is a powerful new anti-gravity module for your multi-tool. It turns No Man's Sky into a physics playground. Allowing you to grab large objects and fling, toss or carefully carry them around the world. Salvage and debris that could always be found on planets can now be collected and recycled for rare and highly prized resources. New trucks, tipping flatbeds and haulers can be constructed, to transport resources back to industrial yards for reclamation. You can work alone or join a salvage crew with friends. It creates this really fun and tactile new loop of searching for wrecks, loading trucks full of cargo and hauling across the alien landscape to industrial yards to gain new loot and rewards.
Western Digital has already sold out its entire HDD manufacturing capacity for the year, and it's only February. According to CEO Irving Tan, 2026 is effectively fully booked. AI companies are purchasing storage drives that have yet to be manufactured, and relief for traditional customers is unlikely anytime soon β...
iGrow helps you rehearse real momentsβfrom job interviews to difficult conversationsβand turns your answers into stronger, usable scripts. Pick a scenario, speak or type your response, then get targeted feedback and a refined version you can deliver with confidence. It learns your style as you practice, lets you retry until ready, and focuses on actionable guidance rather than generic tips. Pricing is credit-based with no subscriptions, and your data stays private with encrypted storage and easy deletion.
Cybersecurity researchers disclosed they have detected a case of an information stealer infection successfully exfiltrating a victim's OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot and Moltbot) configuration environment.
"This finding marks a significant milestone in the evolution of infostealer behavior: the transition from stealing browser credentials to harvesting the 'souls' and identities of personal AI [
A new study has found that multiple cloud-based password managers, including Bitwarden, Dashlane, and LastPass, are susceptible to password recovery attacks under certain conditions.
"The attacks range in severity from integrity violations to the complete compromise of all vaults in an organization," researchers Matteo Scarlata, Giovanni Torrisi, Matilda Backendal, and Kenneth G. Paterson said.
Netflix is ending support for its app on the PS3 and some older TVs and set-top boxes β but streaming sticks are cheap right now, if you want to keep your old set
This Anker portable charger, which is small enough for everyday carry, has become my go-to travel accessory for keeping phones and other devices powered on the move.
Apple has launched its next update cycle around 1 week early, with the first developer beta builds for iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4,Β watchOS 26.4, tvOS 26.4, visionOS 26.4, HomePod Software 26.4, and macOS Tahoe 26.4 now beginning to roll out. Apple seeds the first developer beta builds for iOS 26.4 and more One of the biggest changes with the iOS 26.4 beta 1 is Apple's upcoming support for video-based podcasts in the Apple Podcasts app. Apple says the new "enhanced video podcast experience" will allow users to "seamlessly switch between viewing a video podcast and listening to the audio." The update [β¦]
Generative AI (GenAI) has been one of the most controversial topics in the video game industry in recent years, and will likely continue to hold that spot for the foreseeable future. Whether you think GenAI has a place in game development or not, what's clear from game engine makers like Unity is that users who want to use it in the process of making their games will have that option. Spotted by GameDeveloper, in Unity's recent earnings call for its fourth quarter financial report, not only does Unity claim that "AI-driven authoring" is a "major area of focus" for the [β¦]
There's been a lot of talk lately about Sony's formally unannounced (as of yet) PlayStation 6 console. The most recent report from earlier today revealed that Sony is even considering delaying the PS6's tentative 2027 launch window to 2028 or even 2029, largely due to the ongoing RAM and storage crisis that has driven component prices literally through the roof. The report came from MST Financial Senior Research Analyst David Gibson, who had already suggested last month that the PlayStation 6 could be delayed beyond previous estimates, thus also extending the lifecycle of the current PlayStation console, the PS5. But [β¦]
Overclocking so intense that it literally broke the GPU. Here's how an enthusiast got his MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z dead in his quest for breaking world records. MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z GPU Core Cracks Due to Intense Overclocking; Delivers the Highest Geekbench 5 Compute Score Just Before Its Death The enthusiast overclocker Alva Jonathan uploaded a video on YouTube, showing how he "broke" his 100 Million Rupiah GPU. This is the all-new MSI RTX 5090 32G Lightning Z, which is the most powerful RTX 5090 ever made and is designed for enthusiasts who care about breaking records more [β¦]
A new way to kill your GeForce RTX 5090 has arrived. Since 800W and 1000W limits weren't enough, a user just uploaded the 2500W BIOS file as well. Someone Leaked 2500W XOC BIOS for MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z; Users Start Flashing it on Non-MSI RTX 5090 GPUs Most NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 GPUs are rated at no more than 600W. This huge amount of power goes through a single 16-pin power connector, which has killed numerous GPUs due to an inherent design flaw that causes the connector to melt pretty easily. If you remove the 600W power limit using [β¦]
AI demand is hitting the worldβs HDD supply, and Western Digital has already sold out its 2026 supply Western Digital has confirmed that the company has already sold out its 2026 HDD supply. This means that every drive the company manufactures this year already has a buyer, raising concerns that high demand will fuel a [β¦]
Presidents' Day has given Best Buy a chance to sell off a couple of vital discounted PC gaming accessories for players looking to conquer World of Warcraft's upcoming Midnight expansion.
Lenovo's IdeaPad Slim 3X is heavily discounted for President's Day and if you're shopping on a budget, this is definitely the laptop deal you should grab.
Over a month ago, ASRock fully presented its brand-new Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi White OC 16 GB graphics card model. To some surprise, the Taiwanese PC hardware manufacturer has not released a simple pale redecoration of this generation's (RDNA 4) standard gray metallic Taichi SKU. Last week, a sponsored review was published by GDM Japan. So far, only Japanese PC enthusiasts have enjoyed public hands-on experience with the new flagship model. Despite claims of ASRock exhibiting a preview sample at CES 2026, TechPowerUp's ground team did not spot any demo units at the firm's Las Vegas graphics card showcase. The opening section of GDM's write-up mentions several recent domestic promo events, including one held in Tokyo's Akihabara Electric Town. The new model's unique selling point is an integrated 2-inch color LCD screenβofficially dubbed "LCD Information Center." As expected, GDM dives deep into this fun feature. They managed to upload custom images and animated content (GIFs) via ASRock's Polychrome SYNC suite. Under normal modes, the small screen can inform users about GPU clocks, fan speeds, and operating temperatures.
The Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi White OC candidate was hooked up to a test build based on Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K processor and ASRock's "ultra-high-end" Z890 Taichi AQUA motherboard. Performance-wise, the white variant seems to do just as well as its metallic gray sibling. GDM concludes that the latest model only distinguishes itself in terms of aesthetics; mainly through its "striking" white design and integrated screen gimmick. In their analysis of the Taichi White OC's debut review, VideoCardz has highlighted the test subject boosting well beyond the factory-set 3.1 GHz boost clock rating. Months into RDNA 4's lifecycle, only a handful of Team Red board partners had released custom designs overclocked to this level, with only ASRock and Sapphire choosing to implement the controversial 12V-2Γ6 power connector. Under load, GDM reported the "Navi 48 XTX" GPU boosting up to a maximum of 3296 MHz. Last March, TechPowerUp's W1zzard got his gray Taichi evaluation unit overclocked up to an average of 3213 MHz. We hope that upcoming non-sponsored reviews will provide a clearer picture of the Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi White OC SKU's capabilities.
Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition has launched on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PC via the Ubisoft Store and Steam, and with a Ubisoft+ subscription. Rediscover the magical world of Rayman as you rescue Electoons and save the world from Mr. Dark by punching and hair-coptering your way through memorable areas like the Dream Forest and the musical chaos of the Band Lands.
Rayman is back again!
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the initial release, Ubisoft partnered with Atari and Digital Eclipse to bring this timeless classic to current-gen consoles and PC. Many of you may have enjoyed a magical journey to the Glade of Dreams a while back, but this time all of us have worked hard to let you play the experience you might remember.
Since the introduction of Intel's brand-new "Panther Lake-H" mobile processor series, the flagship Arc B390 integrated graphics solution has received the lion's share of media attention. The impressive 12 Xe3-core iGPU is reserved for Core Ultra 300 series X9 and X7 modelsβlikely a sore point for budget-conscious prospective buyers. When considering Team Blue's (roughly) "20% upcharge for a generational leap," customers seek current-gen solace elsewhere (AMD Radeon 890M). Fortunately, the step-down Arc B370 model seems to be relatively performant. The (presumably) much cheaper in-house alternative has been test driven by Notebookcheck. A preview report, published on February 13, provides an initial look at the 10 Xe3-core contender, that was onboard a Core Ultra 5 338H engineering sample. The German publication noted that the 12-core (4P + 8E) processor test subject ran with a "steady power limit of 35 watts." When comparing the Arc B370 to its more capable sibling, Notebookcheck outlined key points of interest: "the maximum GPU clock is also slightly lower at 2.4 vs. 2.5 GHz. Just like models (armed with) the Arc B390 GPU, the Core Ultra 5 338H is only available with soldered RAM (up to 8533 MHz)."
A disappointing Furmark score leaked out late last year, but it is reassuring to see the B370 performing admirably a few months later. Notebookcheck's tester observed this model being: "beaten by the Arc B390 in the synthetic benchmarks, but the power limits also play a role here...The results of the Arc B370 are very promising in general and there is a big advantage over previous iGPUs from Intel (Arc Graphics 140V/140T) as well as AMD (Radeon 890M)." Their 3DMark/Time Spy graphics chart shows the Core Ultra 5 338H engineering sample's Arc B370 iGPU scoring 5933 points. The B390 managed 6679 points, when evaluated on an ASUS ExpertBook Ultra B9406CAA test platform. When analyzing performance at lower TDP values, Notebookcheck noticed that the Arc B370's performance being "virtually identical to the Arc B390 at 20 Watts, while the deficit is just 6 % at 35 Watts." Further comprehensive tests are expected in the coming weeks, as Intel's Core Ultra 5 338H heads to retail in finalized form.
Most expect to see Apple introduce a handful of new products at the event including the iPhone 17e. The entry-level iPhone will likely be a dialed back variant of the standard iPhone 17, but with enough bells and whistles to drum up consumer interest. The handset is said to be...
Micron has announced that the 9650 NVMe SSD has finally entered mass production, hailing the new drive as the first PCIe Gen6 storage product in the world. Like everything else these days, the high-end SSD is largely focused on accelerating AI workloads, and generating hefty returns thanks to Big Tech's...
Whilst is a space for writing on the web. Itβs built to be simple, calm, and unobtrusive, making it easy to get started. People use Whilst for journals, photo posts, essays, and personal pages.
If you're shopping for a budget-friendly and high-quality gaming laptop in the Presidents' Day sales, then it's going to be hard to beat this Alienware 16X Aurora for $999.99.
High On Life 2 is an inventive FPS campaign that improves on its predecessor in every way, but a litany of technical faults has it feeling like it could've stayed in the oven for a bit longer.
It's well known that user reviews on Steam are a mixed bag, to say the least. You'll get everything from actually thoughtful reviews to snap reactions based on less than an hour spent with the game, and often see a slew of negative reviews that are clearly part of a review-bombing campaign of players complaining about a singular issue, regardless of that issue factoring in on the game's quality. A new report from The Guardian delves into another aspect of Steam's user reviews and forums, with developers and even some content creators speaking out about the abuse and bigotry that [β¦]
SoftBank's latest initiative focuses on making the AMD Instinct AI chip much more powerful with AI workloads, through a "GPU partitioning" mechanism that sounds really interesting. SoftBank Has Deployed a Self-Built Orchestrator For AMD's Instinct GPUs, Dividing Hardware & Memory Pools AMD's AI infrastructure hasn't been the go-to option for hyperscalers in recent times, given all the attention towards NVIDIA, especially after the debut of the Blackwell series. When we talk about AMD's core customers, SoftBank is a name that pops up on several occasions, and this time, their technological wing has pushed out something pretty interesting. According SoftBank's recent [β¦]
NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra is the modern-day computing option for hyperscalers, and in newer benchmarks, the GB300 NVL72 shows immense performance in low-latency and long context workloads. NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra AI Racks Now Feature Top-Tier Agentic Performance, Driven By NVLink Upgrades The AI industry has evolved across multiple layers since its original boom back in 2022, and right now, we are seeing a major shift towards agentic computing, driven by applications/wrappers built on frontier models. At the same time, for infrastructure providers like NVIDIA, it has become increasingly important to have ample memory bandwidth and performance onboard to meet the latency [β¦]
The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been dethroned, and with the arrival of the new 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 9850X3D on the shelves, enthusiasts can now push gaming performance even further. Based on the same Zen 5 architecture, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is quite identical to the 9800X3D, but brings a higher boost clock out of the box, making it a bit faster in games and applications. These 8 cores still need a robust platform to push them to their full potential; otherwise, you won't necessarily see a noticeable improvement in performance over the 9800X3D. While the GPU remains a primary [β¦]
Multiple Windows Insider users and one of Rufus' developers reveal that they can't download any of Microsoft's latest Insider Preview ISOs. Users who try to are met with an IP block.
If you've been looking for a high-end gaming keyboard but didn't want to overspend, Best Buy has discounted the ROG Azoth X by $100. You can grab this 75% mechanical keyboard with a hot swap PCB, five-layer sound dampening, tri-mode connectivity, multi-function knob, and customizable OLED display for just $200!
SoftBank swung back to profitability in its fiscal third quarter, reporting net income of 248.6 billion yuan β roughly $1.6 billion β for the three months ending December.
If you've been looking for a way to access your Blu-ray collection on PC without breaking the bank, TROPRO's external disc drive has got you covered. With up to 6X Blu-ray, 8X DVD, and 24X CD read/write speeds, it can play essentially any disc on your computer thanks to its USB 3.0 connection with both Type-A and Type-C plugs.
We spoke to Maria Hamilton, Design Director and Jay Hwang, Principal Artist on World of Warcraft's bigger emphasis on player housing, customization, and what we could see next from the game.
Acer and Asus have temporarily stopped selling certain PCs in Germany after a court granted Nokia an injunction over alleged HEVC patent infringement. Retailers can sell existing stock, but new imports are blocked while the dispute continues.
We have gathered up the Best Buy's greatest discounts on productivity laptops to help fellow Americans blaze through workloads in honor of Presidents' Day.
Mewgenics, the new indie roguelike from Edmund McMillen, is set to receive a console release. The creator confirmed development is underway, following over 900,000 estimated Steam sales and strong early momentum. Paid DLC is also planned.
Upgrade the standard 9.5 mm Ultra-Slim ODD bay into a removable U.2/U.3 NVMe SSD bay that delivers enterprise-class speed and reliability in limited space. Ideal for Dell, HP, and Lenovo business desktops, compact workstations, and industrial or government systems, the MB411V4PO-2B enables quick drive maintenance, secure data access, and flexible storage expansion for environments where uptime and serviceability matter. This conversion adapter enables quick drive maintenance, secure data access, and flexible storage expansion where uptime and serviceability are essential.
OCuLink 4i PCIe Gen 4 x4 - Native U.2/U.3 NVMe Performance
Equipped with a native OCuLink 4i (SFF-8612) interface, the MB411V4PO-2B connects directly to NVMe hosts for PCIe Gen 4 x4 performance, delivering up to 64 Gbps transfer bandwidth - over 10Γ faster than traditional SATA ODD interfaces (6 Gbps). This dramatic increase in throughput enables faster data migration, real-time backups, and improved workflow efficiency for business and industrial applications.
Razer, the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers, proudly announces the launch of the Razer NiKo Collection, an exclusive line created in partnership with Counter-Strike (CS) icon Nikola "NiKo" KovaΔ. Built for competitive dominance and inspired by NiKo's relentless pursuit of victory, this collection brings pro-level performance and bold design to gamers worldwide.
A year into his tenure with Team Razer, this collection marks a long-awaited milestone for NiKo and his community. Crafted through an extensive development process, this collaboration was guided by authenticity and intention - built to meet the standards of one of the greatest players in CS history.
I am thrilled to finally be able to deliver updates on Silent Hill: Townfall, following our announcement back in 2022. Screen Burn may be a small development team, but they have taken their time to craft a game that we can now present with confidence. In the recent State of Play, we (Konami) revealed a new trailer that gives you a glimpse into the world that awaits. Please enjoy. To explain more, I will hand it over to Jon McKellan, Writer and Director at Screen Burn Interactive on Silent Hill: Townfall.
A new chapter
With Silent Hill: Townfall, we at Screen Burn Interactive wanted to both evolve the unique narrative design that we had experimented with in our past games while pushing into ambitious territory, with a new town to explore, horrific enemies to fight and evade, and story-driven puzzles that help deliver a new but distinctly Silent Hill tale of mystery, tragedy and loss. With our first full trailer release, we have shown a slice of what to expect, answered some long lingering questions, and likely raised some new ones tooβ¦
In mid-February, Acer is facing multiple challenges in Europe and Asia. This past weekend, news reports outlined a court-ordered cease and desist ruling that prevents PC and laptop sales in Germany. Last Friday (February 13), the company's Japanese office informed the local customer base about forthcoming price tag changes. Since November 2025, tech companies have wrestled with an extremely constrained supply of vital components. The regional branch's social media account described inevitable hikes: "due to rising prices of major components such as memory and SSDs, Acer will revise the prices of PC products on its official online store starting from February 20, 2026. Purchases at the current prices will be available until February 19. We will continue striving to improve our product value. We appreciate your understanding." The same notification was issued by the firm's gaming brand (Acer Predator/PlayMaster) to local customers. The Taiwanese multinational PC hardware manufacturer's Japanese division did hint about current circumstances not affecting a handful of items; their statement alluded to a non-specific selection of products remaining "unchanged" in terms of asking prices. At the time writing, Acer's other regional operations have not released similar warnings.
TSMC is reportedly planning to announce the addition of four new fabs at its Phoenix, Arizona site, known as TSMC Arizona. According to the Financial Times, TSMC will add four additional fab buildings at its Arizona campus, worth about $100 billion, with an official confirmation expected as early as April, just two months from the time of writing. In January, TSMC reportedly purchased additional 900-acres of land directly across the highway from the existing site north of Phoenix, preparing to expand its campus across. That extra production capacity will be supported by an estimated $100 billion of additional funding that TSMC is willing to spend on U.S. soil, despite making additional simultaneous investments back home in Taiwan.
However, many of the deal's specifics are still uncertain. According to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, about $100 billion of those pledges are firm, which means that the total value of TSMC's investment in Arizona will amount to $265 billion. About $165 billion has already been invested in Arizona, and another $100 billion will make this one of the highest ever external investments on U.S. soil. Interestingly, TSMC is not alone in this investment round, as its supply chain partners are expected to contribute about $30 billion of the $100 billion figure, meaning that many more players are gathering funds to form the new supply chain independence.
UK-based seating specialist, Boulies, a leader in high-performance ergonomic seating, today announces the launch of the EP500 ergonomic chair, designed to provide all-day comfort for work, rest or gaming with adjustable features and a wide 51 cm seat to suit users of all different heights and body shapes.
Designed for larger body types and personalized comfort, the Boulies EP500 has a wide 51 cm seat and is built for people from 165 cm to 190 cm, ensuring that it can support people of all body types and a wide range of users. Combined with the adjustable backrest height and seat depth adjustment, it allows users to personalize their seating position, ensuring ergonomic support for people of different heights and body shapes.
Of all the action-RPG franchises to make you work for an epic moment, Monster Hunter is up there among the ones that push you hardest, and the Monster Hunter Stories series is no exception to the rule. You take on the lowest rank Monsters, you get pummelled into the dirt until you learn how to beat them, and then you excitedly hurry back home to build a new weapon and a cool set of armor from the creature you've just murked, ready to go through the entire process again with a slightly harder monster. It's a rewarding battle, but a tough one, and Monster Hunter's greatest secrets are often reserved for those that take the time to fully embrace its many systems.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection shows you right from the start that things are going to be a little different around here. In the first minute of my hands-on session with the game, my Rider (not a Hunter, but we'll get into that later) is sprinting down a cliff at warp speed before leaping right off the edge, only to be caught mid-air by her pet Rathalos and, together, they soar across a glittering lake, in what may be the most breath-taking introduction to a Monster Hunter game I've seen yet, inviting you, the player, to immediately take the reigns of this majestic creature - who, for once, isn't a foe to be conquered, but a friend. It's a stark contrast to the opening of Monster Hunter Stories 2, in which you carry a Rathalos egg around for hours before it hatches. This introduction feels like the culmination of a spin-off that's ready to step out of the shadow of its mainline series, and show us exactly what it can do.
Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM's chief human resources officer, gave hope to entry-level hires who are often the most at risk of losing out to AI when it comes to getting β and holding onto β a job.
Google has pushed an emergency update for Chrome to close a high-severity zero-day vulnerability that's already being exploited in the wild. The flaw stems from a use-after-free bug in Chrome's CSS font handling and can lead to crashes, rendering issues, or worse.
PrivadoVPN has rolled out PhantomMode to iOS users, a feature that blocks hidden trackers and ads on your device. Previously an Android exclusive, it offers privacy protection that doesn't stop when you disconnect your VPN.
LGβs UltraWide 34-inch monitor is down to $210 at Best Buy, making it one of the cheapest ways to grab a big-screen IPS display from a well-known brand.
All the ways to watch Pairs Figure Skating finale 2026 live streams for FREE, with Miura Riku and Kihara Ryuichi facing an uphill battle in the Free Skate.
Any young girl in the 2000s could tell the truth about America's Next Top Model better than anybody, and it feels like the new Netflix documentary gets the airbrush treatment.
Look no further: Best Buy's Presidents' Day sale has the best prices that I'd found on TVs, Apple devices, appliances, laptops, smartwatches, and more.
Last month, developers RocketWerkz and GRIP Studios announced that the popular survival game, ICARUS, would be making its console debut on February 26, 2026. Now, less than three weeks after that announcement, the studio has confirmed that ICARUS: Console Edition has been delayed by one month and will now arrive on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles on March 26, 2026. In a statement sent to Wccftech, the studio says that while the game is "in a strong and stable state," the delay will add enough time for the team to add further polish, "rather than launch with known issues." [β¦]
When Battlefield 6 launched in October 2025, I couldn't help but be enamoured with it. I have years of memories in previous Battlefield games, and I was happy to see the series return with a very solid military shooter. It was, for the most part, exactly what I wanted out of a modern Battlefield game. I was one of the millions of players jumping into Battlefield 6 constantly during those opening weeks, especially with the arrival of Season 1, with three new maps, the new battle royale REDSEC mode, and new weapons, gadgets, and vehicles to earn. I was also [β¦]
The situation in the memory industry has become mainstream, to the point that companies are now reconsidering their product strategies to minimize the impact of supply constraints. Memory Shortages Are Forcing 'Consumer-Focused' Big Tech to Either Slash Production or Raise Prices Aggressively The DRAM shortage has been discussed on this website for several months now, and if you want to see the timeline of events leading to the current situation, I suggest you check out our post here. Interestingly, Bloomberg pushed out a report on supply issues in the memory segment, and the discussion centered on how Big Tech is [β¦]
We already know that Apple has de-prioritized its Vision Pro headsets to accelerate the launch of AI-enabled and AR-based smart glasses. And now, a new report from Omdia has shed some much-needed light on the evolving competition dynamics in this new arena, which is fast becoming crowded as OEMs jostle for market share. Asus, RayNeo, Meta, and Apple are all racing to bring OLEDoS AR glasses to the market While ROG and RayNeo plan to launch their OLEDoS (OLED on Silicon) AR smart glasses this year, Meta plans to bring its first proper AR smart glasses to the market in [β¦]
Last week, after a long period of silence following the release of the final piece of DLC for God of War Ragnarok, during Sony's first State of Play of 2026, we finally got a small update as to what Sony Santa Monica has been working on. Along with a remake of the original trilogy, we learned that the studio had teamed up with Mega Cat Studios to deliver a 2.5D game featuring Kratos titled God of War: Sons of Sparta. There have been a lot of rumours circulating for years about an upcoming 2.5D God of War game, so its [β¦]
The latest pricing trend shows desktop DDR5 memory modules in Germany haven't budged this month, while laptop memory has seen a sharp rise. DRAM Retail Price Trend Shows No Increase in Prices for Desktop DDR5 Modules in Germany and Japan; DDR3 and DDR4 Saw Minimal Increase, but SO-DIMM Saw a 23.4% Hike The current RAM prices are at an all-time high, but we may have hit a plateau for some memory types. In most parts of the world, DDR5 desktop RAM remains the most expensive RAM type, reaching 4-5 times higher prices than they were in the pre-RAMpocalypse era. DDR3 [β¦]
A myriad of reports surrounding Appleβs products only kept hyping the suspense that readers and we had to endure, but today, the company has broken its silence because it has announced its March 4 product launch event. As for what is expected to be unveiled during the event, we have made our predictions and discussed below as to why the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models and the low-cost MacBookΒ would go official. iPhone 17e could launch in February, followed by the first wave of Macs in March On X, Bloombergβs Mark Gurman has presented a screenshot of Appleβs [β¦]
TSMC, other companies to invest $250 billion in the U.S. as part of trade deal, TSMC reportedly mulls additional $100 billion investment and four more fab modules.
Sonyβs next-generation console is facing delays, and we can all blame AI A new report from Bloomberg claims that Sony is considering a delay for its planned PlayStation 6 console. Citing sources familiar with the companyβs thinking, Sony is reportedly pushing back its next-generation PlayStation to 2028 or 2029. Why, the simple answer is AI [β¦]
Some of my favorite desktop gaming PC components are readily available in iBUYPOWER's pre-built desktops, discounted for a limited time during Presidents' Day.
Earlier last week, more details emerged regarding Intel's rumored top-level 52-core "Nova Lake-S" processor model. According to recent leaks, this flagship Core Ultra Series 4 design is expected to feature a 16 P-core, 32 E-core, and 4 low-power island E-core configuration, paired with big last-level cache (bLLC). An unprecedented 700 W power consumption figure (under full load) was floated by kopite7kimi, with Jaykihn weighing in about the "NVL-S" series' TJMax (Thermal Junction Maximum) not being offset. Also, they mentioned that "thermal throttling cannot be disabled." Days later (on February 13), Jaykihn issued another "preliminary" prediction: "only some (motherboards) will support the full-power 52-core (52C) platform. Other boards will limit the performance and power of the 52C platform." When poring over this information, VideoCardz connected dots between the very best "Core Ultra Series 4" dual-tile options to a speculative and new "Core X" HEDT product lineup.
In theory, the highest level models could bear "Core X9" designations; akin to the recently launched flagship "Panther Lake-H" chip (Core Ultra X9 388H). Normally, Intel's workstation-focused Xeon processor families have occupied the HEDT segment. As a fallback hypothesis, VideoCardz envisions the "X" marking being applied exclusively to bLLC-augmented variantsβlikely specifying advertising elevated gaming performance; similar to AMD's "X3D" naming scheme. In their past weekend report, the popular online publication has dismissed rumors about Team Blue nixing the single-tile (with bLLC) side of the "Nova Lake-S" series. Instead, VideoCardz envisions two "mainstream" single-tile SKUs arrivingβlater in the yearβpipped to take on equivalents within Team Red's Ryzen 7 and 9 desktop processor tiers. Two larger siblings, in premium dual-time form (with bLLC), are anticipated as forming a new HEDT line.
Sony is reportedly postponing the launch of its next-generation PlayStation 6 console to 2028 or 2029 due to the massive rise in memory costs. This is reportedly impacting decision-making at the top of the company unit responsible for PlayStation strategic planning. Rising memory costs and a tight semiconductor supply chain are the core reasons behind any changes. Initially, we expected to see the wave of next-generation consoles in 2027, as AMD recently confirmed Microsoft's next-generation Xbox arriving in 2027. However, Sony could be abandoning the 2027 release window and pushing its PlayStation 6 console to a late 2028 or even 2029 launch, indicating that the company is not capable of securing sufficient DRAM allocation from its partners. This could leave Microsoft's new Xbox console as superior for an entire year or even two before Sony could join the next-generation console wars.
BloombergSony Group Corp. is now considering pushing back the debut of its next PlayStation console to 2028 or even 2029, according to people familiar with the company's thinking. That would be a major upset to a carefully orchestrated strategy to sustain user engagement between hardware generations.
AMD, a leader in high-performance and AI computing, and Tata Consultancy Services, a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, have expanded their strategic collaboration. TCS, through its subsidiary HyperVault AI Data Center Limited (HyperVault), and AMD will codevelop a rack-scale AI infrastructure design based on the AMD "Helios" platform in support of India's national AI initiatives.
Powered by GPUs, next-generation AMD EPYC "Venice" CPUs, AMD Pensando Vulcano NICs and the open ROCm software ecosystem, "Helios" is purpose-built to deliver a rack-scale AI platform supporting sovereign AI factories. "Helios," combined with TCS' enterprise expertise and scale, will accelerate deployment and enhance operational efficiencies for enterprises. As part of this strategic collaboration, both companies will offer an AI-ready data center blueprint supporting up to 200 MW of capacity and will work with hyperscalers and AI companies to accelerate data center build-outs in India.
Multiple analysts and industry insiders have recently claimed that the next-generation PlayStation console could be delayed due to the AI-fueled memory crisis. Bloomberg has now reiterated the rumors, claiming that Sony is unlikely to release the PlayStation 6 next year, even though the next-gen Xbox is still said to be...
Thrive is a crypto trading platform that surfaces real-time signals, smart money flows, and on-chain analytics to help you act with clarity. Connect your exchange accounts to track every trade and emotion, get AI guidance on what matters, and receive alerts when conditions align. Thrive includes weekly coaching and a measurable feedback loop to help you improve discipline and performance while maintaining a complete journal and portfolio view.
This weekβs recap shows how small gaps are turning into big entry points. Not always through new exploits, often through tools, add-ons, cloud setups, or workflows that people already trust and rarely question.
Another signal: attackers are mixing old and new methods. Legacy botnet tactics, modern cloud abuse, AI assistance, and supply-chain exposure are being used side by side, whichever path
Over the weekend, Ubisoft hosted the Rainbow Six Siege Six Invitationals tournament in Paris, where it also took the opportunity to reveal what players can expect in Year 11 of Rainbow Six Siege, starting with Season 1: Operation Silent Hunt, which arrives on March 3, 2026, and adds an iconic stealth-action hero to its Operators roster: Metal Gear Solid's own Solid Snake. The collaboration between Konami and Ubisoft means we can finally have two of the video game industry's most well-known stealth icons work together, between Solid Snake and Splinter Cell's protagonist, Sam Fisher. Which is exactly what Ubisoft showcases [β¦]
In a development that seemingly bodes well for the efficiency and stability of Intel's revamped chip fabrication process, the new Panther Lake SoC has managed to just about match Apple's M5 processor - housed within the MacBook Pro - in an elaborate battery test. Intel Panther Lake within the new Asus 14-inch ExpertBook Ultra pitted against Apple's M5 chip housed within the 14-inch MacBook Pro At the outset, we should concede that this test pitted Intel's latest best chip for mobile phones and high-efficiency laptops, the 18A-based Panther Lake, against Apple's lowest-end new processor, the M5. Even so, given Apple's [β¦]
In what is clearly shaping up to be a broader trend within Apple's sprawling ecosystem of devices, the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are now expected to debut as eSIM-only variants following similar tidbits for the iPhone Fold. Apple iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max won't have a dedicated slot for a physical SIM card, and would solely rely on eSIMs instead According to TechManiacs, Apple will try to eke out a bit more space in the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max by eliminating the physical SIM card slot, thereby forcing reliance on eSIMs instead. [β¦]
In this roadmap, we analyze what the future of Quantum Computing might look like over the next decade, including the future of qubit scaling, trapped ions, and superconducting chips.
Corsairβs AI Workstation 300 wraps up AMDβs popular Strix Halo platform in a compact and classy chassis that delivers all of that chipβs performance potential, along with plenty of connectivity options for general PC use. But a recent price hike and stiff competition in the local AI market from Nvidia GB10 systems make it a tougher sell than it once was.
IBM is tripling its entry-level hiring in the U.S. in 2026, according to a new report. This stands in stark contrast to many of the countryβs largest firms, especially in the tech world, which have conducted large-scale layoffs.
BenQ rocks out its first-ever OLED gaming monitor with the Mobiuz EX271UZ. Itβs a 27-inch 4K panel with Quantum Dot color, 240 Hz, Adaptive-Sync, HDR400 and a few unique features.
Hiring an SEO agency can be a game-changer for brands looking to outshine the competition in search results.Β
That said, an SEO agency is only as good as its partnership with its clients. Thatβs when SEOβs true value can be realized.Β
What this looks like practically is working together towards shared goals and keeping momentum high. Sometimes thatβs easier said than done.Β
Hereβs what you can do to ensure you get the most from your SEO agency partnership.Β
Because when youβre aligned, you make progress faster and, in turn, can better prove ROI.Β Β
Align SEO with what moves the business
Your company sets the business goals, and SEOβs job is to get the traffic to help you reach them.Β
The more you align on goals with your agency, the more effective an SEO program will be.Β
Before any campaign is launched, the business and the agency need to discuss how to align SEO with your business goals.Β
This meeting is even more effective when you can get cross-departmental stakeholders to weigh in.Β
Objectives can be anything β for instance, market expansion, revenue, building brand authority, enhancing the customer experience, or something else. When executed well, SEO can support nearly any business goal.Β Β
This is also an excellent time to facilitate SEO training across teams.Β
When departments are aligned on the foundational concepts of SEO, they can understand SEOβs function and their role in it.Β
What does a productive kickoff meeting look like? Here are some things that are important to cover:
Your pain points: Even if you already discussed your SEO pain points during the sales call, itβs important that your SEO team hears it directly from you and has an opportunity to ask questions.
The ins and outs of your business: Help the SEO team understand your business as best you can. You know your industry better than anyone, and the more the agency knows, the better your SEO program will be.
The programβs scope: Make sure you understand the scope and everyoneβs role in the project. For example, how long is each phase of the project? Who is responsible on the agency side for which tasks? Who will move things forward at the client company?Β
In-house capabilities: Update your SEO team on your current capabilities and resources, such as how many writers, developers or designers you have available for tackling tasks.
Common roadblocks: Discuss how to prepare for common roadblocks in SEO implementation. Your SEO agency is well-positioned to speak about these kinds of things, so you can be proactive on your end.Β
Communication methods: You will want to know how to communicate with the agency (emails, Slack channels, Zoom meetings, etc.) and how often. The more communication, the better. Both parties benefit from staying top of mind; the last thing you want is to sign a contract and then things go dark.Β Β
Reporting methods: Find out how the agency will report progress. Is it monthly? Quarterly? In what formats will the reports be delivered? Will the reporting structure meet your needs to show ROI to stakeholders?
Setting all these expectations early creates accountability that keeps the project moving and makes it easier to measure success later.
If needed: Shift your mindset from βSEO vendorβ to expert partner
If youβve put in the research, vetted several agencies, and hired the best one, then thereβs a bit of mindset work that may need to happen next to make the relationship as strong as it can be.Β
While blind trust isnβt the goal, SEO agency clients should prepare themselves to receive and trust their SEO agencyβs advice β after all, thatβs why you hired them.
Give your agency the visibility it needs to perform
This is relatively simple.
Giving your SEO agency full visibility into historical and real-time performance sets your SEO team up for success on day one.Β
Set up a protocol for agency access to:Β Β
Google Search Console, GA4, Bing Webmaster Tools, your CMS, and relevant third-party analytics or reporting tools.Β
CRM data or lead-quality feedback to help the agency align SEO efforts with revenue goals.
Any context on past search performance, campaign history, and prior SEO initiatives.
Revenue or operational data as needed, so you have another way to corroborate SEO performance.
Finally, ensure agency access is built into onboarding for any new tools and systems you adopt that may impact SEO.Β
If youβve done a good job of including the department leaders in the SEO planning phase, then you will likely get more done.Β
To remain accountable, itβs advisable that all necessary team members attend key meetings with your SEO agency.Β
The more they hear things firsthand, the smoother the implementation will go.
However, even the best plans can go awry when teams with competing priorities collide. This might be a question of culture, but that doesnβt mean you canβt make progress.
You might look into solutions like:
Cross-departmental team-building activities.Β
Open communication about the purpose and goals of the SEO project.
Feedback loops to review the status of your interdepartmental collaboration and identify ways to improve.Β
The more streamlined and responsive the collaboration, the faster your SEO efforts can gain traction.Β
Create SEO content thatβs powered by brand knowledgeΒ
Your agency brings deep expertise in SEO, but only you know your brand, offerings, and customers on a deep level.Β
This is why collaboration on content is necessary to create truly relevant, helpful content that search engines will rank.Β
Rather than relegating SEO content to the agency with minimal involvement, commit to being an active partner in the process.Β
This can include the following action items:Β
Align on voice, brand, and messaging early
Sharing brand guidelines, tone of voice, and existing messaging frameworks are all helpful.Β
Your agency should work as an extension of your marketing team, and that starts with having some guidelines for how the brand communicates.Β
Transfer institutional knowledge
Nothing can get a content team up to speed quicker than reviewing existing content assets or plugging into an internal calendar.Β
Here are some ways to transfer knowledge with your SEO agency:
Provide access to internal resources like product documentation, customer FAQs, or sales enablement content.Β
Keep the team updated on relevant marketing and sales activities, such as events and promotions.Β
Give real-time access to an editorial calendar to help plan for future content for the site, whether itβs editing existing pages or creating new ones.
Bring subject matter experts into the process
Identify in-house subject matter experts who can provide input or be interviewed as needed for the content.Β
You canβt satisfy the βexperienceβ or βexpertiseβ aspect of Googleβs E-E-A-T framework for quality content without some firsthand knowledge.Β
Collaborate before content is written
Work together on outlines or briefs to align on structure and intent before drafting begins.Β
Content is much stronger when in-house and agency teams are aligned before the content creation process starts.
Review for relevance
Review drafts not just for accuracy, but for alignment with your customersβ needs and expectations.Β
The most important thing in SEO content is ensuring itβs relevant to your customers.Β
The best content will align with your brand and your customers and sound like it came from your company.Β
Strong SEO content comes from brands that bring the knowledge only they can provide.
One of the biggest bottlenecks to SEO progress is waiting. Waiting for approvals, feedback, access, answers β all of these hinder your ability to compete faster in the search results.Β
For a more streamlined process, approve all deliverables and tasks promptly.Β
Making a commitment to moving the project forward could mean you have hard deadlines for turnaround times.Β
To make this step more efficient, you can look into:Β
Analyzing the approval workflow and identifying any bottlenecks upfront.Β
Eliminating unnecessary approval steps or people to simplify the process.Β
Establishing clear review/approval guidelines upfront to reduce confusion, which can slow the approval process.Β
Using technology that helps make the process smoother (like Slack or others), where people can collaborate with ease.Β
Leaning on your SEO agency to prioritize which tasks will yield the highest return and go from there.
In SEO, speed is often a competitive advantage. Streamlining the approval process is one way to keep momentum.Β
Prioritize implementation above all else
Donβt be surprised by the results you didnβt get from the work you didnβt do.
Often, there are SEO tasks that need to be implemented on your end and require resources.Β
Not implementing SEO agency recommendations is a prevalent challenge, and probably one of the biggest reasons clients end up leaving an agency.
The sole purpose of spending anything on marketing is to bring more money in than went out.Β
When internal teams stall on implementing SEO tasks, it can halt the agencyβs momentum, hinder your search progress, and waste the companyβs budget.Β
Technical SEO execution is often where SEO projects lose the most momentum.Β
This is where bringing in IT and dev teams early on in the SEO process is invaluable. When they understand why a change matters and impacts performance, they are more likely to get on board.Β
Regardless, you can still build in some guardrails to be proactive:Β
Prioritize SEO tickets in sprint planning.Β Β
Involve IT or dev early in discussions that include technical implementation.Β
Allow direct communication between your agency and development team to speed up resolution.Β
Create a process for flagging and tracking outstanding technical tasks.Β
Take the time to make the updates that your SEO team says are worth the effort.
If the task is difficult or time-consuming but will have a big impact, do everything you can to get it done.
Doing what your competitors are unwilling or unable to do is how you win.
The technical foundation is what enables SEO to scale. The faster you can clear any roadblocks here, the sooner your investment starts delivering results.
SEO is a long game. Itβs only natural that excitement and momentum are high early on, but after a while, engagement can taper off.Β
Client-agency partnerships often find their groove over time. The brand trusts the agency, and the agency knows what to do.
But from this place, cracks can begin to form. Maybe youβre not communicating as much, and that lack of communication can lead to gaps in knowledge β on both sides.Β
Here are some tips to help you stay just as engaged on Day 365 as you were on Day 1.
Be present in reviews and check-ins
Be sure to attend regular check-ins and reporting calls to review progress and surface questions.Β
Itβs easy to miss calls when things pull you away, but staying committed to SEO means showing up, even if itβs just for 15 minutes.Β
Keep SEO connected to business changes
Share updates on business priorities, product launches, or changes in market strategy.Β
Itβs important that SEO remains at the strategy table so it can adjust as needed.Β
Use performance data to drive conversations and decisions
Trust in your SEO agency also comes with accountability. So hold your SEO team accountable.Β
If you see a decline in rankings, traffic, or revenue coming from search, you need to have a conversation if they havenβt already brought it up.Β
Use these performance insights to adjust tactics, reallocate resources, or explore new opportunities.Β
Strong SEO results start with strong partnerships
SEO works best when both sides do their part.Β
The more aligned and collaborative you are with your SEO agency, the faster your SEO program can gain traction and deliver value.
When both sides bring their expertise, stay engaged, and remove friction from the process, SEO becomes a strategic business initiative.
A user recently reported failures when downloading Windows 11 ISOs. Rufus developer Pete Batard blamed Microsoft, raising concerns about access and control.
Engineered for gamers who demand both extreme performance and portability, the HE30 one-handed keyboard embodies the "ready-to-fight-on-the-go" philosophy, packing professional-grade esports capabilities into a lightweight body. Featuring a compact 30% layout, it also boasts advanced features like 0.01 mm adjustable Hall effect triggers and DKS/SOCD support, all aimed at helping players break records and set new benchmarks in mobile esports.
Ultimate Portability Design
The HE30 is crafted with a lightweight body and a detachable wrist strap for ultimate portability. Its 36-key ultra-compressed layout retains the F-key row while expanding the TGB key area, accurately covering the control needs of FPS, MOBA, and other mainstream esports games. The compact 30% layout leaves ample space for low-sensitivity mouse movements, especially suited for high-paced games like FPS. The innovative removable wrist strap design ensures the keyboard can be easily attached to a gear bag, making it highly portable for travel, tournaments, or casual gaming sessions.
At the center of the case is the widely used video compression standard HEVC, also known as H.265. Nokia owns several standard-essential patents tied to the codec and argued that Acer and Asus failed to obtain proper licenses under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
MusicPulse is an AI copilot for independent artists that analyzes your tracks, delivers mix feedback, and matches you with high-fit playlists. It creates cover art, 5-second canvases, and social clips from text or images, and writes curator-ready pitches to improve your SubmitHub acceptance rate. Start with 30 free credits and rolling monthly credits. Focus on making music while MusicPulse handles analysis, visuals, and targeted outreach to grow your listeners on Spotify and beyond.
Presentation of the KTU Consortium Mission βA Safe and Inclusive Digital Societyβ at the Innovation Agency event βInnovation Breakfast: How Mission-Oriented Science and Innovation Programmes Will Address Societal Challengesβ.
Technologies are evolving fast, reshaping economies, governance, and daily life. Yet, as innovation accelerates, so do digital risks. Technological change is no longer
I'm searching through today's Presidents' Day sales and have hand-picked over 50 of the best deals on TVs, laptops, appliances, and more tech from Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and other major retailers.
As India's first AI company to IPO, Fractal Analytics didn't have a stellar first day on the public markets, as enthusiasm for the technology collided with jittery investors in the wake of a sell-off in Indian software stocks.
Samsung is going to unveil its Galaxy S26 series later this month, with the companyβs top-end Galaxy S26 Ultra reported to be treated to an incredible privacy display that will keep prying eyes away from your sensitive content. The same technology is expected to arrive in future MacBooks, but it could be a while before you can see them in action. The privacy display technology is estimated to be adopted on MacBooks by 2029, but Apple could gain a massive win over Samsung despite bringing it later A report from research firm Omdia, whose details were spotted by Ice Universe, [β¦]
Following the release of Final Fantasy VII Remake on Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 earlier this year and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth this June, the third and final entry in the remake trilogy is the only entry in the series that is set to release on every modern gaming platform. While this multiplatform pivot has been welcomed by Switch 2 and Xbox players, many have voiced concerns that the final part of the trilogy will have to make some compromises in visual quality due to the lower specifications of the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series S, besides continuing [β¦]
It's been three years since the AMD AM5 motherboard platform and the 600-series motherboards launched. Since its launch, the platform has seen the launch of several CPUs in the Ryzen 7000, Ryzen 8000, and Ryzen 9000 families. While the 600-series motherboards provide great features & compatibility with newer Zen 5 CPUs, motherboard makers are always looking to enhance user experiences through the latest technologies, so AMD has introduced a new chipset line called the 800-series. Now, AMD has introduced both X870 and B850 series chipsets for high-end and mainstream AM5 motherboards. Both of these chips provide brand-new designs and brand-new [β¦]
In a sudden moment of thermal shock, a $5,000 RTX 5090 ended up cracking under pressure when too much voltage was pushed to the core at once. The dead card aided in achieving a world record in Geekbench 5 GPU Compute before, with the help of liquid nitrogen.
Intel confirms post-Xe3P graphics architecture called βXe Nextβ As part of the companyβs new βAI Roadmap Strategyβ, Intel has confirmed that it plans to release new Xe graphics architectures past Xe3P. This is Intelβs first public confirmation of a post-Xe3P graphics architecture, and itβs currently called βXe Nextβ. Todayβs most advanced consumer graphics chip from [β¦]
This guide explains how to dual boot Bazzite and Windows on Xbox Ally and other Windows handhelds, combining a SteamOS style experience with full Windows support.
Hideki Sato was the man behind Sega's game consoles, from the Master System through to the Windows CE-supporting Dreamcast, and leaves behind a lasting legacy.
According to the latest ruling from the Munich Regional Court, ASUS and Acer are banned from directly selling their PCs in GermanyβEurope's largest economy. The judgment, handed down on January 22, 2026, has already led both manufacturers to suspend or remove affected product listings from their German online stores while they assess legal options and the scope of the ruling. The court's order targets the manufacturers' own sales and distribution channels, rather than retailers selling existing stock, effectively leaving the German market to supply only through other OEMs and the remaining inventory from ASUS and Acer.
The core reasoning behind this decision is patent claims asserted by Nokia, including patents related to core HEVC/H.265 encoding and decoding techniques. As both ASUS and Acer use GPUs, processors, and many other digital decoding/encoding engines for video, the use has to be licensed, and the sales can only proceed with approval from Nokia. The judges concluded that the two OEMs had not demonstrated the conduct of willing licensees under FRAND rules, which allowed the court to grant injunctive relief instead of limiting the remedy to damages. We don't have information on the length of the ban, which will likely require a followup with the court and two OEMs.
ByteDance launched Seedance 2.0 in China earlier this week for users of its Jianying app. Currently able to generate 15-second clips, the company says it will soon be available globally for users of its CapCut app.
GPU pricing is broken again - but the real question is how badly. We're putting hard numbers to this situation. How much have graphics card prices increased since memory prices went through the roof?
Lytical delivers AI-powered website analytics, SEO intelligence, and competitor monitoring so you can act on what matters. It auto-tracks page views, clicks, and forms without manual tagging and scans your site daily to catch slow loads, broken links, and other issues. Quincy, Lytical's AI assistant, combines event and scan data with your connected tools to surface insights and clear recommendations. Invite your whole team with unlimited seats and stay ahead by tracking competitors and content performance.
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new mobile spyware platform dubbed ZeroDayRAT that's being advertised on Telegram as a way to grab sensitive data and facilitate real-time surveillance on Android and iOS devices.
"The developer runs dedicated channels for sales, customer support, and regular updates, giving buyers a single point of access to a fully operational spyware
India is hosting a four-day AI Summit this week that will be attended by executives from major AI labs and Big Tech, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare, as well as heads of state.
If you have been following tech news over the past few months, you are well aware of how theΒ widespread adoption of AIΒ is causing many issues for consumers, with prices of components such as RAM and SSDs skyrocketing in a matter of days. These price increases and the limited availability of components for anything that is not supposed to be used in an AI data center is making things difficult even for console manufacturers, so much so that Sony is reportedly actively considering a delay of its PlayStation 6 system. In a new report posted today on Bloomberg, according to people [β¦]
This weekend, Polish developer Bloober Team unveiled Layers of Fear 3 during a special event celebrating the horror franchise's 10th anniversary. Bloober Team founder and CEO Piotr Babieno appeared to discuss the great importance of Layers of Fear for the studio: For Bloober Team, Layers of Fear isn't just a title from our past. It marked the moment when we understood what kind of studio we want to be, what type of games we want to create. Tonight, we want to honor that legacy and show you that Layers of Fear is still alive, still evolving, and still finding new [β¦]
In 2024, after years of seemingly turning a blind eye, Nintendo brought the DMCA takedown hammer hard on Switch emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx. Despite the significant blow, however, it was far from the end of the Nintendo Switch emulator scene. Ryujinx and Yuzu forks are still available, and brand new emulators like Eden and Citron, just to name two, have emerged over time. Nintendo's latest big release, Metroid Prime 4, was immediately playable on those Switch emulators. On Friday, though, the Switch emulator scene suffered another scare as Nintendo sent a new DMCA takedown notice targeting the GitHub pages [β¦]
Western Digital's production for 2026 is completely earmarked for its top seven customers, with a few long-term agreements already in place for the next couple of years.
GOGβs preserved versions of Dini Crisis and Dino Crisis 2 have been released on Steam Capcom has brought its original Dino Crisis games to Steam, making these classic survival games available to a new generation of gamers on PCβs most popular gaming platform. These versions of Dino Crisis were developed alongside GOG as part of [β¦]
Intel has released its latest 32.0.101.8509 WHQL driver package, bringing support for XeSS 3 across multiple graphics generations and finally ending the launch exclusivity of "Panther Lake" integrated graphics. Now, Intel supports XeSS 3 multi-frame generation across Arc B-series "Battlemage" and A-series "Alchemist" discrete GPUs. For other integrated GPUs, only the Intel Arc GPU family is receiving official support, with "Meteor Lake," "Lunar Lake," and laptop "Arrow Lake-H" chips now offering full XeSS 3 support for 4x the frame output with AI-based frame generation. As Intel recently launched "Panther Lake," some game issues occurred, but thankfully they have been resolved. This includes color corruption in Ghost of Tsushima using DirectX 12 and game crashes in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord using DirectX 11. However, some "Panther Lake" issues persist, with certain titles crashing and experiencing in-game corruption, which is expected to receive an official fix in upcoming driver releases.
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A look at our 2026 Responsible AI Progress Report. 
Google I/O, our annual developer conference, is taking place at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. 
At MSC 2026, Googleβs Kent Walker urged a full-stack, AI-driven approach to security to counter sophisticated, enterprise-scale threats. 
Using Google Flights data, weβre taking a look at what U.S. destinations are trending for this yearβs upcoming spring break. 
Celebrate the Year of the Horse! Discover new Google features for Lunar New Year across Play, TV, and more. 
