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Intel issues official statement on Crimson Desert ARC GPU incompatibility

Intel’s ready to work with Pearl Abyss to bring ARC GPU support to Crimson Desert Pearl Abyss’ newest PC hit, Crimson Desert, is incompatible with Intel ARC GPUs. The game does not boot on PCs with Intel ARC graphics, and the game’s FAQ tells Intel users to request a refund. This evening, Intel has issued […]

The post Intel issues official statement on Crimson Desert ARC GPU incompatibility appeared first on OC3D.

Intel Offered Hardware Optimization Help to Crimson Desert Developer for Years, Company Says

The controversy where open-world fantasy game "Crimson Desert" isn't supported on Intel Arc GPUs to the point of the game refusing to even launch on systems with Arc GPUs, drew its first response from Intel. Gamers with Intel Arc graphics cards got a rude shock earlier this week, as the game flat-out refused to start on their systems, with a dialog box simply saying "the graphics device is currently not supported." In its FAQ, "Crimson Desert" developer Pearl Abyss said that the game doesn't currently support Arc GPUs, and gamers who bought the game expecting it should seek refunds.

In its statement to Wccftech, Intel says that it reached out to Pearl Abyss over the past several years to help optimize the game for its hardware. "Crimson Desert" has been in development for over 6 years prior to its launch earlier this week. "We've reached out to Pearl Abyss many time to help test, validate, and optimize support for Intel graphics, providing early hardware, drivers, and engineering resources across multiple generations, including "Alchemist," "Battlemage," "Meteor Lake" (Xe-LPG), and "Lunar Lake" (Xe2-LPG)," the statement goes. The company says that it "remains ready to assist Pearl Abyss."
The complete statement by Intel follows.

Quasar Energy – AI-powered IEC engineering reports and EU energy analytics.


Quasar Energy is a Dutch B2B platform for electrical installers, solar professionals, and energy market participants across NL, DE, and BE. PowerCalc AI generates IEC 60364-5-52 / NEN 1010 cable sizing reports and EN 50549 solar PV + battery reports as structured PDFs β€” correction factors, voltage drop, short-circuit withstand, PVGIS 5.2 irradiance data, and 25-year financial analysis. Quasar Intelligence delivers AI-generated EU energy market analytics from ENTSO-E data β€” day-ahead prices, generation mix, and cross-border flows for NL, DE, and BE. Both lines are pay-per-report. No subscription, no account, no software. Order, pay via Stripe, receive PDF by email in minutes.

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EvoLink – Access chat, image, and video AI through one unified API


EvoLink unifies access to leading chat, image, and video models through a single API key and endpoint. It delivers 99.9% uptime with automatic failover, real-time usage and cost tracking, and smart routing that can cut AI spend by up to 70%. Integrate in minutes using OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google-compatible formats, then call models like Claude, Gemini, Veo, Sora, Wan, and Nano Banana Pro without refactoring. Build production-grade workflows with low latency and predictable costs.

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What happened at Nvidia GTC:Β NemoClaw, Robot Olaf, and aΒ $1 trillionΒ bet

CEOΒ Jensen Huang took the stage atΒ Nvidia’s GTC conferenceΒ this week in his signature leather jacket to deliver a two-and-a-half-hour keynote, projectingΒ $1 trillionΒ in AI chip sales through 2027, declaring that every company needs an β€œOpenClaw strategy,” and closing with a rambling Olaf robot that had to get its mic cut. The message was hard to miss: Nvidia […]

Nvidia "confirms" DLSS 5 relies on 2D frame data as testing reveals hallucinations


According to Nvidia's press materials, DLSS 5 enhances lighting and material interactions without modifying underlying geometry. The company later reiterated this point to HotHardware, while TechSpot also highlighted commentary from Ryan Shrout arguing the tech is not simply a post-processing filter. However, in email exchanges with YouTuber Daniel Owen, Nvidia...

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callagent – Deploy AI agents that manage calls to book and qualify leads


CallAgent provides AI phone agents that make and answer calls for your business. They follow up on new ad leads in seconds, qualify prospects, book appointments, confirm schedules, and run outbound campaigns at scale. You can connect a dedicated number, integrate calendars and CRMs, and trigger calls via API or webhooks. Monitor recordings, transcripts, and analytics in real time. CallAgent supports multilingual, natural conversations, 24/7 availability, and GDPR-grade security with pay-as-you-go and tiered plans.

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Omnia – See where AI mentions youβ€”act to win more recommendations


Omnia shows how your brand appears across AI engines and tells you exactly what to do to improve it. We track share of voice, citations, competitor benchmarks, and visibility across AI search. Insights turns that data into prioritized, prompt-level tasks, indicating what content to create, what to improve, and where to get featured based on real citation data, brand authority, and category. Monitoring is the diagnosis, and Insights is the prescription. There are no dashboards collecting dust, just a clear plan to win AI visibility.

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The latest jobs in search marketing

Search marketing jobs

Looking to take the next step in your search marketing career?

Below, you will find the latest SEO, PPC, and digital marketing jobs at brands and agencies. We also include positions from previous weeks that are still open.

Newest SEO Jobs

(Provided to Search Engine Land by SEOjobs.com)

  • Description: This role can sit in our Hayward, CA, Santa Clarita, CA, or Farmington, MI locations. Job Summary We are seeking a strategic and hands-on Digital Marketing Manager to own and run all aspects of our marketing campaigns from planning through execution and optimization. This role will lead our digital presence across paid, owned, and […]
  • Head of Digital Marketing Β  About the Company Top-tier organization in the consumer services industry Industry Consumer Services Type Privately Held Β  About the Role The Company is seeking a Head of Digital Marketing to spearhead the development and execution of comprehensive digital marketing strategies. The successful candidate will be tasked with enhancing brand awareness, […]
  • At MERGE, we areΒ Built Different. We are a marketing and technology agency purpose-built for the intersection of health and wellnessβ€”where human impact matters most. By weaving storytelling through technology, we move beyond traditional engagement to Whole Human Marketing. This approach recognizes that humans are multidimensional and complex, and uses AI to ensure every brand interaction […]
  • About Electra: At Electra, we’re pioneering sustainable aviation by developing hybrid-electric Ultra Short Takeoff and Landing aircraft designed to transform regional air mobility, by making air travel more efficient, quieter, and environmentally friendly. Able to operate from soccer field-sized spaces, our Ultra Short unlocks a new era of aviation through what we call Direct Aviation […]
  • Description: The Digital Marketing Specialist is responsible for executing creative marketing initiatives by producing content, copy, and digital assets that support campaigns, brand presence, and customer engagement. Requirements: Create marketing copy for ads, emails, blogs, landing pages, and social media Design digital assets including graphics, visuals, and basic video content Maintain brand consistency across all […]
  • Job Description Digital Marketing Specialist Salt Lake City, UT | Hybrid | $70,000 / year + discretionary bonus About the Role We are a fast-growing company looking for a driven, well-rounded, full-time Digital Marketing Specialist to join our expanding team. This is an exciting opportunity for a self-starter who thrives in a dynamic environment, embraces […]
  • Job Description Carter Services, Inc. in Torrance, CA is hiring a full-time Digital Marketing Representative to take charge of our outreach efforts and educate potential customers on the extensive range of services we offer. This is a great opportunity to support a local business while developing your marketing knowledge and sharpening your problem-solving skills! Here’s […]
  • SEO Project Manager Β· Temporary Position OPEN POSITION Now HiringTemporary Β· Contract (3-5 month engagement)Remote Β· US-Based POSITION SUMMARY We are seeking a Temporary Senior SEO Specialist / SEO Project Manager to support organic search initiatives across a portfolio of websites. This execution-focused role requires an experienced professional who can independently evaluate opportunities, execute improvements, […]
  • Position Overview We are seeking a detail-oriented, data-driven, and creative Digital Marketing Coordinator to support and execute our digital marketing initiatives across multiple channels. This role plays a critical part in driving brand awareness, lead generation, customer engagement, and campaign performance. The ideal candidate is highly organized, analytically minded, and passionate about digital marketing trends, […]
  • Job Description Location: Madison, WI Reports To: Chief of Staff Position Overview The Digital Marketing Specialist is responsible for driving measurable leasing performance, strengthening brand visibility, and executing digital marketing initiatives across a portfolio of multifamily and student housing properties, as well as corporate-level (BMOC) marketing. This is a hands-on, performance-oriented role for a data-driven […]

Newest PPC and paid media jobs

(Provided to Search Engine Land by PPCjobs.com)

  • Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) – delivers transformational experiences for consumers, clients, and talent. Powered by the Omni marketing orchestration system, OMG connects best‑in‑class capabilities that enable our full‑service media agencies OMD, PHD, and Hearts & Science to deliver more relevant and actionable consumer experiences, more […]
  • Overview We are seeking a talented and experienced Paid Social superstar to join our team. The ideal candidate will develop, implement, and optimize paid media campaigns to drive business growth, lead generation, and audience engagement. The successful candidate will have a deep understanding of social as well as search platforms, keyword strategy, ad copywriting, and […]
  • Full-Time | Remote (May Transition to Hybrid in the Future) Power Couch Media is seeking a full-time Paid Media Specialist to join our growing team. This is not a contract role or short-term engagement. You will be a core part of our campaign strategy, execution, and optimization process. Meta is our primary platform, with Google […]
  • Paid Media Specialist Department: Integrated Media Solutions Employment Type: Full Time Location: Remote or Hybrid, US Compensation: $60,000 – $70,000 / year Description The Paid Media Specialist is an entry-level media professional responsible for executing and optimizing paid media campaigns across digital channels. This role supports cross-functional teams with day-to-day campaign management while focusing on […]
  • Overview Freebird is a high-growth DTC brand redefining shaving for millions of people. We’ve scaled to 9-figures in revenue, served over 1 million customers, and built a reputation for award-winning electric shaving kits that actually deliver. Our team is fast-moving, experiment-driven, and deeply focused on growth. We test relentlessly, analyze performance obsessively, and turn insights […]

Other roles you may be interested in

Digital Marketing Manager 10x Health System (Scottsdale, AZ)

  • Salary: $110,000 – $120,000
  • Measure and report on the performance of all digital marketing campaigns against goals (ROI and KPIs).
  • Document and streamline digital marketing processes to scale the team and improve operations.

Paid Ads/Growth Manager, Robert Half (Hybrid, Atlanta Metropolitan Area)

  • Salary: $65,000 – $85,000
  • Manage, optimize, and scale paid campaigns across Google Ads (Search, Display, YouTube) and Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram).
  • Continuously refine targeting, bidding strategies, and creative to improve CPL, conversion rates, and overall ROAS.

SEO Manager, Clutch (Remote)

  • Salary: $60,000 – $75,000
  • Execute day-to-day SEO tactics across multiple client accounts, ensuring alignment with predefined campaign objectives.
  • Implement optimization strategies, including technical SEO audits and recommendations.

Marketing Manager – SEO & GEO, Care.com (Hybrid, Austin Texas)

  • Salary: $85,000 – $95,000
  • Organic Growth: Build and execute the SEO roadmap across technical, content, and off-page. Own the numbers: traffic, rankings, conversions. No handoffs, no excuses.
  • AI-Optimized Search (AIO): Define and drive CARE.com’s strategy for visibility in AI-generated results β€” Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and whatever comes next. Optimize entity coverage, content structure, and schema to ensure we’re the answer, not just a result.

Digital Marketplace Manager, Venchi (Hybrid, New York, NY)

  • Salary: $120,000 – $130,000
  • Define and execute channel-specific and cross-marketplace strategies, balancing brand positioning, commercial performance, and operational efficiency.
  • Manage Amazon advertising across Sponsored Products, Brands, and Display campaigns.

Advertising Media Manager, Vetoquinol USA (Remote)

  • Salary: $100,000 -$110,000
  • Develop and implement strategic advertising plans for Etail (Ecomm/Retail) accounts.
  • Analyzing advertising performance data with related ROAS & TACoS evaluations.

Programmatic Advertising Manager, We Are Stellar (Remote)

  • Salary: $75,000
  • Manage the day-to-day programmatic campaign approach, execution, trafficking optimization, and reporting across the relevant DSPs for your clients.
  • Build and present directly to client stakeholders programmatic campaign performance, analysis, and insights.

Marketing Manager, Backstage (Remote)

  • Salary: $100,000 – $140,000
  • Manage and optimize campaigns daily across Meta Ads, Google Ads, and other kay partners
  • Own forecasting, pacing, budget allocation, and optimization for high-scale monthly budgets..

Demand Generation Manager, Shoplift (Remote)

  • Salary: $100,000 – $110,000
  • Design and execute inbound-led outbound campaignsβ€”reaching prospects who’ve shown intent (visited pricing page, downloaded resources, engaged with content) at precisely the right moment
  • Build and optimize Apollo sequences, LinkedIn outreach, and multi-touch campaigns that book qualified demos for AEs

Search Engine Optimization Manager, Confidential (Hybrid, Miami-Fort Lauderdale Area)

  • Salary: $75,000 – $105,000
  • Serve as a strategic SEO partner for client accounts, translating business goals into actionable search initiatives
  • Communicate SEO insights, priorities, and performance clearly to clients and internal stakeholders

Note: We update this post weekly. So make sure to bookmark this page and check back.

Trivy Security Scanner GitHub Actions Breached, 75 Tags Hijacked to Steal CI/CD Secrets

Trivy, a popular open-source vulnerability scanner maintained by Aqua Security, was compromised a second time within the span of a month to deliver malware that stole sensitive CI/CD secrets. The latest incident impacted GitHub Actions "aquasecurity/trivy-action" and "aquasecurity/setup-trivy," which are used to scan Docker container images for vulnerabilities and set up GitHub Actions workflow

Intel says β€œwe are listening” when it comes to long-lived CPU sockets

Intel says that it is listening to feedback Club386 has had the opportunity to talk with Intel’s Robert Hallock, the company’s VP and GM ot its β€œEnthusiast Channel”. When asked about the possibility of β€œa future where Intel sockets support more CPU generations, Hallock’s answer was simple: β€œI do. That’s it – I do”. Elaborating […]

The post Intel says β€œwe are listening” when it comes to long-lived CPU sockets appeared first on OC3D.

IceWhale Launches ZimaCube 2 Compact NAS Series

The ZimaCube 2 compact NAS and mini-server platform from IceWhale has been announced and is now listed for pre-orders. The lineup is built around 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake processors and includes a standard model with an i3-1215U CPU, a Pro variant with the i5-1235U processor, and a Creator Pack with added GPU support. Measuring 240 x 221 x 220 mm, it's compact but roomy enough to handle high-end configurations without feeling cramped. In terms of storage, you will get six bays supporting 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives, either SATA III or NVMe, and up to four M.2 slots for additional capacity. Total storage can reach 164 TB depending on configuration. Expansion includes two PCIe slots, a full-size PCIe 4.0 x16 (physically x4 lanes) for GPUs, and a PCIe 3.0 x8 (physically x2). The latter supports network cards or NVMe expansion. Connectivity is solid with dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, four USB 3.0 Type-A ports, two 2.5 GbE Ethernet ports, plus optional 10 GbE on higher models. HDMI and DisplayPort outputs are included for display support.

As an operating system, it runs ZimaOS Plus, a Linux-based OS optimized for self-hosted services like file storage, media servers, virtual machines, and containerized workloads. The base unit starts at $799, equipped with 8 GB of DDR5 RAM, a 256 GB NVMe SSD, and an Intel Core i3-1215U. The Pro model is priced at $1,299 and features the more powerful i5-1235U CPU along with 16 GB of memory. For users needing higher performance in virtualization, rendering, or machine learning tasks, a Creator Pack version is available for $2,499, this includes the same Core i5 processor, 64 GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1 TB SSD, and an NVIDIA RTX Pro 2000 GPU.

Windows 11 March Update Blocks Microsoft Account Sign-In in Office and Copilot Apps

Microsoft's Windows 11 March update has a confirmed issue affecting Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2 with KB5079473. This issue causes sign-in failures in some Microsoft applications, including the free version of Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Microsoft Edge, Excel, Word, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. After installing the Windows 11 March update, you might encounter a message saying, "You'll need the Internet for this. It doesn't look like you're connected to the Internet," even when your device is connected. This problem occurs when a device enters a specific network connectivity state that the Windows 11 March update does not handle well, causing some Microsoft applications to mistakenly identify the device as offline. It's important to note that this issue only affects Microsoft accounts.

To resolve this issue, Microsoft recommends simply restarting your device. This should fix the connectivity state that causes the connection to Microsoft accounts to fail. However, there is a significant chance that the device might return to this specific networking state, resulting in repeated sign-in errors. Microsoft is working on a fix, which is expected to be released in the coming days. As the week ends, the release will likely be early next week. No server platforms are affected by this issue; it only impacts Windows 11 versions 24H2 and 25H2 with the March update KB5079473, OS Build 26100.8037.

Reworked Apple Watch avoids ban, but Masimo battle escalates


The decision, made public on Thursday, concludes that Apple's latest implementation of pulse-oximetry functionality falls outside the scope of Masimo's asserted rights. The full ITC commission will now review the judge's ruling and decide whether to adopt it – a step that will determine whether the redesigned watches remain protected...

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New Fortnite 'Rivalry' includes chance to win RTX 5080 β€” top five players will be awarded GPU hardware in Chapter 7 Season 2 competition

Fortnite's new season not only brings new content for the players but also gives them a chance to earn real-life rewards, such as an RTX 5080. If you're good enough at the game and win enough "rivalries" in matches every week and rank among the top five players in the world, Epic will give you a free RTX 5080.

AMD releases FSR 4.1 for RX 9000-series GPUs β€” new update delivers better Ray Regeneration, finer upscaled detail, and higher FPS

AMD has added Ray Regeneration 1.1 and FSR 4.1 upscaling to its RDNA 4 GPUs, bringing it to parity with Sony's PSSR 2 on the PS5 Pro. Games that support these features will have better ray tracing quality with more accurate shadow detail, while also getting a sharper-looking image through ML-based upscaling.

Google launches Ads DevCast Vodcast for developers

Click fraud in Google Ads: Where exposure rises and how to reduce it

As AI agents reshape how advertising platforms are used, Google is bringing focus toward the developers behind the systems and create content specifically for them.

What’s happening. Google’s Advertising and Measurement Developer Relations team has launched Ads DevCast, a bi-weekly vodcast and podcast hosted by Cory Liseno. The show focuses on technical deep dives across Google Ads, Google Analytics, Display & Video 360 and related tools.

Zoom out. This is a companion to Ads Decoded, hosted by Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin, which focuses on campaign strategy. Ads DevCast is explicitly built for developers and technical practitioners.

Driving the news. Episode 1 β€” β€œMCPs, Agents, and Ads. Oh My!” β€” centers on what Google calls the β€œagentic shift,” where AI agents are becoming primary users of advertising APIs.

Why we care. Ads DevCast gives developers a direct line to the engineers building Google’s ad tools, which should help stay ahead of technical changes, discover new capabilities faster, and build more efficient integrations in an increasingly AI-driven ecosystem.

The big picture. AI is expanding who can work with ad tech systems. Google is seeing a shift from a narrow β€œAds Developer Community” to a broader β€œAds Technical Community,” where marketers can execute technical tasks without full development cycles.

What’s next. Ads DevCast is a pilot, and Google is collecting feedback to shape future episodes.

Bottom line. Google is positioning Ads DevCast as a tool to give developers a front-row seat to Google’s latest ads innovations, with practical insights to build, test, and adapt faster in an AI-first landscape.

Google tightens rules on out-of-stock product pages

Google Shopping Ads - Google Ads

A new Google Merchant Center update changes how e-commerce sites must handle out-of-stock products, with direct implications for product approvals and ad performance.

What’s happening. Google now requires that out-of-stock products must still display a buy button, but it can no longer be active or hidden. Instead, the button must be visibly disabled and appear grayed out. In other words, users should be able to see the button, but not click it.

This marks a clear shift from common practices where retailers either left the β€œAdd to Cart” button clickable or removed it entirely. Both approaches are now non-compliant.

How it works. In practical terms, the requirement is simple. The buy button must remain on the page, but its functionality needs to be turned off. Typically, this is done by applying a disabled state so the button becomes unclickable and visually subdued.

The catch. The button change is only part of the update. Google also expects clear availability messaging on the product page, such as β€œin stock,” β€œout of stock,” β€œpre-order,” or β€œback order.” This information must match exactly with what is submitted in the product feed.

Any inconsistency between the page and the feed can lead to disapprovals.

The bigger shift. This update removes a long-standing workaround used by many retailers. Previously, it was possible to keep selling out-of-stock products by leaving the purchase button active. That approach is no longer allowed.

If a retailer still wants to accept orders for unavailable items, the product must now be labeled as β€œback order.” This status needs to be reflected consistently across both the landing page and the feed.

Bottom line. What looks like a small UI requirement is actually a meaningful policy change. Retailers will need to review how they manage out-of-stock products and ensure their pages and feeds are fully aligned to avoid disruptions.

First seen. This update was spotted by Google shopping specialist who shared the his how to video on LinkedIn.

Dig deeper. About landing page requirements

Google Business Profile tests AI-generated replies to reviews

Google AI reviews

Google is testing AI-generated review replies in Google Business Profile.

Why we care. Responding to reviews can impact conversions and trust. But generic AI replies could be risky and erode trust, especially on negative reviews where authenticity matters most. Response quality matters more than whether a business replies to reviews.

What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot:

The details. Google appears to be rolling out a limited test of Reply to reviews with AI inside Google Business Profile.

  • The feature generates suggested responses to customer reviews.
  • Users can review, edit, and manually submit replies.
  • Availability is inconsistent across accounts and reviews.
  • The feature has been spotted in the U.S., Brazil, and India, but not widely in Europe.

Early behavior. Some users report prompts focused on older, unanswered negative reviews.

  • In at least one test, users could trigger AI responses in bulk.
  • There are conflicting reports on automation β€” some users say bulk responses still require review; others report fully automated replies can be published without edits.

First seen. The feature was first shared on LinkedIn by Chandan Mishra, a freelance local SEO specialist, and amplified by Darren Shaw, founder of Whitespark.

Critical Langflow Flaw CVE-2026-33017 Triggers Attacks within 20 Hours of Disclosure

A critical security flaw impacting Langflow has come under active exploitation within 20 hours of public disclosure, highlighting the speed at which threat actors weaponize newly published vulnerabilities. The security defect, tracked as CVE-2026-33017 (CVSS score: 9.3), is a case of missing authentication combined with code injection that could result in remote code execution. "The POST /api/v1

Lenovo Confirms RTX 5070 Mobile With 12 GB GDDR7 Across Multiple LOQ and Legion Laptops

It recently came to light that NVIDIA may be planning a GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile GPU with an upgrade to 12 GB of GDDR7, 4 GB more than the currently available 8 GB models, with both Lenovo Yoga and ASUS laptops appearing to be planning new models with the new GPU configuration. While there still hasn't been any confirmation from NVIDIA itself, another handful of Lenovo laptop listings have shown up, lending credence to the earlier claimsβ€”this time in official, public Lenovo specifications documentation.

According to Lenovo's spec sheet for the Legion Pro 5 16ADR10, the new laptop will pair an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX with 32 GB of DDR5-5200, a 1 TB PCIe 4 Γ—4 SSD, and NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB. The GPU itself looks largely unchanged from the version in Lenovo's other Legion laptops, with the exception of a much lower boost clock in the Legion Pro 5. Despite having the same 115 W TGP as the LOQ models with the 5070 12 GB, Lenovo has rated the boost clocks of the RTX 5070 12 GB in the Legion Pro at 1425 MHz, compared to 2347 MHz in the LOQ models, which are identical to the original RTX 5070 8 GB. There have been murmurs of an April release for these laptops, but those are unconfirmed so far.

NVIDIA DLSS 5 Takes 2D Frame and Motion Vectors as Input

The public is still learning more about DLSS 5 technology, and NVIDIA is gradually revealing additional details. In a conversation between YouTuber Daniel Owen and NVIDIA's GeForce Evangelist Jacob Freeman, we discover that DLSS 5 essentially takes 2D frames and motion vectors as input, applying its generative AI model to output frames in a 2D context rather than 3D. This means that while the model is trained on materials that might appear 3D, its actual work is based on 2D imagery. It identifies each frame's motion vectors and anchors the model to them, operating in a 2D space instead of a full 3D environment. This approach to handling graphics is much more computationally efficient, as achieving complete photorealism in 3D would require more GPU power than is currently available. No underlying geometry is changed. Instead, 2D images and motion vectors serve as input, a generative AI model processes textures and applies scene photorealism, resulting in the final output that NVIDIA promotes as DLSS 5.
Below, you can see the complete Q&A exchange between Daniel Owen and Jacob Freeman, which was nicely compiled by VideoCardz. Numbers represent questions from Daniel Owen, while answers are provided by NVIDIA's Jacob Freeman.

Nintendo Plans Switch 2 With User-Replaceable Batteries for EU

Recent right to repair laws passed in the EU demand that, starting in February 2027, electronic devices have batteries that are user-replaceable with commonly available tools and without risk to the end userβ€”that is to say, they shouldn't require proprietary tools or tools that aren't available to consumers. Nintendo, for its part, already preparing an update to the Nintendo Switch 2 to comply with this law, according to a report by Nikkei (via Covergeek), although the exact details of the more repairable battery model is unknown at the time of writing. According to the report, the more repairable Switch 2 will only launch in Europe, but Nintendo would expand the hardware to different regions as required by law.

In iFixit's teardown of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its battery replacement guide for the Switch 2 Joy Cons, the organization noted that the battery for both the Switch 2 and its Joy Cons were adhered in place, and a spudger was required to remove the batteries from the devices. While this isn't necessarily a specialized tool, it could be argued that needing to either dissolve an adhesive or pry a battery loose could add additional risk to the end user. To this end, it seems likely that both the Switch 2 and its Joy Cons could see a revision with weaker adhesive or no adhesive at all, which would make battery replacements easier and safer. It could also mean that Nintendo will need to replace the tri-point screws that hold the Switch 2 together.

Wirewiki – Explore internet infrastructure through domain, IP, and DNS lookups


Wirewiki lets you explore internet infrastructure across domains, IPs, and DNS servers. You can search domain profiles, inspect IP addresses, and run lookups for DNS propagation, SPF, MX, TXT, reverse DNS, and website-to-IP. The platform helps you trace delegation paths, check zone transfers, and validate email sender records to troubleshoot issues or research setups. It's a quick way to answer routing questions and review how domains are configured.

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Cuadra AI – AI that understands your businessβ€”wherever it is


Whether you're scaling a company or building a business, getting real value from AI is harder than it should be. Cuadra AI lets you build your own AI that continuously learns from your business, runs on any model, and works wherever your users are. You can synchronize your documents, Notion, or Google Drive, allowing your AI and knowledge to grow together. Connect with WhatsApp, Slack, SMS, or Telegram to meet your users where they already are. If you have a team, you can access your model in your own private workspace.

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Google confirms AI headline rewrites test in Search results

Google rewriting titles

Google is testing AI-generated headline rewrites in Search results, describing it as a small, narrow experiment for now.

What’s happening. Google confirmed to The Verge (subscription required) that it’s testing AI-generated titles in traditional Search results, not just Discover.

  • The test is β€œsmall” and β€œnarrow,” and not approved for broader rollout.
  • It impacts news sites but isn’t limited to them.
  • The goal is to better match titles to queries and improve engagement, Google said.

One example showed Google replacing original headlines with shorter or reworded versions, sometimes changing tone or intent (e.g., reducing β€œI used the β€˜cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything” to β€œβ€˜Cheat on everything’ AI tool.”).

Why we care. Google Search is already sending fewer clicks. Now you also have to contend with Google generating entirely new headlines with AI, risking changes to meaning, brand voice, and click-through rates.

Dig deeper. Google changed 76% of title tags in Q1 2025 – Here’s what that means

What they’re saying. Sean Hollister, senior editor at The Verge, wrote:

  • β€œThis is like a bookstore ripping the covers off the books it puts on display and changing their titles. We spend a lot of time trying to write headlines that are true, interesting, fun, and worthy of your attention without resorting to clickbait, but Google seems to believe we don’t have an inherent right to market our own work that way.”

Title links. According to the Google Search Central section on title links, originally published in 2021:

Google’s generation of title links on the Google Search results page is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page and references to it that appear on the web. The goal of the title link is to best represent and describe each result.

Google said it uses these sources to β€œautomatically determine title links”

  • Content inΒ <title>Β elements
  • Main visual title shown on the page
  • Heading elements, such asΒ <h1>Β elements
  • Content inΒ og:titleΒ metaΒ tags
  • Other content that’s large and prominent through the use of style treatments
  • Other text contained in the page
  • Anchor text on the page
  • Text within links that point to the page
  • WebSiteΒ structured data

What to watch. Google called this one of many routine experiments, but that’s no guarantee it stays small. The Verge noted a similar β€œexperiment” in Discover later became a full feature.

  • Any future launch may not rely on generative AI, but Google didn’t explain how that would work.

Reaction. After seeing this news, Louisa Frahm, SEO director at ESPN, wrote on LinkedIn:

  • β€œAfter 10+ years in news SEO, I’ve come to find that a headline is the most prominent element for attracting readers in timely windows, to provide a targeted synopsis that elevates your brand voice. If that vision gets altered and facts are misrepresented, long-term audience trust will be compromised.”

Intel ARC Pro B70 and B65 GPU release date and Specs Leak

Intel is expected to launch its first β€œBig Battlemage” GPUs next week According to Videocardz, Intel is getting ready to launch its first β€œBig Battlemage” GPUs next week, on March 25th. Intel’s new GPUs are the ARC PRO B70 and the ARC PRO B65. Both of these GPUs feature 32GB of ECC GDDR6 memory, making […]

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(PR) XPPen Launches Artist Pro 27 (Gen 2) Drawing Display

XPPen, a global leader in digital art innovation, today unveiled its new flagship drawing display, the Artist Pro 27 (Gen 2). Combining professional-grade color performance with advanced X-Touch solution on a 27-inch 4K 120 Hz screen, this flagship model offers a transformative creative experience, enabling professional creators to push the boundaries of their craft with stunning color fidelity and an intuitive, efficient workflow.

"At XPPen, we remain committed to advancing digital art technology and empowering creators with professional tools and premium drawing experience," said Brian Huang, Marketing Director at XPPen. "Positioned as Color Master Touchscreen Drawing Display, the Artist Pro 27 (Gen 2) sets a new standard for flagship displays, offering large-format workspace, high performance, and efficient workflow for professional creators. It completes XPPen's premium professional lineup with the Artist Pro series spanning from 14 to 27 inches, offering creators a clear upgrade path as their ambitions grow."

RConnectFor – Set goals, plan activities, and never lose touch with those who matter


RConnectFor, inspired by Larry Mitchell's The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, which states "Friendship was not an idea or a status you took for granted, but something you did over and over," is a web and mobile platform to support all stages of reconnecting with friends and community

RConnectfor, allows you to set personal goals to define your reasons for seeking deeper connections, offers customized activity list to ensure meaningful interactions, intelligent scheduling features to minimize decision fatigue about when and where to meet, organizational tools for managing social groups, and a community space to share stories and find inspiration for growth and collaboration.

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StackForge – Migrate PL/SQL procedures to Java Spring Boot microservices


StackForge is an AI-powered platform designed to accelerate the development of SaaS applications and modernize legacy systems. Its core capability lies in transforming high-level specifications and complex code, such as PL/SQL procedures, into production-ready codebases using modern technologies like Java Spring Boot on the backend. As a self-contained modernization engine, StackForge eliminates repetitive manual work by automating the generation of entities, repositories, and services from a structured JSON Schema mapping.

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Could AI eventually make SEO obsolete?

Could AI eventually make SEO obsolete?

AI won’t make SEO obsolete, but it’ll change how the work gets done. There’s a growing concern that as AI systems improve, they’ll replace the need for human SEO analysis entirely. Early experiments suggest otherwise.

While AI can assist with technical tasks and even generate usable outputs, it still depends heavily on detailed human input, structured data, and technical oversight to produce meaningful results.

The real shift is toward redistribution. AI is accelerating parts of the workflow, raising the bar for execution, and changing where human expertise matters most.

Why AI hasn’t made SEO obsolete

AI aims to reduce the need for semi-technical expertise. Where data is highly structured (e.g., coding a Python script), it has an advantage.

Even then, human expertise is still required. AI can generate scripts, but without detailed instructions and debugging, the output is often unusable.

Generative AI can produce working functions with strong prompts, but it still β€œthinks” like a machine. That’s why technical practitioners are best positioned to get the most from it.

Technical knowledge is also required for AI-assisted SEO tasks like generating product descriptions or alt text at scale. Even with tools like OpenAI’s API, you still need to transform and structure data into rich, usable prompts β€” for example, turning Product Information Management data into prompt-ready inputs.

AI depends on human instructions, and output quality reflects input quality. Thinking in structured terms β€” IDs, classes, and distinct entities β€” is key to getting reliable results. It’s what makes the output usable.

That makes prompt creation a critical skill. Employers should factor in technical expertise when using AI to drive efficiency.

However, don’t celebrate too soon.

As AI evolves and absorbs more information, this advantage may be temporary. For now, AI still depends on human expertise to function β€” which is why SEO isn’t obsolete.

Where AI struggles without human input

Data is both AI’s strength and weakness.

Early generative AI models relied on curated data within their LLMs. OpenAI’s models couldn’t perform web searches up to and including GPT-4. After GPT-4, AI systems began relying less on internal data and more on web searches for fresh information.

Because the web isn’t curated and contains a lot of misinformation, this initially represented a step backward for most AI tools, including ChatGPT and Gemini. This shift also mirrors how traditional algorithms rely on raw information.

This raises a key question: Is more information always better for AI?

The open web contains both empirical data and subjective opinion, and AI often can’t distinguish between the two. Giving it access to uncurated data has arguably caused more errors and issues in its outputs.

Finding the right balance of data remains a challenge. How much data helps or harms performance, and how much curation is needed? While developers continue refining LLMs and connected systems, users still need to load up prompts with as much detail as possible to offset how AI sources and evaluates information.

These limitations highlight a core issue: without structured input and human judgment, AI struggles to produce reliable SEO insights.

Dig deeper: 6 guiding principles to leverage AI for SEO content production

Why full SEO automation is harder than it sounds

Basic AI tools can assist with SEO tasks, but full automation is far more complex than it sounds.

That said, AI platforms and technologies are evolving rapidly. The first wave of this evolution came as organizations began producing AI agent platforms like Make, N8N, and MindStudio.

These platforms provide a canvas for automating workflows, combining inputs, outputs, and AI-driven decision-making. Used well, they can turn from-scratch content creation into structured editorial processes, with efficiency gains that can be significant.

However, applying this to real-world SEO work is where complexity sets in. A full technical SEO audit pulls from multiple data sources and environments β€” crawl data, browser-level diagnostics, and desktop tools.Β 

While parts can be automated, stitching everything together into a reliable, end-to-end workflow is difficult and often requires custom infrastructure, API work, and ongoing maintenance.

Even with platforms like N8N, full end-to-end automation of complex SEO tasks remains challenging. Simpler, checklist-style audits can be automated, but deeper, more technical work often needs to be simplified to fit automation β€” which isn’t advisable.

In practice, fully automating SEO at depth requires tradeoffs β€” which is why human expertise is still critical.

Dig deeper: AI agents in SEO: A practical workflow walkthrough

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AI tools are advancing β€” but not replacing SEOs

More recently, there’s been a wave of local AI applications that let you create your own β€œbrain” on a laptop or desktop. These tools are often code editors with support for popular AI models, along with local structures for saving reusable skills, similar to Claude Projects or ChatGPT Custom GPTs.

Tools like Cursor and Claude Code allow you to connect models, generate code, and automate parts of workflows through prompts.

It’s possible to use these technologies to vibecode a system that automates a technical SEO audit. I attempted this. While the capability exists, building a system that matches the depth and quality of a manual audit could take months, especially when handling large volumes of data.

Initial issues included memory limitations, where AI struggled to retain both the data and its detailed instructions. In some cases, outputs were also misweighted β€” for example, flagging missing H1s as critical despite finding no instances.

These issues could be resolved over time, but they highlight that these tools aren’t automatic shortcuts. Making effective use of them still requires technical expertise, time, testing, and troubleshooting.

They lower the barrier to building AI-driven systems, but they don’t eliminate the need for technical expertise. They simply shift the work.

What would need to change for SEO to become obsolete

For SEO to become obsolete, AI would need to operate independently, reliably, and at scale β€” without human correction. Generative AI can only act with human input, and it struggles to differentiate between fact and fiction.

Some algorithms have reached their limits in terms of commercial viability. This is arguably why Google is trying to convince us that links are redundant before they truly are.

Consider AI as an evolution of algorithmic output. These systems can attempt to make analytical determinations based on input data. However, the idea that feeding AI more and more data is an unrestricted path to success is already running into significant limitations.

This doesn’t mean technical analysts are entirely safe. Humanity’s ambition for faster, more efficient insights will continue. Initially, AI will be seen as the solution to everything. If one AI falls short, another can critique its results.

However, AI requires significant processing power. The real challenge will be finding the balance between AI and simpler algorithms. Algorithms should handle basic tasks, while AI should be used for analysis and insights.

This balance between AI and algorithmic efficiency is still years β€” perhaps decades β€” away. Only then will AI truly test SEO professionals and create the potential for redundancies.

AI’s learning is hindered by the web’s misinformation, providing SEO professionals with temporary insulation. This advantage won’t last forever, but it offers a valuable head start.

Dig deeper: How AI will affect the future of search

AI adoption won’t make SEO obsolete overnight

There are also limitations tied to how society adopts AI. Many technological innovations β€” like the internet and the calculator β€” were initially considered β€œcheating.”

Calculators were banned from exam rooms, and the internet was seen as a shortcut compared to traditional research. Yet those perceptions didn’t last.

Most technologies, despite rapid advancement, aren’t adopted quickly due to cost and social factors. We value human perspective and often resist tools that threaten how we think or work.

The main barrier to AI replacing us is how we perceive it. As long as it’s seen as a threat to our ability to provide, it won’t fully replace human roles. That perception, however, will change over time.

As these technologies become normalized, adoption will follow. Governments will adapt, and expectations around human creativity will continue to evolve.

Algorithms and Google didn’t end human interaction on the web, and AI won’t eliminate contributions from people. In the medium to long term, adaptation is inevitable.

SEO and AI: Technical expertise still matters

  • AI integration with SEO: Contrary to fears, AI won’t make SEO obsolete. Instead, it will reshape how SEO is practiced. AI can automate routine tasks like generating product descriptions and alt text, but its effectiveness still depends on precise, technically sound input.
  • Importance of technical expertise: The ability to craft detailed, technically sound prompts is becoming more valuable. This ensures AI tools are used effectively and reinforces the role of experienced SEO professionals.
  • Data sensitivity in AI performance: AI performance varies significantly depending on the data it processes. Systems using curated datasets behave differently from those relying on open web data. This highlights the importance of data strategy and structured oversight.
  • Evolving roles in SEO: As AI advances, SEO roles are shifting. Professionals are more likely to focus on managing AI systems and refining outputs rather than being replaced by them.
  • Societal acceptance and adaptation: Widespread adoption of AI in SEO depends on how quickly society embraces these tools. As normalization and regulation evolve, so will the role of SEO professionals.
  • Future outlook: Despite AI’s capabilities, the creative, strategic, and complex aspects of SEO still require human insight. The future of SEO is a collaboration between human expertise and machine efficiency.

Dig deeper: How to start an SEO program from scratch in the AI age

Cloudflare CEO: Bots could overtake human web usage by 2027

AI vs human internet traffic

AI bots could outnumber humans on the web by 2027, according to Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, as agent-driven browsing explodes alongside generative AI adoption.

  • Prince made the prediction at SXSW, warning that bots are already reshaping how the internet is used β€” and how it’s monetized.

Why we care. Search is shifting from human clicks to AI-generated answers. If bots become the web’s primary β€œusers,” you’ll need to reshape your strategy to ensure AI systems can access, trust, and use your content.

The details. Prince said AI agents generate far more web activity than humans because they gather information differently. A person shopping might visit five sites. An AI agent could hit thousands.

  • β€œIf a human were doing a task… you might go to five websites. Your agent… will often go to a thousand times the number of sites.”
  • β€œSo it might go to 5,000 sites. And that’s real traffic, and that’s real load.”

He also noted the web’s baseline is shifting fast.

  • β€œFor a long time, the internet was about 20% bot traffic.”
  • β€œWe suspect that in 2027 the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic.”

Prince said this growth isn’t spiking like COVID-era traffic. It’s rising steadily with no end in sight.

Between the lines. Prince compared AI to past shifts like mobile and social. The difference: users may no longer visit websites directly. Instead, they rely on AI interfaces that aggregate and answer.

  • β€œThe business model of the internet was… create content, drive traffic, and then sell things… That was the business model.”
  • β€œThat breaks down because… bots don’t click on ads.”
  • β€œCustomers are trusting the output from the helpful robot. They’re not clicking through the footnotes.”

AI sandboxes. AI agents also change how computing works behind the scenes. Prince described a future where β€œsandboxes” β€” temporary environments for AI agents β€” spin up and shut down instantly, potentially millions of times per second.

  • β€œYou can… as easily as you open a new tab in your browser… spin up new code which can then run and service the agents.”
  • β€œWe think that there will be literally millions of times a second these sort of sandboxes… being created… and then torn back down.”

The result: sustained pressure on internet infrastructure.

  • β€œWe’re seeing internet traffic grow and grow and grow. And we don’t see anything that’s going to slow it down or stop it.”

The business impact. Companies are already split on how to respond to AI agents. Prince pointed to diverging strategies across major retailers.

  • β€œThere are three radically different strategies about how they are going to interact with the bots.”

At the core is a bigger risk: losing the customer relationship.

  • β€œThe nature of bots is going to be that it disintermediates the relationship between you and your customer.”
  • β€œAgents… don’t care about brand.”

For publishers. Prince argued AI could both hurt and help media. While AI reduces direct traffic and breaks ad-based models, AI companies need unique, original data β€” especially local and hard-to-replicate information β€” and may pay for it.

  • β€œTraffic has always been a really bad proxy for value.”
  • β€œWhat they actually want is… unique local interesting information they can’t get elsewhere.”

He pointed to local media as an example.

  • β€œIf you don’t have the Park Record, then you don’t get that information.”
  • β€œWe may make more off licensing our content to AI companies than we do off digital advertising.”

For small businesses. Prince was more blunt. AI agents optimize for price, quality and efficiency β€” not brand loyalty or proximity.

  • β€œMy bot doesn’t care.”
  • β€œMy bot is going to figure out actually who is the best… and route that traffic.”

That could erode traditional advantages.

  • β€œThe shortcuts of trust that small business had in the past… are going to be much more difficult.”
  • β€œThe natural tendency of AI is towards that level of aggregation.”

What to watch. The next phase of the web will hinge on control and compensation. Prince said:

  • β€œThere has to be some exchange of value.”
  • β€œWe’ve got to figure out… what’s going to pay for it.”

Prince said the core question is still unresolved:

  • β€œWhat is the future business model of the internet?… I don’t know what it’s going to be, but it’s going to change.”

The SXSW interview. The Internet After Search

πŸ’Ύ

Matthew Prince says AI bots could soon surpass humans, driving massive traffic surges, breaking ad models, and reshaping search.

SEO’s new battleground: Winning the consensus layer

SEO's new battleground- Winning the consensus layer

You could be ranking in Position 1 and still be completely invisible.

I know that sounds counterintuitive. But here’s what’s actually happening:

A potential customer opens ChatGPT or Perplexity and asks, β€œWhat’s the best [tool/agency/platform] for [your category]?” Your competitor gets mentioned. You don’t. Your No. 1 ranking did absolutely nothing to help you.

This is the new SEO reality, and it’s catching many smart marketers off guard.

LLMs synthesize consensus across multiple sources, rather than relying on a single source. This means you need corroborating mentions distributed across the web. The game has shifted from ranking to consensus, and if you don’t understand that difference, you’re already losing ground.

Let me break down what’s actually happening and, more importantly, what you can do about it.

From rankings to consensus: What changed and why

Traditional SEO had a clear logic: rank high, get clicks, drive traffic. In this retrieval-based system, Google found pages and users chose which ones to visit.

AI-driven search doesn’t work that way. Systems like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are now constructing answers. They pull from dozens of sources, identify which claims appear consistently across credible publishers, and synthesize a single response.Β 

The data backs up just how significant this shift is: organic CTRs for queries featuring AI Overviews have dropped 61% since mid-2024. Even on queries without AI Overviews, organic CTRs fell 41%. Users are simply clicking less, everywhere.

The technical engine behind this is retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). The AI retrieves content from across the web, gathers potentially dozens of sources, identifies the claims that repeat most consistently across credible publishers, and generates a response based on that consensus.

Your goal isn’t just to publish a great page. It’s to be one of those sources. Repeatedly.

What the consensus layer actually is

Think of the consensus layer as the degree to which multiple AI systems produce consistent, repeatable outputs about your brand. It’s about pattern recognition at scale.

When AI systems encounter your brand described the same way across multiple credible sources, in the same category, with the same expertise, and with the same problems you solve, they build confidence. When they don’t see that pattern? You become a statistical outlier, and outliers get filtered out.

This happens because AI systems are engineered to prevent hallucinations. Their primary defense is corroboration: if multiple independent sources say the same thing, the AI assigns higher confidence to that claim. If only one source says it, the AI can become cautious or ignore it entirely.

This creates a rule most marketers haven’t fully internalized yet: isolated authority isn’t enough. You need distributed credibility.

I’ve seen this firsthand. A client ranking first for a competitive keyword, with solid traffic and strong domain authority, was invisible across ChatGPT. Why? Because that page existed in isolation. No corroboration, no distributed mentions, no external validation.Β 

As Will Scott wrote: β€œBrands aren’t losing visibility because they dropped from position three to seven. They’re losing it because they were never cited in the AI answer at all.”

Dig deeper: The infinite tail: When search demand moves beyond keywords

The signals that actually build consensus

So what signals do AI systems actually use? Here’s where to focus your energy.

Traditional authority is table stakes, not a finish line

Backlinks, domain authority, and topical depth remain foundational. But they’re no longer sufficient on their own. They get you in the game; consensus is what wins it.

Unlinked brand mentions matter more than most marketers realize

AI systems scan the web for brand references, even when those mentions aren’t linked. Unlinked mentions are growing in importance as signals for both traditional search and AI visibility. A mention in an industry publication with no link is still a consensus signal.

Nearly 9 out of 10 webpages cited by ChatGPT appear outside the top 20 organic results for the same queries, per a Semrush study. This tells you everything you need to know about how different this game is.

Publisher diversity signals broader credibility

Being mentioned repeatedly on the same domain doesn’t build consensus. Being mentioned across a range of credible, independent publishers does.

Diversity tells AI systems your authority isn’t contained to one corner of the web. It’s recognized broadly across your industry.

Community platforms are consensus gold

Reddit, Quora, and niche forums are becoming major consensus signals. AI systems increasingly pull from community discussions because they represent real user opinions and experiences.Β 

With Reddit dominating the SERPs, positive brand mentions in relevant subreddits contribute meaningfully to how AI systems perceive you. You can’t fake your way into genuine community trust, you have to earn it.

Entity clarity makes retrieval easier

Search engines use knowledge graphs to understand entities and how they relate to each other. If your brand is inconsistently described across platforms or your category is ambiguous, AI systems struggle to incorporate you into their answers.Β 

Structured data, schema markup, and JSON-LD are critical here. Google has explicitly stated that β€œstructured data is critical for modern search engines.” The clearer your entity profile, the easier it is for AI to retrieve and cite you.

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.


How to actually build consensus

Alright, let’s get tactical. Before you start building, you need to know where you stand.

Start with an LLM audit

Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, and start asking questions the way your customers would.Β 

  • β€œWhat’s the best [tool/service] for [problem you solve]?” 
  • β€œWho are the leading [your category] providers?” 
  • β€œWhat do people say about [your brand name]?”

Pay attention to three things:Β 

  • Is your brand mentioned at all?Β 
  • If it is, is the information accurate and up to date?Β 
  • How are you being described relative to competitors?Β 

You may find outdated information, missing context, or, worse, a competitor owning the narrative in your category entirely.

This audit becomes your baseline. It tells you what gaps to close, what misinformation to correct, and where your consensus footprint is weakest. Only once you know that, should you start building.

Establish your owned media foundation

Your site needs to be technically sound and semantically clear. Use structured data. Establish explicit entity definitions, who you are, what you do, and what problems you solve. Reinforce those same entities and relationships across multiple pages within your site.Β 

Topic clusters, pillar pages supported by related subtopic content, create semantic reinforcement that signals depth and expertise. Without a strong foundation, nothing else sticks.

Treat earned media as consensus amplification

Press coverage, guest posts, podcast appearances, and expert citations distribute your authority across the web. More than links, digital PR is now about narrative control.Β 

One placement won’t move the needle. A sustained, coordinated presence across trusted publications will. Monitor your brand-to-links ratio, unlinked mentions alongside traditional link building is now the balanced strategy to pursue.

Publish original research

This is the highest-leverage consensus tactic most brands are underinvesting in.Β When you create genuinely novel data, an industry benchmark, a proprietary survey, original research, other publishers reference it naturally, journalists cite it, and AI systems incorporate it into answers. Establish yourself as the source for benchmark data in your niche, and you’ll earn citations for years.

Invest in expert-led content

AI systems are trained on vast amounts of text, including articles, research, and interviews. When your team members are consistently positioned as recognized experts, quoted in articles, cited in reports, and contributing bylined pieces, they become recognized entities that AI systems trust. Optimize author profiles with structured data, consistent bylines, and entity markup to reinforce this.

Participate genuinely in communities

This doesn’t mean dropping links in Reddit threads. It means answering questions, contributing knowledge, and building a reputation where your audience already hangs out.Β 

When users recommend your brand organically because they find it genuinely valuable, that’s your strongest consensus signal.

Dig deeper: Why surface-level SEO tactics won’t build lasting AI search visibility

Measuring what actually matters now

Traditional rankings tell you where you stand in search results. They don’t tell you whether AI systems are citing you. You need new metrics, and as more SEOs are recognizing, success metrics are shifting from clicks and traffic to visibility and share of voice.

Start by systematically testing high-value queries across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Note when your brand appears, how it’s described, and which sources get cited alongside you.Β 

Track share of voice in AI responses, how often your brand gets mentioned relative to competitors in AI-generated answers. If competitors are consistently appearing and you’re not, you’re losing the consensus battle regardless of how your rankings look.

Also monitor cross-domain mention density (how many unique domains reference your brand) and entity co-occurrence (how often your brand appears alongside relevant topics, competitors, and concepts). These give you a real picture of your consensus footprint and where the gaps are.

The new SEO playbook

The brands winning in AI-driven search aren’t necessarily the ones with the best content or the highest domain authority. They’re the ones building distributed credibility, authority that appears consistently across owned media, earned media, and community platforms.

As Google’s Danny Sullivan said, β€œGood SEO is good GEO.” The fundamentals haven’t disappeared, but they’re now table stakes, not differentiators. The new formula is: authority + consensus + distribution.

Integrate SEO, digital PR, and community engagement into one cohesive strategy. Building a distributed network of authority, mentions, citations, and community validation that takes time to construct, and is nearly impossible for competitors to dismantle overnight.

That’s the visibility moat worth building, and the clock is ticking.

Dig deeper: Content alone isn’t enough: Why SEO now requires distribution

'I'm Batman': I tested the RayNeo Air 4 Pro Batman Justice Edition - the theme is unapologetically fun and the HDR10 and B&O audio experience is surprisingly good

The RayNeo Air 4 Pro Batman Justice Edition is a limited collector's variant of RayNeo's latest display glasses. Essentially adding a clip-on Batman mask and themed packaging to the existing hardware that delivers HDR10, Bang & Olufsen audio, and a 201-inch virtual screen.

The UK doesn't want to force you to have a digital ID β€” but a 'trust me bro' approach won't make the cut

The new voluntary approach to UK digital IDs is a welcome change. But is it enough to ensure our most sensitive data remains private, secured, and free from abuse? The government wants to hear your say.

(PR) GMKtec Updates NucBox K13 with Dual OS Support and OpenClaw Integration

GMKtec today announced a major feature update to its flagship mini PC, the NucBox K13β€”Ultra-Integrated Workstation, introducing two powerful new capabilities: Windows + Ubuntu dual boot and OpenClaw pre-installation (or one-click setup). These enhancements further position the K13 as a versatile, AI-ready platform for developers, creators, and power users worldwide. With growing demand for flexible computing environments and local AI deployment, the NucBox K13 now delivers a seamless experience across operating systems while simplifying access to cutting-edge AI tools.

SteamOS 3.8 Preview Brings Initial Support for Steam Machine

Valve has just introduced a preview of its SteamOS 3.8 operating system, designed for the Steam Deck and other upcoming hardware. This version marks a significant step toward enabling the future Steam Machine, as the SteamOS 3.8 preview build includes initial support for it. This update comes with a host of improvements, such as better support for third-party handhelds, reduced input latency of handheld controllers, optimized graphics drivers with performance and stability fixes, a new KDE desktop environment build, and support for a wider range of Intel and AMD SoCs. For the upcoming Steam Machine, we anticipate optimizations for a semi-custom six-core AMD "Zen 4" processor with 28 compute units of RDNA 3 graphics. Valve claims the PC can achieve 4K gaming at 60 FPS with ray tracing and FSR support. It features 16 GB of DDR5 system memory and 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, powering a semi-custom GPU that may be closer to AMD's RDNA 3.5 than pure RDNA 3.
A complete changelog of added features follows.

Crimson Desert Lacks Intel Arc Support, Developer Tells Arc Gamers to Seek Refunds for the Game

Gamers with Intel Arc GPUs hoping to have a go at Crimson Desert are in for a rude surprise. Its developer, Pearl Abyss, stated that the game does not support Intel Arc graphics cards. What this means in practice, is that the developer will not fix any bugs or issues arising from trying to play the game on Arc GPUs. While apologizing for the inconvenience caused, Pearl Abyss, in an FAQ entry, said that gamers who bought the game expecting Intel Arc support should try to seek refunds for the game. To date, AMD and NVIDIA have released GPU drivers with optimization for Crimson Desert. AMD's Adrenalin 26.3.1 WHQL and NVIDIA's GeForce 595.79 WHQL include day-zero optimization for the game. The game also leverages several AMD-exclusive gaming technologies, including FSR 4.1 upscaling, and ray regeneration.

(PR) MAINGEAR Drops Custom Crimson Desert Limited Edition PC

MAINGEAR, the leader in premium-quality, high-performance gaming PCs, today announced the official launch of its Rush Crimson Desert Limited Edition PC: a hand-built collector's collab aligned with today's launch of Crimson Desert, Pearl Abyss's open-world action-adventure set across the brutal continent of Pywel. Only 30 units will ever be produced. Orders close April 2, or when the 30th system is sold, whichever comes first.

Crimson Desert is one of the most anticipated open-world titles of 2026, and MAINGEAR crafted a system worthy of this moment. At the center of this collaboration is the Crimson Desert AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, the Sapphire Nitro+ limited edition GPU featuring a design inspired by the game's visual identity, and the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU, the world's fastest gaming processor, for a build that can handle everything Pywel throws at it: massive open landscapes, dynamic lighting, large-scale faction battles, and cinematic boss encounters, all without compromise.

Competitor Analyzer – Analyze competitors' social media for AI-driven insights


Competitor Analyzer helps marketers track and analyze competitors' social media across Facebook, Instagram, and X. You can use a unified dashboard to compare engagement rates, content performance, posting frequency, and audience growth over time. Monitor trends with historical data and receive AI-powered insights and alerts that surface actionable opportunities while maintaining secure data controls.

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Adobe to shut down Marketo Engage SEO tool

Adobe logo

Adobe will shut down the SEO feature in Marketo Engage at the end of March 2026, according to its February 2026 release notes.

The tool will be deprecated on March 31, and you must export any existing SEO data before then. (This page includes links to the export instructions.) The SEO tile will be removed from the platform on April 1.

What happened?

Adobe’s Keith Gluck said deprecating low-use features lets the Marketo Engage team focus on other areas of the platform. For your SEO needs, Adobe announced in 2025 that it was acquiring Semrush, a full-featured SEO and visibility tool. (Reminder: Semrush owns Third Door Media, the publisher of Search Engine Land.)

The deprecation came as no surprise if you follow Marketo news closely. Reports suggest few people fully configured the SEO tool, and its features didn’t seem to be a priority for the Marketo Engage product team in recent years.

With LLMs rapidly changing the search landscape, it was time to say goodbye. The arrival of Semrush into the Adobe family provided the perfect opportunity.

Why your law firm’s best leads don’t convert after research

Why your law firm’s best leads don’t convert after research

If your law firm’s referrals aren’t converting, validation may be the problem.

Referred prospects don’t go straight from recommendation to contact. They research, compare, and verify what they were told β€” on your website, in search results, and through AI tools.

These are your highest-value leads β€” pre-sold through trusted recommendations and expected to be your easiest conversions. But when that validation falls short, even they lose momentum.Β 

This is the referral validation gap: the moments during online research when trust is broken rather than built. Here’s where referral validation fails and how to fix it.

While this article focuses on law firms, the same dynamics apply to any referral-based business.

The four types of referral validation failure

Referral loss follows predictable patterns β€” and once you can spot them, you can fix them.

  • Credibility gaps: When your digital presence doesn’t match the expectations set by the referral.
  • Specificity gaps: When your content doesn’t reflect the specific problem the prospect was referred for.
  • Authority gaps: When third-party or AI validation fails to confirm your expertise.
  • Friction gaps: When prospects are ready to act but encounter unnecessary barriers to conversion.

1. Credibility gaps

In under three seconds, a website visitor forms a first impression. If your site doesn’t immediately validate what the referrer said about you β€” if it looks outdated, generic, or fails to showcase the specific expertise they praised β€” that trust becomes conditional.

A referred prospect arrives expecting professionalism, confidence, and authority, only to encounter uncertainty. Thin attorney bios, generic claims (β€œexperienced,” β€œtrusted,” β€œresults-driven”) without proof, or outdated design can all create hesitation.

The referral earned you consideration. Your digital presence determines what happens next.

The prospect’s reaction is simple: This doesn’t look like what I was expecting. That moment of doubt is often enough to end the process.

What you can do about it

Implement practice area-specific landing pages with targeted H1s, schema markup for your specialties, and prominent visual trust signals (credentials, case results, awards) above the fold. Ensure mobile page speed stays under two seconds with Core Web Vitals optimization.

2. Specificity gapsΒ 

Referrals are almost always problem-specific. The website they’re referred to rarely is.

Imagine a prospect referred for a complex custody dispute lands on a homepage about β€œfamily law.” A business owner referred for a ground lease negotiation sees β€œcommercial real estate services.”

Nothing is technically wrong. But nothing confirms the recommendation. When a site fails to mirror the exact issue that prompted the referral, the prospect starts to question it: Does this firm actually specialize in my problem, or was the referral overstated?

At the same time, prospects are actively looking for proof β€” case results, credentials, relevant experience. If that evidence is buried, disconnected, or requires more than two clicks to find, momentum drops quickly.

What you can do about it

Create practice area-specific case study pages with structured data markup. Implement FAQ schema tied to common referral scenarios. Ensure content directly reflects the search intent behind the referral, and use internal linking to guide visitors from homepage β†’ specific expertise β†’ proof points within two clicks.

3. Authority gaps

Referral prospects are asking questions like: β€œIs this firm actually good at complex custody cases?” or β€œDo they have experience with ground lease negotiations in New York?” β€” increasingly through AI search tools.

If AI tools can’t find credible, structured information on your site to validate the referral, they won’t confirm it. And if competitors provide clearer answers, those are the sources AI will surface. This creates an immediate form of negative validation. The prospect starts to question the recommendation: If they’re so good, why aren’t they showing up here?

If a competitor has invested in content that’s structured for citation, the AI will quote them, reference their work, and position them as the authority, even though the prospect came to you through a trusted referral. You can’t claim authority. AI systems will either confirm or contradict it.

What to do about it

Forward-thinking firms are now monitoring a new metric: AI search share of voice β€” the percentage of relevant AI-generated answers that mention or cite your firm compared to competitors. Start by:

  • Identifying the 10-15 questions prospects most commonly ask about your practice areas.
  • Running those queries regularly through ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
  • Documenting which firms appear, how often, and in what context.
  • Tracking whether you’re cited as a source, mentioned, or absent entirely.

If your firm’s content, credentials, and case results aren’t structured for AI parsing and citation, you’re invisible in these crucial validation moments regardless of how strong the initial referral was. Once you’ve identified where your competitors are outperforming you, create in-depth topic clusters around your specialties, and build authoritative content that answers the questions prospects ask AI tools.Β 

4. Friction gaps

Friction gaps occur after trust has already been established, but conversion still hasn’t happened. Common examples include:

  • No obvious next step above the fold.
  • Forms that are difficult to complete on mobile.
  • No immediate way to call, text, or book.

At this stage, prospects are ready to act. But any delay introduces doubt and gives them time to reconsider or move on. You’ve earned the referral. Your site validated your expertise. The prospect is ready to hire you β€” but can’t quickly figure out how to take the next step.

This is the final failure point in the referral validation gap: when a motivated, pre-sold prospect abandons because the conversion path is unclear, inconvenient, or unnecessarily complicated. You need to remove every obstacle between β€œI want to hire this firm” and β€œI’ve made contact.”

What to do about it

A referred prospect should be able to answer these questions within three seconds of landing on any page:

  • How do I contact this firm right now?
  • What happens when I do?
  • Is this going to be easy or painful?

Test it yourself: open your site on your phone and start a timer. Can you initiate contact within a few seconds without scrolling? Try it from a homepage, attorney bio, and practice area page. If the answer is no, you’re losing prospects at the finish line.

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Your roadmap to close the referral validation gap

Closing the referral validation gap doesn’t require a complete digital overhaul on day one. Strategic, phased implementation will allow you to see quick wins while building toward comprehensive optimization. Let’s look at the steps you can take.

Quick wins: Remove immediate friction

These are some changes that require minimal investment but can immediately reduce referral abandonment:

  • Adding a prominent click-to-call button in mobile header (and ensuring that it’s visible without scrolling).
  • Testing form completion on mobile devices and reducing any fields to essential only.
  • Ensuring page load speed under two seconds on mobile (test via PageSpeed Insights).
  • Verifying that β€œContact Us” is visible on every page without scrolling.
  • Adding a secondary CTA option (for example, many prospects prefer β€œSchedule Consultation” over β€œContact”).
  • Testing that your firm’s phone number is clickable on mobile across entire site.

Medium-term: Build validation infrastructure

These initiatives can require more investment but, over time, can generate a sustainable competitive advantage:

  • Creating dedicated landing pages for each significant practice area.
  • Structuring each page with: a specific H1 tag, a detailed service description, any relevant credentials, relevant case results, an FAQ section, and a clear CTA.
  • Implementing schema markup (e.g., LegalService, Attorney, and FAQPage) on each landing page.
  • Building out an internal linking strategy that guides visitors from homepage β†’ specific expertise β†’ proof points in two clicks maximum.
  • Developing 3-5 detailed case studies per practice area (these can be anonymized where required).
  • Writing blog posts that address the specific questions prospects ask during the research phase.
  • Ensuring all content includes author attribution with credentials to build E-E-A-T signals.

Long-term: Dominate AI search validation

These strategic initiatives can position your firm for sustained advantage in an AI-driven search environment:

  • Creating entity-based content that AI models can parse and cite (e.g., detailed attorney bios, practice area guides, or legal topic explanations).
  • Developing topic clusters: pillar pages for major practice areas with supporting cluster content that addresses related queries.
  • Optimizing content for the natural language queries that prospects ask AI tools.
  • Building citation-worthy resources such as comprehensive guides, state-specific legal explanations, and process walkthroughs.
  • Identifying 15-20 high-value queries prospects use to validate referrals.
  • Monitoring how your firm appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview responses monthly.
  • Tracking competitor mentions and citation patterns.
  • Adjusting content strategy based on AI search visibility gaps.

But, most importantly, don’t let this roadmap overwhelm you. The firms that successfully close the referral validation gap don’t do it by accomplishing everything all at once. Instead, they start with a single, crucial decision: acknowledging that the gap exists. And then they take the first step to fix it.

Once you accept that your best leads are researching you β€” on your website and through AI tools β€” and making judgments based on what they find (or don’t find), your path forward for fixing that gap will become clear.

2026 is your firm’s inflection point

Prospects are getting their answers without ever visiting your website. The gap between digital presence and digital authority is widening β€” and for firms that wait, it becomes unbridgeable.

Closing the referral validation gap isn’t just about improving conversion rates. It means:

  • Capitalizing on your highest-value leads.
  • Reducing customer acquisition costs.
  • Building a compounding advantage.
  • Creating momentum in an AI-driven search environment.

Firms that master this will pull ahead. Those that don’t will watch their best leads slip away β€” one validation failure at a time.

A referral gets you consideration. Your digital presence determines what happens next. Closing the referral validation gap turns trust into conversion.

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Intel confirms that ARC A-series GPUs won’t get Precompiled Shader Distribution

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(PR) ASRock Launches PG27FFS2E / PG27FFS2E-W / PG27FFS1A Gaming Monitors

ASRock, the global leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, mini PCs, gaming monitors, power supply units and AIOs, today announced the launch of its latest Phantom Gaming monitors: PG27FFS2E, PG27FFS2E-W, and PG27FFS1A. These 27-inch FHD displays feature a 240 Hz refresh rate and 1 ms response time, delivering a smooth and responsive gaming experience. The PG27FFS2E-W introduces a stylish white design, adding a fresh and modern touch to desktop setups, while the PG27FFS2E and PG27FFS1A retain a classic black finish, offering a balance of performance and personal style.

Sleek Four-Side Slim Bezel Design for an Immersive Viewing Experience
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Dual Mode connectivity
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7 ways to use storytelling in a business blog

7 ways to use storytelling in a business blog

SEO has moved past shortcuts and quick wins. What drives results now isn’t just content β€” it’s content that earns attention, builds trust, and converts.Β 

Storytelling plays a direct role in that. Used well, it can improve engagement signals, strengthen relevance, and turn traffic into action.

Here are seven storytelling techniques to apply in your business blog.

7 storytelling techniques that drive engagement and conversions

Use these to shape how your content flows, from the opening hook to the final call to action.

1. Hook the readerΒ 

T.S. Eliot put it simply: β€œIf you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.”

Many modern authors recommend starting a story in the middle of the action and letting readers catch up. But how does that apply when you’re writing a B2B or B2C blog?

You can still hook your reader, just with different techniques:

  • Challenge a commonly held belief: β€œThe E-E-A-T model is flawed.”
  • Start with a narrative: It doesn’t have to be a literal β€œOnce upon a time.”
  • Use a statistic: β€œGoogle has 89.9% of search engine market share worldwide.”
  • Make a promise: β€œWould you like to write business blogs that drive organic traffic, and convert visitors to customers?”
  • Empathize with a reader’s problems: β€œDo you struggle with writing business content your customers would actually want to read?”
  • Use a quote that epitomizes what you want to say.

Don’t be afraid to combine these techniques in your blog posts. If you struggle with what to come up with, a success story is always a great way to begin a B2B blog. Empathizing with a reader’s issues, then promising a solution, works for both B2B and B2C blogs.

2. Make promises and deliver on them

Stories are full of foreshadowing: hints that something’s going to happen, language that immerses the reader in the genre, and elements that build suspense.

To get a reader excited about your blog, build suspense with the same techniques. Use phrases like β€œYou will learn…” or β€œYou will discover…,” tell them what you’re going to tell them, and use compelling language throughout.

This is particularly important the first time you mention a keyword. Why? Because regardless of what you write for a meta description, Google often ignores it and uses text from the page instead β€” most commonly where a keyword is first mentioned. If this is part of a promise stating what your article, product, or business solution will deliver, this will improve your CTR.

Dig deeper: 5 behavioral strategies to make your content more engaging

3. Talk to your reader directly

Fiction writers spend a lot of time debating whether to write in first person (I/me) or third person (they/he/she). You have the option of the second person (you), but don’t always take full advantage of it.

Using β€œyou” rather than β€œour” can make your content feel more direct and personal. Consider which of these resonates with you most strongly:

  • β€œWe help our customers to…”
  • β€œWe will help you to…”

While β€œyou” is important, another largely overlooked word is β€œmy,” at least when it comes to calls to action (CTAs). In a story, you imagine yourself as the hero. In a business blog, using β€œmy” evokes the same feeling β€” this action is meant for you. It won’t work for every CTA, so experiment with it, monitor the results, and you may be surprised by the outcome.

4. Kill your darlings

Authors are sometimes told to β€œkill your darlings,” meaning to remove extraneous characters or even whole chapters. Your blog must do the same. For each paragraph, ask yourself if it achieves one of the following:

  • Advances the argument: Not just repeats it, but moves it forward or introduces new elements.
  • Engages the reader: Keeps your reader wanting to know more by building empathy, using stories of success or failure, or clarifying your answer with engaging visuals.
  • Persuades the reader: Blogs primarily target top-of-funnel, informative content. However, as you answer readers’ questions and educate them, you can move further down the funnel and include content aimed at converting. This is where you add your CTAs β€” whether forms to download an in-depth guide, recommended products that solve a problem, or other CTAs.

If a paragraph doesn’t advance, engage, or persuade, ask yourself if you can delete it.

Dig deeper: How to align your SEO strategy with the stages of buyer intent

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5. Show don’t tell

If a potential customer relates to the problem you describe, you’re off to a good start. If they can imagine using your product or service, you’re halfway there.

Not every blog needs to present a solution. But if your blog convinces readers they need your solution, it will increase conversions.

  • Avoid being heavy-handed with commercial content.
  • Show both the pain your readers face and the solution to move them along the buying journey.

6. Consider a three-act structureΒ 

Author Jessica Brody puts it this way:

  • β€œAct 2 is the opposite of Act 1. If Act 1 is the thesis β€” the status quo world β€” then Act 2 is the upside-down version of that. The polar opposite. The inverse. The antithesis.”

To fully embrace storytelling in your blog, create a three-act story. Here’s one way you could achieve this:

  • Act 1: Introduce a widely used approach and begin by defining what it is and its strengths. Sow seeds of doubt by stating it can go horribly wrong, has flaws, or won’t work for everyone. Give an indication of what to expect in Acts 2 and 3.
  • Act 2:Β  Who does this approach fail for? What assumptions does it make that are inherently flawed? Give examples of when it fails. Include tales of misfortune, when using the approach went wrong. The middle of a story is often dark, and this is where your business blog turns bleak.
  • Act 3: What’s an alternative solution? Why does this fix the inherent flaws explored in Act 2? Give a real-life example where this solution succeeded, and give your story a happy ending.

Dig deeper: How to apply β€˜They Ask, You Answer’ to SEO and AI visibility

7. Edit your business blog

Even professional authors say some version of β€œYour first draft will suck.” Don’t expect perfection when you start writing. You have the luxury of revising your work.

Once you finish your first draft of your business blog, you know what you want to say, along with the structure and main points. Editing is where you decide how to say it.

  • What will appeal most to your audience?
  • What’s the best hook?
  • What CTA fits this post?

When you’ve finished editing, you’ll have a polished blog that tells a story, engages your reader, and generates conversions.

Content quality shows up in performance

These techniques make your content more effective, and their impact shows up in performance. Evaluate content using measurable outcomes to reduce subjectivity and ensure it supports your business goals.

As you experiment with storytelling in your business blog, measure:

  • Organic traffic
  • Keyword rankings
  • Click-through rate (CTR)
  • Time on page
  • Conversions

You can measure the first three in Google Search Console. You can measure the last two in Google Analytics. These metrics give you concrete data to compare content and assign financial value.

With experimentation, you won’t just tell a better story β€” you’ll drive measurable traffic and conversions.

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GIGABYTE Intros Z890 D Plus Motherboardβ€”Leanest Feature-set for a Z890-based Board

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Edunation is a digital platform that connects teachers, students, and parents while simplifying school operations. Schools manage classes, schedules, resources, assignments, grading, and attendance in one place, with messaging, announcements, and push notifications to keep everyone aligned. The platform supports analytics for data-driven decisions, fee plans and invoices, and secure consent management. Students get guided learning paths and progress tracking, while AI helps generate quizzes and assist grading.

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BillionVerify – Verify emails fast with 99.9% accuracy for AI and marketing workflows


BillionVerify provides an AI-native email verification API that delivers 99.9% SMTP-level accuracy in under 300 ms. It integrates with MCP for Claude and Cursor, LangChain, CrewAI, and leading marketing platforms. Use it to validate signups, clean prospect lists, and protect sender reputation with spam-trap, disposable, catch-all, and role-based detection. BillionVerify scales from real-time checks to bulk processing with 99.99% uptime and global coverage.

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AMD Releases Adrenalin Edition 26.3.1 WHQL Drivers

AMD has released Adrenalin Edition 26.3.1 WHQL, adding game support for Crimson Desert and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, along with FSR Upscaling 4.1 support for Radeon RX 9000 series cards. On the bug fix side, four issues are resolved: a Cyberpunk 2077 crash when loading a saved game with Path Tracing enabled, intermittent loss of mouse and keyboard input in-game and on the desktop when interacting with AMD Software, system crashes when repeatedly changing in-game settings or alt-tabbing on RX 7000 and above, and a failure to enable AMD Noise Suppression on RX 6000 and above.

A few known issues remain. Battlefield 6 still experiences intermittent crashes on Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 systems, texture flickering when AMD Record and Stream is active, and FSR Upscaling and Frame Generation showing as inactive on RX 9000 cards. Death Stranding 2 has intermittent crashes on RX 5000 series, and RoadCraft is also seeing crashes on RX 9000 products. AMD says it is working with developers on the Battlefield 6 issues.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 26.3.1 WHQL

NUVC – Get a VC-grade score, fix blockers, and match with thesis-fit investors


NUVC uses multiple AI agents to analyze your pitch deck in 60 seconds. It extracts key signals, scores you across five investment lenses with a NuScore visible to founders, prioritizes red flags, and stress-tests your financials. You get clear next steps and a path to fundability, plus matches to thesis-aligned investors when you hit the bar.

Calibrated on 180+ real VC memos and used by thousands of investors, NUVC keeps your deck private and encrypted and delivers a concise report with actionable fixes.

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Reinstated Unknown Worlds CEO Bashes Leaked Subnautica 2 May Early Access Launch Memo

It was recently revealed that Krafton was forced to reinstate Ted Gill, the formerly ousted CEO of Unknown Worlds, after a court ruling found that he was terminated without cause and improperly seized operational control of Unknown Worlds. Around the same time as that news broke, Steve Paputsis, Krafton's replacement for Ted Gill at Unknown Worlds, announced that Subnautica 2 was ready for a May Early Access launch in an internal memo that was subsequently leaked to IGN. Now, as reported by The Game File, Gill's lawyers have claimed that Papoutsis did not have the authority to send out that memo, since he was no longer in charge of Unknown Worlds at the time.

The legal team also speculated that the memo had been intentionally leaked to the press, since Unknown Worlds has yet to make an official public statement about the launch of Subnautica 2, effectively killing a lot of the game's momentum by damping the fanfare and marketing efforts that would usually go into such a big launch. In 2025, following the ousting of the original founders and executives at Unknown Worlds, It was alleged that Krafton was pushing to delay the launch of Subnautica in order to avoid paying the studio staff a $250 million bonus for launching the game on-time. Ultimately, Krafton ended up delaying Subnautica 2 to 2026, claiming that it needed "a little extra time" to respond to community feedback before the game launched.

Intel Arc Pro B70, B65 Battlemage GPUs To Launch March 25 With 32 GB ECC VRAM

Intel's Battlemage BGM-G31 GPUs have shown up in leaks and rumors before, although an exact launch date was previously unknown. Now, though, according to VideoCardz, Intel will launch the Arc B70 Pro and B65 Pro as early as March 25. The outlet claims that the information comes directly from Intel press packets, and that it confirms the base specifications for both the Arc B65 Pro and B70 Pro. The new workstation GPUs will apparently be available in both Intel-branded versions as well as third-party designs.

The leak also purports to confirm the previously leaked specifications of the B70 Pro and B65 Pro, which means the B70 Pro will have 32 Xe2 cores and 32 GB of ECC GDDR6 and a 256-bit memory bus with a 160-290 W TGP range. Intel's TBP for the reference design will be 230 W. The B65 Pro, on the other hand, will supposedly launch with the same VRAM configuration, but it will feature only 20 Xe2 cores, making it effectively a B60 Pro with more VRAM. The B65 Pro will also supposedly have a 200 W peak TGP.

UNTILL – Earn rewards for time spent offline and reclaim your attention


UNTILL is a social wellness and productivity app that rewards time spent offline. It gamifies and quantifies intentional unscreened activities, lets you stay connected with others, earn points, and uses positive reinforcement with social accountability to build healthier habits. The platform has no ads and is opt-in by design, giving you control over your time and data.

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Flowlines – Your AI agent is silently failing, Flowlines shows why and fixes it


Flowlines is an observability and memory layer for production AI agents. It helps teams understand why their agents fail and prevents the same mistakes from happening again. Flowlines captures every LLM call as structured traces and highlights issues like context loss, inconsistent behavior, and user frustration. It extracts structured memory from these interactions and feeds it back into your agent to improve performance over time. Install a lightweight SDK (Node.js or Python), monitor sessions in real time, and turn every interaction into persistent state your agent can use.

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AMD Software 26.3.1 arrives with FSR 4.1 and new game support

AMD’s FSR 4.1 upscaler is now available with AMD Software 25.6.1 With the release of AMD Software 26.3.1, the company has officially launched its FSR 4.1 ML upscaler. This new FSR release uses the same neural network foundation as Sony’s new/improved PSSR upscaler, which recently became available to PlayStation 5 Pro owners. This new driver […]

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Arctic's $1,400 AMD Strix Point fanless mini-PC hides under your desk β€” Senza AI 370 features Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU, 32GB RAM, and 1TB SSD

If you've been looking for a mini PC that goes beyond just decluttering your desk β€” one that basically doesn't even remind you of its existence, then Arctic has got just the thing for you. The new Senza AI 370 features a powerful AMD chip with a decent iGPU, 32 GB of fast RAM, a 1 TB SSD, and plenty of ports. It costs almost $1,400, though, but at least it's fanless.

River – Video call visitors instantly to qualify, sell, and book meetings


River puts an AI sales employee on your website who video calls visitors the moment they’re curious. It personalizes conversations by industry and role, answers product and pricing questions, handles objections, and speaks any language to convert interest into action.

River qualifies buyers, books meetings or closes deals on the spot, follows up with documents and next steps, logs every conversation, and only routes high-intent buyers to your team, helping you capture more pipeline without slow forms or follow-ups.

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Speagle Malware Hijacks Cobra DocGuard to Steal Data via Compromised Servers

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new malware dubbed Speagle that hijacks the functionality and infrastructure of a legitimate program called Cobra DocGuard. "Speagle is designed to surreptitiously harvest sensitive information from infected computers and transmit it to a Cobra DocGuard server that has been compromised by the attackers, masking the data exfiltration process as legitimate

Walmart: ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than website

ChatGPT Walmart

Walmart said conversion rates for purchases made directly inside ChatGPT were three times lower than when users clicked through to its website.

Why we care. This suggests agentic commerce isn’t ready to replace traditional shopping. Sending users to owned environments still drives higher conversion rates.

The details. Starting in November, Walmart offered about 200,000 products through OpenAI’s Instant Checkout. Users could complete purchases inside ChatGPT without visiting Walmart’s site.

  • Daniel Danker, Walmart’s EVP of product and design, said those in-chat purchases converted at one-third the rate of click-out transactions.
  • He called the experience β€œunsatisfying” and confirmed Walmart is moving away from it.

Goodbye, Instant Checkout. Instant Checkout was designed to let users complete purchases directly inside ChatGPT without visiting a retailer’s website. However, earlier this month, OpenAI confirmed it was phasing out Instant Checkout in favor of app-based checkout handled by merchants.

What’s changing. Walmart will embed its own chatbot, Sparky, inside ChatGPT. Users will log into Walmart, sync carts across platforms, and complete purchases within Walmart’s system.

  • A similar integration is coming to Google Gemini next month.

The WIRED report. Why Walmart and OpenAI Are Shaking Up Their Agentic Shopping Deal (subscription required)

MetaProvide – Add decentralized Swarm backups to Nextcloud


HejBit is a backup solution for Nextcloud that stores files on decentralized Swarm storage instead of a single server. Instead of relying on traditional cloud providers, it distributes encrypted data across the network, giving users another way to protect their files while keeping control over where they are stored.

We're currently running an early adopter program and looking for Nextcloud users who want to test decentralized backups in real environments. The goal is to gather feedback, improve the product, and better understand how decentralized storage fits into everyday Nextcloud setups.

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ClawStreet – AI agents analyze market data, trade, and manage portfolios autonomously


ClawStreet is a platform where autonomous AI agents reason, plan, and trade stocks with zero human intervention. Agents register themselves, analyze real market data with 15+ technical indicators (RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, etc.), and execute trades autonomously. It is built on the OpenClaw framework or lets you roll your own agentic workflow. Paper trading only, so there is no financial risk.

Compatible agents include OpenClaw, NemoClaw, NanoClaw, ZeroClaw, Nanobot, PicoClaw, Clearl, Cursor Automation, or you can build your own with any language or LLM.

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54 EDR Killers Use BYOVD to Exploit 35 Signed Vulnerable Drivers and Disable Security

A new analysis of endpoint detection and response (EDR) killers has revealed that 54 of them leverage a technique known as bring your own vulnerable driver (BYOVD) by abusing a total of 35 vulnerable drivers. EDR killer programs have been a common presence in ransomware intrusions as they offer a way for affiliates to neutralize security software before deploying file-encrypting malware. This

Nvidia GeForce Now gains a 90 FPS VR mode and several new games

Nvidia has upgraded GeForce Now with a 90 FPS VR mode and has added support for several new games Nvidia has upgraded its GeForce Now service for Ultimate Members, adding a new 90 FPS gameplay mode for users of VR headsets. This includes Apple’s Vision Pro, Meta Quest devices, and Pico devices. Users can create […]

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Intel Reportedly Readies a 10% Price Hike for Consumer CPUs

Intel has reportedly informed its major PC clients of a planned 10% price increase on its consumer CPUs. According to industry sources cited by ET News, this price hike will affect Intel's Core Ultra family of processors, which power hundreds of millions of PCs worldwide. As a result, PC OEMs may need to alleviate the increased material costs by promoting their AI PCs and premium devices more aggressively. To maintain positive margins, these OEMs will likely have to raise prices further and emphasize their higher-end AI PC offerings to capture better margins.

PC gamers have faced challenges over the past year, with memory and storage prices climbing rapidly, reaching exorbitant levels for simple RAM kits. The high demand from data centers has depleted memory and storage inventories months in advance. GPUs have also been affected, as gamers have struggled to purchase them at MSRP, instead facing inflated prices due to the shortage of GDDR memory (VRAM) used in these GPUs. Now, CPUs are joining this trend, with Intel targeting its consumer CPU sector first. This price increase will impact everything from pre-built systems and DIY PCs to laptops and other consumer CPU variants. For example, the 10% increase will significantly affect PC pricing, depending on the CPU's share of the bill of materials. We are waiting to see how these changes will affect popular retailers like MicroCenter, Amazon, Newegg, and others before drawing further conclusions.

Perplexity’s Comet for iOS uses Google Search by default

Google hybrid search

Perplexity’s new Comet browser for iOS defaults to Google Search. That’s because mobile queries often focus on navigation, local results, and transactions, where β€œGoogle does a much better job … than anyone else … including Perplexity,” according to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.

Comet for iOS. It includes Perplexity’s AI assistant directly in the browser. Comet for iOS also blends AI answers with standard search results. For many queries, you’ll still see a traditional results page.

  • You can ask questions by voice while browsing.
  • The assistant can summarize pages, answer questions, and take actions like drafting emails.
  • Deep Research features generate cited summaries and prep materials.

What Comet does. According to Perplexity, the assistant can act on your behalf. Examples include:

  • Summarizing articles and sharing outputs.
  • Researching people or topics across tabs.
  • Assisting with bookings or form fills.

What Perplexity is saying.

  • β€œThe search experience in Comet iOS provides traditional search results pages for fast, local, and high-intent queries that are more common on mobile. Meanwhile, the Comet Assistant easily allows for more advanced knowledge and intelligence powered by the Perplexity answer engine. The intention is for users to have the smoothest browsing experience possible for the real use cases of iOS.”

Why we care. The near future of search increasingly looks hybrid, which means you’ll need to optimize for traditional Google results and AI-driven answers. This also reinforces Google’s dominance in commercial and local search while shifting competition to the AI layer.

The announcement. Comet is Now available on iOS

Microsoft Advertising simplifies automated bidding setup

Microsoft Ads: How it compares to Google Ads and tips for getting started

Microsoft is changing how advertisers configure automated bidding, aiming to reduce complexity while keeping performance outcomes the same.

What’s happening. The platform is streamlining its bidding options by folding familiar targets like Target CPA and Target ROAS into broader automated strategies rather than standalone campaign settings.

Going forward, advertisers will choose between two core approaches: Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value, with optional targets layered on top.

Credit – Hana Kobzova of PPC News Feed

How it works. For conversion-focused campaigns, advertisers select Maximize Conversions and can optionally set a target CPA. For value-focused campaigns, they select Maximize Conversion Value and can optionally set a target ROAS.

Microsoft says the underlying bidding behavior has not changed β€” only the way advertisers configure it has been simplified.

Why we care. This update makes automated bidding simpler and more standardized, which lowers the barrier to using Microsoft Advertising’s performance tools at scale. By consolidating Target CPA and Target ROAS into broader strategies, it reduces setup complexity while still keeping key performance controls available as optional targets.

In practice, this means faster campaign setup, more consistent optimization behavior across accounts, and fewer structural differences between how advertisers manage conversion and value-based bidding.

What’s staying the same. Existing campaigns using Target CPA or Target ROAS will continue to run normally without any required updates. Portfolio bid strategies also remain unchanged.

The bigger picture. The change is part of a broader push to make automated bidding more accessible, reducing setup decisions while maintaining control over performance goals.

Bottom line. Microsoft is consolidating bidding options into simpler frameworks, keeping familiar optimization controls available but moving them into a more streamlined setup experience.

Google expands its Universal Commerce Protocol to power AI-driven shopping

What 23 tests reveal about AI Max performance in Google Ads

Google is doubling down on the infrastructure behind β€œagentic commerce,” introducing new capabilities to its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) while making it easier for retailers to plug in.

Google says UCP β€” its open standard for connecting retailers to AI-powered shopping experiences β€” is getting new features designed to make online buying feel more like a traditional storefront, even when handled by automated agents.

What’s new. The latest updates focus on making shopping via AI agents more functional and flexible.

  • A new cart capability allows agents to add or save multiple products from a single retailer in one go, mirroring how a typical shopper builds a basket.
  • There’s also a catalog feature, giving agents access to real-time product data such as pricing, inventory and variants when needed. The goal is to make interactions more accurate and responsive.
  • Another addition is identity linking. This lets shoppers carry over logged-in benefits β€” like member pricing or free shipping β€” when using platforms connected through UCP, rather than losing those perks outside a retailer’s own site.

Why we care. This update accelerates the shift toward AI-driven, agent-led shopping, where platforms like Search and the Google Gemini app may choose, compare and even purchase products on users’ behalf. That makes product data quality β€” pricing, inventory and feeds β€” very important for visibility, while simplified onboarding and support from platforms like Salesforce and Stripe suggest rapid adoption, giving early movers a competitive edge.

Zoom out. UCP is designed as a modular system. Retailers and platforms can choose which capabilities to adopt, rather than implementing everything at once.

That flexibility is key as the industry experiments with how much control to hand over to AI-driven shopping experiences.

What Google is doing. Google plans to bring these capabilities into its own ecosystem, including AI-powered experiences in Search and the Google Gemini app.

The company is also working to expand adoption by lowering the barrier to entry. A simplified onboarding process inside Merchant Center is expected to roll out over the coming months.

Bottom line. UCP is evolving from a concept into a broader ecosystem play. By adding more capabilities and simplifying onboarding, Google is pushing to make agent-driven commerce easier to adopt β€” and harder to ignore.

Crystal Dynamics Cuts 20 Workers in Yet Another Round of Layoffs

Around the same time as Ubisoft's latest round of layoffs see over 100 employees lose their jobs, Crystal Dynamics, the game studio behind Square Enix's recent Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, has announced that it will be laying off 20 employees across its development and operations teams. This is the fourth round of layoffs at the studio in the last year, and in a recent LinkedIn post announcing the layoffs, the studio explains that "we continuously take a hard look at our team structures to ensure they align with our long term studio goals," and calls the layoffs "necessary."

Some of the comments in the LinkedIn post are from affected employees, including an environment artist and a senior animator with 15 years of experience. Crystal Dynamics confirmed in the post that its "current projects" are heading into the next phases of development, and it reiterated that "Crystal Dynamics remains fully committed to the future development of our already announced Tomb Raider titles," suggesting that there have been no game cancellations as yet. Tomb Raider: Catalyst is slated for a 2027 cross-platform launch, but even Crystal Dynamics admits that layoffs like these "can cause concern amongst our community."

(PR) Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Now Available on PC

KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS, in collaboration with Nixxes Software, is proud to announce that DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH is now available on PC through the Steam and Epic Games Store. Watch the brand-new launch trailer, edited by Hideo Kojima, here.

In this standalone sequel, DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH offers a new range of tools, weapons and vehicles at Sam's disposal. With his companions from DRAWBRIDGE by his side, Sam takes on a new adventure to connect Australia to the Chiral network. Beset on all sides by enemies, Sam will have to shoot, sneak, and sprint his way out of trouble, as well as survive natural disasters such as earthquakes, sandstorms and forest fires, and brave the ruinous Timefall as he strives to save humanity from extinction once again. The Social Strand System returns, connecting players from around the globe allowing you to shape someone else's world, and have their actions shape yours.

Apple Delivers More Timely Security Updates for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

Apple has designed a new framework to keep its operating systems secure and up to date with modern protection technology without relying on major OS updates for essential security improvements. Called Background Security Improvements, this framework spans all of the company's operating systems that power iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers, used by hundreds of millions of users globally. For example, whenever a security issue arises in the Safari browser, WebKit framework, or any other software with an internet-first connection, security becomes the top priority. Instead of waiting to bundle these security updates with a new version of an operating system, Apple provides ongoing patches between major updates to address any security issues.

The company is gradually enhancing the quality of life on its platforms, and this is another significant step forward. Background Security Improvements begin with iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, and will continue with future versions of these operating systems across supported devices. Interestingly, Apple also publishes Background Security Improvements by date, component patched, and CVE number, so you can understand what the update addresses, why it was necessary, and have peace of mind that your OS remains safe from the growing number of online exploits targeting unpatched systems.

(PR) High Fantasy RPG; Higher Replay Value: Valor of Man Is Now Available on PC

Today, the tactical roguelite RPG Valor of Man, developed by Legacy Forge and published by Numskull Games, launches on PC via Steam. Valor of Man combines tactical turn-based CRPG combat with the popular roguelite format to deliver a unique replay experience filled with meaningful choices and tactical complexity. With this 1.0 launch, the game introduces two new systems: Chaos Mode and Masteries.

In Chaos Mode, players can select from unlockable modifiers to create their own difficulty, allowing for more challenging or accessible experiences. Masteries are a collector's dream; the menu shows players which items, abilities, conditions and artifacts they've successfully beaten a run with, adding a meaningful long-term measure of achievement for all skill levels.

Ubisoft's Cost Cutting Continues With 105 Jobs Cut as Red Storm Relegated to Support Studio

Red Storm Entertainment, the long-standing game studio that previously worked on titles in the Tom Clancy, Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six franchises, has been officially transitioned to a support-only studio by Ubisoft. Red Storm had been working on The Division Heartland until that was cancelled in 2024, even after having been through a number of playtests. According to sources who spoke to GameIndustry.biz, Ubisoft will lay off as many as 105 workers at Red Storm, while the remaining staff will be dedicated to supporting Ubisoft's other studios in IT, customer relations, and development work on the Snowdrop engine.

The layoffs come after Ubisoft announced its recent cost-cutting measures and studio restructure, which would see the gaming giant reorganized into five "creative houses," all individually responsible and accountable for the games and properties under their management. The ensuing changes and announced cost-cutting measures, which aimed to save €200 million over two years, have already resulted in a number of layoffs at other studios and a massive strike across Ubisoft's international locations.

Save $350 on the cheapest RTX 5070 Ti laptop with an OLED display β€” Acer's excellent Predator Helios Neo 16S AI with 32GB of RAM is just $1,549 right now

Powerful laptops with impressive specs are often overpriced and only make sense when on sale. Thankfully, Acer has put its Helios Neo 16S AI with an RTX 5070 Ti, 32 GB of RAM, 240 Hz OLED display, and a Core Ultra 9 275HX processor on a steep discount. It's the best Windows laptop you can likely find at this price.

US trade deficit hits a record $1.2 trillion as AI hardware imports surge under the Trump administration β€” massive demand for chips from Asia outpaces domestic production, fueling a 60% increase in imports in 12 months

AI-related imports across the computing and electronics sector have led to a big increase in the U.S. trade deficit, hitting a record $1.2 trillion in 2025, despite efforts from the Trump administration to reduce the gap.

Demi – Superhuman for Slack


Demi turns Slack into a command center. It auto-drafts customer replies from your team’s Slack history, surfaces answers before you need them, and delivers morning briefings and channel digests so sales and support stay on top of what matters. Connect it to your Slack workspace to search past threads, docs, and decisions, then review and send customer-ready responses without pinging engineering. Demi helps your team cut through noise and focus on closing deals while protecting your data.

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HeyDriver – Scan a QR sticker on a car or luggage to message its owner - anonymously.


HeyDriver is a privacy-first QR code communication tool. Generate a unique QR sticker for your car, luggage, keychain, or wallet. When someone scans it, they can instantly send you a message β€” delivered to your email, no personal info exchanged, no app needed.

Lost luggage at the airport? Blocked driveway? Found someone's keys? Just scan and type. Currently in beta β€” join the waitlist at heydriver.app and get a free Premium account.

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CISA urges companies to secure Microsoft Intune systems after hackers mass-wipe Stryker devices

The U.S. cybersecurity agency urged companies to prevent access to systems used for remotely managing their fleets of employee devices after hackers broke into a major U.S. medical tech giant and remotely wiped thousands of phones and computers.

Intel launches Precompiled Shader Delivery with its ARC GPUs

o Intel launches its Precompiled Shader Beta for ARC graphics cards With its Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8626 for ARC graphics cards, Intel has launched its Precompiled Shader Distribution Beta. With this beta, users of ARC B-series (Battlemage) GPUs and Intel Core Ultra 3-series and 2-series CPUs with built-in ARC GPUs can benefit from precompiled shaders […]

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Arctic Launches Senza AI 370 Fanless PC With Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and 32 GB of RAM

Arctic has announced the updated version of its fanless Senza PC with updated internals, connectivity, and a more flexible design. The Senza AI 370 uses a familiar fanless design, with the heatsink integrated into the case of what would otherwise effectively be a mini PC, but now features the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU and its corresponding AMD Radeon 890M iGPU. That somewhat powerful iGPU in a silent form factor is the biggest differentiator compared to other desktops, but the Senza AI 370 is also designed to fit under a desk, virtually eliminating the need for the PC to be small in the first place. According to the Arctic online store, the Senza AI 370 retails for €1,199.99, and there are no optional barebones kits available.

Arctic markets the Senza as a silent gaming and productivity machine and claims that it can operate at temperatures as low as 50Β° in gaming workloadsβ€”although there were no specifics on the ambient temperature or the exact games and settings tested, so take that with a pinch of salt. To its credit, the Senza AI 370 does have 32 GB of DDR5X-8000 memory and a 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 Γ—4 M.2 SSD. The I/O situation is also interesting, with Arctic opting for a break-away front I/O panel module that features 1 3.5 mm audio combo jack, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, and a USB4 Type-C portβ€”this module is connected to the PC via a cable, so that the ports can be mounted near the front of the desk. The actual PC itself also features the following ports: 2Γ— USB 2.0, 2Γ— USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1Γ— USB4 Type-C, 1Γ— HDMI 2.1, 1Γ— DisplayPort 2.1, 1Γ— 2.5 GbE, 1Γ— DC in, and separate 3.5 mm audio jacks for mic in and audio out. Because the PC is designed to be mounted under a desk, what would traditionally be the rear I/O is also front-facing, which should make it easier to reach.

NVIDIA DLSS 5 Gets 84% Dislikes on YouTube as Backlash Grows

NVIDIA's latest DLSS 5 technology has faced a significant community backlash, with its approval rating dropping considerably. On the published YouTube video, NVIDIA's official DLSS 5 announcement has received an overwhelming 83.7% dislikes, with only 16.3% likes. This is a substantial negative rating, with 16,107 likes and 82,515 dislikes (and counting) on a video with 1,527,915 views at the time of writing. Other videos published by the NVIDIA GeForce YouTube channel have also recorded surprisingly low approval from the community. The Resident Evil Requiem video only scored a 14.9% positive rating, while Starfield had an 18.2% positive ratio of likes to dislikes. Other demos such as Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC saw positive ratings of 18.7% and 14.5%, respectively. The best rating is now exclusive to a tech demo, not even a real game, which is the Zorah Unreal Tech Demo with a 37% positive ratio.

Gamers' reactions are shifting negatively towards the technology, while NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang famously noted that gamers are "completely wrong" because these games offer massive programmability and controllability in how DLSS 5 is applied, keeping the artistic intent intact. However, according to game developers from both Capcom and Ubisoft who spoke to Insider Gaming, while the individual studios may have been involved in marketing DLSS 5, the teams who worked on them were just as surprised by the results as the rest of the gaming community. A Ubisoft developer is quoted as saying, "We found out at the same time as the public," while developers at Capcom expressed similar sentiments, stating that it was surprising to see Capcom, which has generally been protective of its IPs when it comes to AI involvement, getting involved in the marketing for DLSS 5. Furthermore, the Capcom developers expressed concern about how DLSS 5 might change Capcom's approach to generative AI and its role in game development.

What patents reveal about the foundations of AI search

The SEO time traveler- What old patents reveal about AI search

Every time a new large language model (LLM) drops or Google tweaks an AI Overview, the SEO industry loses its mind. We develop this weird collective amnesia, scrambling to optimize for features that were actually mapped out in patent offices 10 years ago. We’re so obsessed with the now and the next that we’ve stopped looking at the blueprints.

If you want to survive 2026, stop trying to be a futurist. Instead, be an archaeologist.

To actually deliver for our clients, we need a research framework that isn’t just reactive. It has to be a balance: Look back at the foundational patents to understand the rules, and look ahead to see how AI is finally being given the muscle to enforce them.

The archaeology of SEO

There’s a massive misconception that to understand AI search, you need to be a prompt engineer or read every new research paper from OpenAI. You don’t.Β  The logic governing today’s magic is often math that was written a decade ago.

We can’t talk about patent research without honoring the late, great Bill Slawski. For 20 years, he was the SEO industry’s archaeologist. While everyone else was arguing about keyword density, he was reading dry, technical filings to predict exactly where we’re standing right now.

History proves his method worked.

The algorithm isn’t magic. It’s math. When a new feature drops today, the engineering blueprints were likely filed between 2007 and 2016. If you want to win, go read the old stuff.

Dig deeper: The origins of SEO and what they mean for GEO and AIO

Strategy vs. mechanics: From β€˜strings’ to β€˜verified things’

Don’t get buried in buzzwords. Categorize your learning into two buckets: ”strategy” or ”mechanic.”

For years, the industry talked about moving from strings to things (entities). But in 2026, that’s just the baseline. We’ve moved from strings to verifiable things. An entity is worthless if the AI can’t prove it’s real.

Think of it like building a house:

  • Semantic SEO is the architecture: It’s the vision. It’s making sure the meaning of your site actually matches what the user is looking for.
  • Entity SEO is the bricklaying: It’s using distinct nouns to build that vision so a machine can parse it.
  • Verification is the mortgage: This is the part most people miss. It’s turning those entities into findable, provable facts connected to a verified human. If you aren’t connecting your content to a provable human expert, you’re just adding to the noise.

AEO vs. GEO: Let’s stop using these interchangeably

The industry often uses AEO and GEO synonymously, but they require different content structures and serve different objectives.

Answer engine optimization (AEO)

AEO is for the β€œdirect answer.” Think Siri, Alexa, or that single snippet at the top of the page. It’s binary. It’s rooted in those 2006 fact repository patents.

You need ”confidence anchors.” These are unnuanced, structured facts. The engine isn’t β€œthinking,” it’s fetching. If your fact isn’t provable and anchored to a verified source, the engine won’t risk a hallucination by citing you.

Generative engine optimization (GEO)

GEO is for the β€œsynthesis.” This is Gemini or ChatGPT search explaining how something works. It was formally defined by researchers at Princeton and Georgia Tech in 2023.

You need information gain. These engines don’t just want a fact; they want to see how Concept A affects Concept B. They’re looking for relationships and unique perspectives.

In short, AEO is about being the fact. GEO is about being the authority that the AI trusts to explain those facts.

Dig deeper: SEO, GEO, or ASO? What to call the new era of brand visibility in AI [Research]

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The trap of forward-projecting: Why the β€˜basics’ are still the β€˜floor’

There’s a danger in becoming an SEO time traveler. If you spend all your time in the patent archives or stress-testing GEO relationships, you might forget that the AI still has to reach your content.

You can have the most verified, E-E-A-T-heavy content in the world, but if your site’s technical health is a mess, the confidence anchors will never weigh in.

The persistence of technical debt

Basic SEO requirements haven’t changed. The tolerance for ignoring them has simply disappeared.

  • Crawl budget and efficiency: If your site is bloated with zombie pages or redirect loops, you’re wasting the crawler’s time. LLMs aren’t just looking for content. They’re looking for the cleanest path to a fact.
  • Core Web Vitals (CWV): More than a ranking factor, it’s a user-utility requirement. If your site doesn’t load instantly, the AI won’t recommend it as a source in a GEO overview.

The headless promise (and reality)

Many of the frustrating technical SEO issues we’ve fought for years β€” like bloated JavaScript and poor Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) β€” are finally being solved by headless/composable architectures. By decoupling the front end from the back end, we can deliver the raw, lightning-fast data that answer engines crave while maintaining a high-end experience for humans.

But headless isn’t a β€œget out of SEO jail free” card.Β  It solves the speed problem, but it introduces new risks around dynamic rendering and metadata delivery.

Whether you’re on a 20-year-old CMS or a cutting-edge headless build, the today requirements are non-negotiable:

  • Clean URL structures: If the AI can’t deduce the hierarchy from the URL, you’ve already lost the semantic battle
  • Internal linking (the nervous system): This is how you prove relationships between entities. If your internal linking is broken, your synthesis logic doesn’t exist.
  • Indexability: If the bot is blocked by a poorly configured robots.txt or a noindex tag left over from staging, the most brilliant β€œverified human” insights in the world are invisible

You don’t get to play in the frontier of AEO and GEO until you’ve mastered the floor of technical SEO. Don’t let the shiny new objects make you forget the shovel work.

Dig deeper: Thriving in AI search starts with SEO fundamentals

The SEO time traveler checklist

Phase 1: The archive

  • The Slawski deep dive: Stop reading the latest β€œAI is changing everything” blog posts for five minutes. Go back to the SEO by the Sea archives. Search for Slawski’s analysis onΒ the Knowledge Graph or theΒ user context. You’ll see the 2026 roadmap hidden in plain sight.
  • The E-E-A-T math audit: Check your assets against Patent 2015/0331866. Are you actually providing the contribution metrics (such as verifiable reviews) that the patent specifically asks for?

Phase 2: The laboratory

  • The verification pivot: Audit your entities. Are they just names on a page? Link them to a verified LinkedIn profile or a Knowledge Panel. If it’s not verified, it’s not an entity, it’s just a string of text.
  • Schema stress testing: Don’t just use a plugin and walk away. Experiment with nesting. Try nesting a Person inside a Service as the provider. It works β€” I’ve seen it trigger rich results when nothing else did.

Phase 3: The frontier

  • The confidence anchor audit: Look at your top pages. Does every topic have a clear definition? [Entity] is [attribute]. If you’re being vague, you’re invisible to AEO.
  • The synthesis test: This is a quick one. Paste your article into an LLM and ask it to explain the relationship between your two main topics using only your text. If it has to go to the web to find the answer, you haven’t built the relationship well enough for GEO.

The synthesis: Becoming the architect

The SEO time traveler isn’t looking back because they’re nostalgic. They’re looking back because they want the blueprint. When you realize AEO is just the modern enforcement of a 20-year-old patent and GEO is just the evolution of semantic relationships, the chaos of AI updates disappears.

Stop optimizing for strings. Start optimizing for verified facts. Give the engine a fact it can’t doubt, connected to a person it trusts, and a relationship it can’t ignore.

The future of search wasn’t written this morning β€” it was written years ago. You just have to be the one to actually build it.

Dig deeper: The future of SEO: Why optimization still matters, whatever you call it

References and further readingΒ 

On the evolution of fact-based search (AEO foundations)

On generative engine optimization (GEO foundations)

  • The GEO framework: Aggarwal, V., et al. (2023). GEO: Generative Engine Optimization. Princeton University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Allen Institute for AI. The definitive study on how LLMs cite and prioritize authoritative sources.Β 
  • The Slawski legacy: Slawski, B. (Various). SEO by the Sea Archives. For historical context on Agent Rank, phrase-based indexing, and entity metrics.

AnySlate – Write Markdown faster with AI and real-time collaboration


AnySlate is a modern Markdown editor for macOS, Windows, Linux, and the browser. It delivers a fast writing experience with real-time collaboration, cloud sync, and version history. Use AI to summarize, rephrase, and improve drafts, or extend capabilities via MCP. You can preview and export with professional control, publish to the web, and customize themes and styling so your workspace fits the way you write.

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ThreatsDay Bulletin: FortiGate RaaS, Citrix Exploits, MCP Abuse, LiveChat Phish & More

ThreatsDay Bulletin is back on The Hacker News, and this week feels off in a familiar way. Nothing loud, nothing breaking everything at once. Just a lot of small things that shouldn’t work anymore but still do. Some of it looks simple, almost sloppy, until you see how well it lands. Other bits feel a little too practical, like they’re already closer to real-world use than anyone

New Perseus Android Banking Malware Monitors Notes Apps to Extract Sensitive Data

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new Android malware family called Perseus that's being actively distributed in the wild with an aim to conduct device takeover (DTO) and financial fraud. Perseus is built upon the foundations of Cerberus and Phoenix, at the same time evolving into a "more flexible and capable platform" for compromising Android devices through dropper apps distributed

Alphabet’s X has a new spinout, and it’s going after one of the world’s most expensive bureaucratic nightmares

Anori aims to shrink the pre-development process by getting all parties, including the city, on a unified platform from the start so that compliance conflicts are surfaced in weeks instead of months or years.

Opera GX Gaming Browser launches on Linux

Opera GX acknowledges PC gaming’s Linux shift with official browser support Opera GX has officially arrived on Linux, giving Linux users a gaming-focused browser option. As a web browser, Opera GX prides itself on its performance, privacy, and customisability. These are all traits that Linux users love. At launch, the browser is available in Debian […]

The post Opera GX Gaming Browser launches on Linux appeared first on OC3D.

(PR) NVIDIA GeForce NOW Gets 90 FPS VR, Crimson Desert, and More Games

It's a double feature on GFN Thursday. This week, GeForce NOW offers smoother sights in virtual reality (VR) and a sprawling new land to conquer. Streaming at 90 frames per second (FPS) comes to supported VR headsets. And Crimson Desert, which recently surpassed 3 million wishlist additions on Steam, debuts in the cloud with GeForce RTX 5080‑class power. Catch it as part of four new games on GeForce NOW

VR, but Make It 90 FPS
VR in the cloud is getting a smoothness upgrade. GeForce NOW is boosting support for Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest devices and Pico devices to stream at up to 90 FPS for Ultimate members, bringing crisper motion and more responsive gameplay straight from the cloud. The app update is starting to roll out to members starting today. Members can transform the space around them into a personal gaming theater with GeForce NOW, playing favorite PC titles on a massive virtual screen. With support for up to 90 FPS for Ultimate members, gameplay feels smoother, movement more natural and action more comfortable. All premium members can continue to enhance their experiences with NVIDIA RTX and DLSS technologies in supported titles. Just fire up GeForce NOW on supported VR platforms, step into a virtual big screen and let the cloud handle the heavy lifting. From chill sessions in a virtual theater to high‑octane firefights, 90 FPS helps keep every moment looking sharp and feeling responsive.

(PR) Corsair Announces the Airflow-Focused 3200D Mid Tower Chassis

Corsair (Nasdaq: CRSR) is proud to unveil the all-new 3200D mid-tower chassis for PC builders who demand excellent performance. The 3200D replaces the 3000D in the Corsair mid-tower lineup and is built for powerful systems with top-tier cooling. It is available in three colorways: Black, White, and an all-new semi-transparent Smoke front panel. Designed to prioritize cooling, the 3200D supports a 360 mm radiator in the front or roof and features an all-new angled fan mount on the bottom of the case to direct cool air towards the GPU.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the Corsair 3200D RS ARGB is now live]

Smart Design, Serious Cooling
The 3200D is thoughtfully engineered to make the most of its footprint while providing ample room for the most powerful hardware available. It offers up to 375 mm of GPU clearance, so even extra-large GPUs like the NVIDIA RTX 5090 have plenty of room to breathe. The spacious interior supports 9x 120 mm or 4x 140 mm fans, with the option to run a 360 mm AIO liquid CPU cooler in either the front or the roof of the chassis for robust CPU cooling. It is also ready for next-gen hardware, with full support for reverse connector motherboards designed for showcase builds with no visible cables.

(PR) EK by LM TEK Launches EK-Pro GPU Water Block for NVIDIA H200 NVL

EK by LM TEK is proud to announce the EK-Pro GPU WB H200 NVL, a high-performance full-cover GPU water block designed for the NVIDIA H200 NVL. Engineered for high-density AI server deployments and data center environments, the block features a single-slot form factor optimized for maximum compute density and system compatibility. By covering the entire PCB, the EK-Pro water block directly cools the GPU, HBM memory, and VRM ensuring optimal thermal performance, stability, and sustained performance under demanding workloads. The low-profile, rack-style terminal design reduces overall assembly height, improving chassis compatibility across standard Full Height Full Width (FHFW) server platforms. This enables seamless integration as a drop-in replacement for both active and passive dual-slot air coolers.

Dual-Pass Cooling Engine for Maximum Thermal Efficiency
At the core of the EK-Pro GPU WB H200 NVL is a dual-pass cooling engine, engineered to maintain high flow rate. The coolant flows sequentially through two optimized microfin stacks, cooling each half of the GPU die and HBM memory to ensure uniform heat dissipation. This design maintains consistent flow distribution and thermal performance, minimizing losses even in reversed flow scenarios, while delivering efficient cooling across the entire GPU surface.

(PR) Sharkoon Releases S100 ARGB All-in-One CPU Cooler

The S100 ARGB from Sharkoon is an all-in-one water-cooling system with a 360 mm radiator and combines impressive looks with a strong cooling performance. The extra-large pump unit with its infinity mirror effect creates a unique play of light, while the copper plate, three precisely controllable ARGB PWM fans and the included DOWSIL thermal paste all ensure reliable cooling and maximum efficiency.

Efficient Cooling
With its 360 mm radiator, the S100 ARGB offers excellent heat dissipation, reliably keeping high-performance systems at the optimum temperature, even at high loads. This makes it the ideal solution for demanding gaming PCs as well as powerfully equipped workstations.

(PR) Silicon Power Launches Enterprise-Grade DDR5 RDIMM for AI Workloads

Silicon Power (SP) announces the launch of its latest DDR5 RDIMM module, purpose-built to meet the growing demands of enterprise data centers and AI-driven computing environments. Designed with original high-quality DRAM chips, the new module delivers massive bandwidth and enhanced reliability to support intensive workloads such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and large-scale data processing. Leveraging a high-density architecture with 32 internal banks across 8 groups, the DDR5 RDIMM maximizes throughput to unlock next-generation server performance. With speeds of up to 6400 MT/s, it empowers enterprises to accelerate data pipelines and fully utilize modern server architectures.

Advanced Reliability, Broad Compatibility, and Power Efficiency
Engineered for uncompromising stability, Silicon Power's DDR5 RDIMM integrates advanced On-Die ECC technology alongside a Registering Clock Driver (RCD), significantly enhancing fault tolerance compared to standard ECC UDIMMs. This robust design ensures superior data integrity, making it ideal for mission-critical enterprise applications that require continuous uptime.

Multi-location SEO strategy: Stop competing with your own content

Multi-location SEO strategy- Stop competing with your own content

Multi-location brands are investing heavily in content. But more content doesn’t automatically mean more growth.

I keep seeing the same issue. Each individual location has a blog, and they all cover the same topics. Same keywords. Same structure. Same search intent. The goal is local visibility, but the result is often internal competition and diluted authority.

Building an effective content strategy for multi-location brands requires clarity around roles. What should live at the corporate level to build authority, and what should stay local to drive relevance and conversions? Without that alignment, brands risk competing with themselves instead of winning in search.

Where the strategy breaks down

Most multi-location content issues aren’t intentional. They’re often the result of growth without a clear content framework, or simply too many cooks in the kitchen without overall governance.

Corporate teams are focused on building brand authority and scaling marketing efforts. At the same time, local teams or franchisees want content that answers their customers’ questions and lives on their own site, rather than sending users elsewhere. The assumption is simple: more content equals more visibility.

However, without clear ownership or strategic keyword targeting, overlap becomes inevitable. Similar topics are published across multiple URLs, and over time, this creates internal competition rather than building authority for the entire site.

What type of content belongs at corporate

In general, corporate should own the content that applies to the brand as a whole and build authority at scale. This includes blog content that targets broader informational queries and answers user questions, no matter where users are located.Β 

Educational resources, industry insights, and evergreen topics perform best when consolidated in one place rather than duplicated across multiple URLs.

Mathnasium - sample webpage

Core service, product, and line-of-business pages should also be centralized. These pages define what the brand offers and typically remain consistent across markets. While location pages can reference and support this foundational content, they often don’t need to be recreated at the local level unless they differ between locations.

Brand-level content, such as company history, leadership, mission, and differentiators, should also sit at the corporate level. These elements reinforce credibility and should be standardized across the organization.

Dig deeper: Local content playbook: From service pages to jobs-to-be-done pages

What type of content belongs at the local level

When it comes to local content, focus on what’s relevant to that specific market. This includes geo-specific content such as:

  • Location landing pages with unique, customized copy.
  • Localized metadata.
  • Location-specific FAQs, relevant structured data (e.g., reviews, LocalBusiness).
  • In some cases, region-specific service variations.
Tend location page


On location pages specifically, there are additional opportunities to highlight uniqueness:

  • Location-specific testimonials and reviews.
  • Team bios.
  • Owner messages or stories.
  • Events or awards.
  • Community partnerships.
  • Descriptive content about the location or service area.
  • Location-specific imagery.

These elements can live on a single, well-built location page or expand into a microsite structure (pages living under a subfolder) when it makes sense for the business. Remember, the goal of these pages is to strengthen relevance, target geo-modified and local intent queries, and ultimately drive conversions.Β 

One common concern with location pages is duplicate content. The question often becomes, how much duplicate content is acceptable? Instead of focusing on a percentage of unique versus shared content, teams should focus on what’s most useful for the user.

Typically, content that doesn’t need to be unique across every location includes:

  • Brand boilerplates.
  • Core service lists.
  • Service or product descriptions.
  • Standard calls to action.
  • Legal disclaimers.
  • Navigation.
  • Trust signals.
Neighborly Done Right Promise copy

Dig deeper: Local SEO sprints: A 90-day plan for service businesses in 2026

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Common SEO risks of a faulty content strategy

When content production lacks clear governance, it can lead to a range of issues that affect organic visibility and crawl efficiency. Over time, this can cause inconsistent rankings, diluted authority, and missed opportunities to convert traffic into leads.

Keyword cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages across a site target the same keywords and search intent. Instead of strengthening rankings, those pages end up competing against each other in search results, and, in some cases, may not get indexed at all.

For multi-location brands, this often happens when individual locations publish similar blog content. For example, a plumbing brand might have multiple location pages with blogs, each posting a blog post titled β€œTips to fix a leaky faucet,” creating several URLs targeting the same informational query.

A more strategic approach is to consolidate that topic into a single, strong corporate-level post. This would allow the brand to serve as the authoritative source, build backlinks, answer users’ questions effectively, and strengthen the site’s overall credibility.

Google choosing the β€˜wrong page’

When multiple pages on a website are targeting the same or overlapping keywords, search engines have to determine which one to rank, and sometimes it’s not the page you intended.

On a multi-location site, that may mean a local blog ranks nationally for a topic that would be better suited to live on the corporate site and build broader brand authority. While the page may be relevant to the query, it may not guide users clearly to the next step, leading to customer confusion or bounces.

It may also cause users who aren’t in-market to leave the site after absorbing the information because there’s no clear next step for them, or because they only see information about services in Austin, Texas, while they’re located in Cleveland, Ohio.

Instead, consolidating authority on a single, well-ranking page that clearly directs users to take action, whether that means finding their nearest location or submitting a form, would be more beneficial for the brand and users.

Crawl inefficiencies

Publishing multiple blog posts on the same topic, especially when the answer doesn’t vary by location, can result in duplicate or low-value content. While these pages may be regularly crawled due to internal linking, they often never make it into the index.

At scale, this can become a bigger issue, especially for sites with many locations that publish similar informational topics. For a site with dozens or hundreds of locations, having similar blog posts across those locations can create crawl bloat, where search engines may spend time and resources crawling repetitive or low-impact URLs rather than more high-impact pages.

Diluted link equity

When similar content exists across multiple URLs, backlinks and internal links are split among pages instead of consolidating authority on a single strong page. Rather than building momentum around a single piece of content, link equity is distributed across competing versions.Β 

For multi-location brands, this can weaken overall ranking potential. Consolidating authoritative content at the corporate level allows links, authority, and trust signals to compound, strengthening the entire domain and supporting location pages more effectively.

Dig deeper: The local SEO gatekeeper: How Google defines your entity

Creating a plan: How corporate and local can work together

After defining roles, move to governance. Multi-location brands need a shared plan for ownership, keyword targeting, and team collaboration.

Before new content gets created, the right questions need to be asked, such as:

  • Is this topic location- or region-specific, or is it broader for any consumer?
  • Would publishing this for only one location add value to those specific customers?
  • Would publishing it across multiple locations make sense?
  • Who should own the keyword? The brand or a specific location?
  • Who does it make sense for the information to come from?

Clear keyword mapping and a centralized content calendar can prevent overlap before it starts. When teams understand their roles, content supports overall growth instead of competing internally.

Content collaboration also creates opportunities to strengthen E-E-A-T signals for the site as a whole. Corporate can cover broader educational topics while drawing on real expertise and experience from local teams.

For example, a roofing company might want to write a post about how often homeowners should replace their roofs. The topic is universal. However, the answer could vary by region due to factors such as the material used in that area or the weather.Β 

The blog could include quotes from franchise owners or team members across different regions to provide insights into regional factors, such as heat and humidity in the South versus harsh winter weather in the North.

This would allow corporate to own the topic and give locations the opportunity to provide their unique expertise and experiences. Plus, linking to relevant location pages can reinforce context and create stronger internal linking throughout the site.

Another option would be to create a local hub within the blog.

Volume isn’t always the right strategy

Search may be changing, but many of the fundamentals remain the same. High-quality, well-structured content that genuinely helps users is what earns visibility.

With Google’s AI Overviews and large language models pulling from authoritative sources, content that clearly answers questions and reflects real expertise is even more valuable. Pages created solely to scale across multiple locations β€” without adding unique value β€” are unlikely to perform consistently, and can even hurt a site in the long run.

Content shouldn’t be treated as a volume game. More pages alone won’t drive growth. What matters is planning, ownership, and alignment.

When corporate and local teams build a shared content strategy, it helps turn content into a growth driver rather than just more pages on a site.

Your SEO maturity score doesn’t measure what you think it does

Your SEO maturity score doesn’t measure what you think it does

The Visibility Governance Maturity Model (VGMM) is about something most SEO programs lack: clear ownership, documented processes, and decision rights that keep your work from being undone by teams who don’t understand it.

So how do you actually score that?

Each domain uses a bank of governance questions tailored to the business. They’re not about how SEO is executed. They’re not about tools. And they’re not an audit.

What VGMM questions are designed to reveal

VGMM questions go to managers and the C-suite β€” the people who should know about governance but often don’t. Meanwhile, you (the SEO practitioner) actually know whether standards are documented, whether QA is in place, and whether processes exist.

VGMM diagnoses organizations where SEO knowledge lives in practitioners’ heads, rather than in documented, governed processes. If VGMM surveyed only practitioners, it would measure whether you know what to do (you do). But governance maturity measures whether the organization can sustain capability when you’re on vacation, when you get promoted, or when you leave.

Questions go to managers because governance gaps show up as:

  • β€œI don’t know the answer to that.”
  • β€œI’d have to ask Sarah.”
  • β€œWe used to have a process, but it’s not enforced anymore.”
  • β€œEach team does it differently.”
  • β€œThat’s documented somewhere, I think?”

When managers can’t answer governance questions, that’s the signal. It means processes aren’t institutionalized.Β 

Dig deeper:Β Why most SEO failures are organizational, not technical

The SPOF reality check

Single point of failure (SPOF) questions can cap your organization at Level 2 maturity until they’re resolved.

Here are some examples of SPOF question:

  • β€œIf [key person] left tomorrow, could the organization maintain SEO standards without them?”
  • β€œIs SEO knowledge documented in a way that’s transferable to new team members?”
  • β€œAre there at least two people who understand how [critical system] works?”

Right now, you’re probably the SPOF. You’re the person who knows where all the bodies are buried, how the redirects work, why that weird canonical setup exists, and what breaks if someone changes X. That feels like job security. It’s actually a job prison.

When VGMM identifies you as an SPOF:

  • Leadership realizes your knowledge needs to be documented.
  • You get resources to create documentation.
  • You get approval to train other people.
  • You get your own tools, training, and conference budgets. (Yay!)
  • Your expertise becomes institutional, not personal.
  • You can take a vacation without disasters.

The organization can’t move past Level 2 until SPOF conditions are cleared. This forces leadership to address hero-dependency.

How domain scores become VGMM score

Each domain model (SEOGMM, CGMM, WPMM, etc.) produces a maturity score based on its own question bank. Here’s how they roll up:

Step 1: Domain assessment

Each domain asks 30-60 governance questions tailored to that area. Questions are behavior-based, not opinion-based:

  • β€œDo you think SEO standards are important?” (opinion)
  • β€œAre SEO standards documented and approved by [role]?” (behavior)

Step 2: Weighted scoringΒ 

Answers are weighted based on impact. Not all governance failures are equal:

  • Missing documentation = lower weight.
  • No ownership for critical decisions = higher weight.
  • SPOF identified = can cap maturity level regardless of other scores.

Step 3: SPOF constraintΒ 

If SPOF conditions exist, the domain score maxes out at Level 2 (emerging) even if other governance is strong. You can’t be structured (Level 3) when capability depends on one person.

Step 4: Domain aggregationΒ 

Domain scores average into the overall VGMM score with adjusted weighting based on:

  • Your industry (ecommerce weights performance governance higher).
  • Your business model (SaaS weights content governance higher).
  • Your complexity (international weights workflow governance is higher).

Step 5: Final maturity levelΒ 

The overall VGMM score maps to maturity levels:

  • Level 1 (0-30%): Ad hoc/unmanaged
  • Level 2 (31-50%): Aware/emerging
  • Level 3 (51-70%): Structured/defined
  • Level 4 (71-90%): Integrated/coordinated
  • Level 5 (91-100%): Optimized/sustained

Why questions change between models

Domain questions adapt to the maturity model being used.

SEOGMM questions focus on:

  • Technical SEO governance (schema, redirects, crawl management).
  • Content optimization standards.
  • Performance monitoring and alerts.

LVMM questions focus on:

  • Location data governance across distributed sites.
  • Google Business Profile management and ownership.
  • Review response workflows and accountability.
  • NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency

IVMM questions focus on:

  • Market-specific SEO governance across countries.
  • Translation workflow and quality controls.
  • Local compliance and regulatory requirements.
  • Cross-market coordination and escalation.

Same governance principles, different operational contexts. An ecommerce company doesn’t need LVMM. A restaurant chain with 500 locations absolutely does.

Dig deeper:Β SEO’s future isn’t content. It’s governance

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.


Why you can’t (and shouldn’t) compare scores

VGMM scores are internal quality metrics, not competitive benchmarks. A 62% score doesn’t mean you’re ahead of another organization at 58%. Here’s why.

Weighting varies by business model

  • Ecommerce company: Performance governance weighted 30%.
  • Information publisher: Content governance weighted 35%.
  • Service company: Workflow governance weighted 25%.

Domain combinations vary by organization

  • Organization A: SEOGMM + CGMM + WPMM + IVMM (international).
  • Organization B: SEOGMM + CGMM + WPMM + LVMM (multi-location).

Not comparing apples to apples.

Organizational context changes what scores mean

  • Startup at 45% with 10 people = impressive, mature for size.
  • Enterprise at 45% with 500 people = serious governance gaps.

Strategic priorities shape the score

  • Organization prioritizing organic visibility: SEOGMM weighted higher.
  • Organization focused on technical debt: WPMM weighted higher.

The only meaningful comparison is your organization against itself over time:

  • Q1 2025: 42% (Level 2)
  • Q3 2025: 58% (Level 3) ← Progress
  • Q1 2026: 61% (Level 3) ← Sustained improvement

Use VGMM to answer:

  • Are we improving quarter over quarter?
  • Which domains are holding us back?
  • Where should we invest in governance?
  • Are SPOF conditions getting resolved?

Don’t use VGMM to answer:

  • Are we better than Competitor X?
  • What’s the industry average score?
  • Should we publicize our score?

What VGMM scoring means for you

As an SEO practitioner, this scoring approach protects you.

You’re not being blamed

When governance assessment reveals gaps, managers are answering questions about organizational capability. They’re not evaluating your individual performance. The assessment asks, β€œDoes the organization have documented standards?” not β€œIs the SEO person doing a good job?”

SPOF detection is your escape hatch

When SPOF questions flag that the organization depends entirely on you, leadership sees it as an organizational risk β€” not as proof you’re valuable. They can’t move to Level 3 until they fix it, which means resources for documentation, training, and knowledge transfer.

Weighted scoring highlights systemic issues

When content governance scores low, but SEO governance scores high, it shows other domains aren’t holding up their end. This redirects leadership attention to where governance actually needs strengthening.

Progress tracking shows your impact

When your organization moves from Level 2 to Level 3 over two quarters, you have concrete evidence that governance investments are working. This isn’t β€œtraffic went up 15%,” it’s β€œorganizational capability improved measurably.”

Dig deeper:Β SEO execution: Understanding goals, strategy, and planning

The difference between hero work and sustainable SEO

VGMM’s scoring approach is designed to:

  • Diagnose organizational capability gaps without blaming individuals.Β 
  • Make your implicit knowledge visible as institutional risk.
  • Force leadership to address hero-dependency.Β 
  • Track progress in ways that make governance investments defensible to finance.

The assessment focuses on whether the organization can sustain your work without you. That’s the difference between being an indispensable hero (exhausting) and being a strategic professional whose expertise is institutionalized (sustainable).

Researchers reach superconductivity at ambient pressure, record high temperature β€” milestone of -122Β°C reached by using pressure quenching, still 140 degrees off room temperature target

Researchers from the University of Houston managed to increase the critical temperature for superconductivity by about 18 K at ambient pressure, but at βˆ’122Β°C, they are still 140Β°C away from the target.

RendrKit – Design API that lets AI agents generate images instantly


RendrKit is a design API built for AI agents. Your agent sends a JSON request with text and brand colors and receives a professional PNG in under two seconds. There’s no need for DALL-E or prompt engineeringβ€”just 69 deterministic templates that render pixel-perfect images every time.

RendrKit works with LangChain, CrewAI, OpenAI GPT Actions, MCP (Claude/Cursor), and n8n. You can use it via Python SDK, Node.js SDK, or plain REST, and a free tier is included.

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Tracium – Track AI agents and costs with a single line of code


Tracium is a developer-first observability layer for AI systems. With a single line of code, it monitors agents and models in real time, tracing every request end-to-end across tools and steps while tracking token spend, latency, and total cost. It captures and classifies errors, supports per-tenant analytics, and lets you compare prompts, models, and routing with live A/B versioning. Use drift detection to spot shifts in inputs and outputs before performance degrades, and manage everything across customers, workspaces, and environments.

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(PR) The KiiBOOM Phantom98 Lite Blends Style and Function

More than just a way to type, the KiiBOOM Phantom98 Lite is an upgrade for users' entire desktop experience. With its considered layout, keycaps design, premium typing feel, and seamless multi-device flow, this keyboard transforms everyday input into a daily joy, becoming the natural centerpiece of the workspace.

Thoughtful Colorways and Details
The Phantom98 Lite continues KiiBOOM's commitment to aesthetics, debuting with three themed colorways: Green Rainy Frog, Foggy Translucent, and Pink. Each curated color combination is designed to evoke a distinct atmosphere. Beyond the colorway, the textural contrast between the UV-glazed case and the PBT dye-sublimated keycaps adds depth to both the look and feel. Practicality is equally prioritized, with the magnetic nameplate discreetly storing the 2.4G receiver, ensuring style and function live in perfect harmony.

AI Mode is Google’s next ads engine β€” and it already knows how to monetize it

AI Mode is Google’s next ads engine β€” and it already knows how to monetize it

As conversational search gains traction, the bigger question isn’t who has more users, but who can monetize them.

Google enters this phase with a massive advantage: mature ad systems, deep advertiser adoption, and decades of optimization. Early AI Mode signals point to a measured rollout.

The panic phase is over

After a period of panic within the company, Google’s built-in advantages, coupled with massive capital expenditures, have helped it regain ground on category leader ChatGPT in LLM search.

In December 2025, Google’s own code red became OpenAI’s code red.

The dust will continue to settle, and analysts have different takes. But one signal stands out: in a major validation, Apple has chosen Google to power its own AI.

It was perhaps premature to assume Google Search would simply lose to ChatGPT on product. That was the consensus at the start of 2025. Google shares fell about 30% from peak to trough before rallying 130%. Today, the company is valued at roughly $3.6 trillion, just behind Apple.

Why monetization will decide the winner

Why did Google’s recent progress in LLM conversational queries β€” in the form of AI Overviews and AI Mode β€” have such a large impact on the company’s valuation in such a short time?

Ultimately, it comes down to visibility of financial projections. In a company with so much to defend, Google’s CFO and leadership team needed to determine whether shifts in user behavior β€” in how search works and how it makes money β€” would weaken the business model or reinforce it.

Net-net: Google before the shift: huge. Google after the shift: ditto.

Google stock price. The market changed its mind.
Google stock price. The market changed its mind.

Visibility β€” in the sense of financial planning, not in the SERP β€” means a great deal to Google’s advertisers, too.

A large proportion of your annual digital advertising budget is likely allocated to Google. You also still care about how you appear in organic results and increasingly, how your company appears in AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude, and similar environments.

β€œI’m fine with 30% less of my business coming in from Google, and figuring out lots of complicated ways to replace it,” … said no advertiser ever.

How monetization will play out in AI search

The competition between monetization models in LLM conversations β€” especially between the two leaders, ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode β€” will play out differently from the broader race for overall user share. There are several moving parts to keep an eye on:

  • Overall assumptions about ad formats and β€œhow to monetize.”
  • Pace of rollout.
  • Whether users and public opinion recoil at ads.
  • Advertiser success rates based on performance measurement.
  • Advertiser adoption, including adoption by the agency ecosystem.
  • Platform targeting options.
  • Advantages of fuller-funnel ad journeys and data collection.
  • Privacy, safety, policies, and enforcement.
  • An all-encompassing consumer brand vs. a better mousetrap.
  • And a few other factors.

Right now, OpenAI is at a critical moment because it’s still so early in its monetization. It’s still testing an inefficient auction model confined to a small group of large advertisers. (Some ads, from their pilot, spotted here.) It may be some time before more mature tools and reporting emerge.

Most recently, OpenAI brought ad platform Criteo (often used for retargeting) on as a partner. The Trade Desk, the world’s largest non-Google DSP for programmatic, is also in the mix. Some observers have speculated about deeper partnerships or even an acquisition of The Trade Desk, though that seems unlikely.

In any case, outsourcing inventory to programmatic partners is a pragmatic step in OpenAI’s monetization strategy. It also underscores how early the company is in building a scalable ads business.

Despite a broad rollout with partners, OpenAI is stepping back from β€œcheckout in chat” integrations after limited adoption from both merchants and consumers. When your primary competitor has a 25-year head start, the learning curve is steep.

So does it make sense now for advertisers to lean into evolving Google user behavior and figure out how to ride the wave?

AI Mode considerations for Google advertisers

Expect the transition to more AI Mode sessions β€” and eventual monetization β€” to be smoother than initially anticipated. If you’re an advertiser, AI Mode need not equal panic mode.

How do these LLM sessions look to users? Obvious to you and me, but likely less so for many searchers.

Depending on how you search, AI Overviews may appear above other results on the SERP. That’s becoming a natural extension of Google Search sessions.

But that’s not the real conversational layer. The LLM workflow happens in AI Mode. How often users go there remains to be seen.

It’s improving quickly. Unlike ChatGPT, Google AI Mode downplays how it finds information, whether it is β€œreasoning,” and which model is being used. The experience feels relatively seamless.

It’s still early, but ads are already appearing in some cases. The key question is how this evolves, and what advertisers should be paying attention to.

The key areas to watch are:

  • Extent of monetization.
  • Different ways to monetize.
  • Advertiser control and campaign types.
  • Reporting.
  • Funnel stage.

1. Extent of monetization

AI Mode is in a popularity contest and a price war with ChatGPT. Google will likely try to grind down competitors in LLM conversations by monetizing lightly and gradually. Perplexity and Anthropic, for their part, are completely shunning ads.

An ad-free AI Mode results page. We’re going to see a lot of this.

The result will be less ad volume in this space than you might expect. It may also increase the commercial value of organic visibility in LLM-driven results, leading to renewed focus on content and reputation fundamentals.

Forget ad campaign FOMO, then. It will be interesting to place ads alongside AI-driven sessions, but don’t break the bank. Implement, watch, and learn at your own pace.

2. Different ways to monetize

Experienced advertisers know there are a few ad formats to consider in any situation like this. The main ones would be: text ads triggered by keywords or similar signals, in a reasonably native format, and feed-based Shopping type ads.

Another way to make money is to allow direct checkout β€” to take a cut of transactions. As noted above, OpenAI is backtracking on this approach, though not eliminating it entirely. How important it will be for Google merchants (and Google itself) remains to be seen.

Google’s experience likely allows it, again, to play the long game, study the data, and bring partners and advertisers along for the ride, on an impressive scale.

Recently, Loblaw inked an integration deal with OpenAI. A week later, it made a similar deal with Google.

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3. Advertiser control and campaign type

In terms of execution, we’ll want to be on the lookout for which kinds of campaign types in Google Ads make your ads eligible to show in AI Mode.

You can learn everything you want about how ads will show in AI Overviews in Google’s help files. Unsurprisingly, text and shopping campaigns from Performance Max, standard shopping, and keyword campaigns make your ad eligible to show in AI Overviews.

Google says less about AI Mode in its documentation, for now.

Our agency recently received a Google deck outlining a β€œShopping Expansion” beta. There’s little mention of AI Mode, though one table, in a subtle way, refers to both AI Overviews and AI Mode.

My expectation is that Google will gradually ease users into AI Mode and test ads sparingly. Even if ads appear in a small share of sessions β€” say 0.5% β€” that will still generate significant data and feedback.

Advertiser control will likely be even more limited than it is today. In the world of feed-based ads, you have some levers, but the massive machine learning that controls matching is held by Google and the real-world behavioral ecosystem.

To a lesser extent, that’s also how keyword matching works. Micromanagers won’t be too comfortable, but the impact of the ads could still be powerful, especially with data-driven attribution.

Here’s hoping new signals, new reporting breakouts, and new levers become available to advertisers. Namely: audiences including cool personas; demographics; novel larger buckets around life stages; novel characteristics we haven’t even dreamt of yet, such as their language ability level or aspects of how they interact with the LLM.

4. Reporting

The real question is: will reporting be transparent and insightful? We need to at least be able to look at all available metrics for ads that showed in AI Mode specifically. Time will tell.Β 

Microsoft seems to be the first out of the gate with AI-conversation-specific reporting breakouts. We expect no less from Google and are impatiently awaiting further guidance on this front β€” primarily on what kind of reporting will be directly available in the Google Ads interface.

It would be easy for the casual observer to blindly believe that somehow, you’ll never be eligible to show up in AI Mode or AI Overviews unless you adopt certain Google Ads campaign types. There’s a lot of rhetoric around AI Max.Β 

I’d advise advertisers to do their own research and run their campaigns to suit themselves. Hint: AI Max isn’t the only magical gateway to AI-using users and might not even be a good or appropriate one for many advertisers.

Once reporting is beefed up, you’ll want to know how well the AI-specific inventory is doing, however your campaigns wind up serving there.

5. Funnel stage

But that leads us to a wrinkle. Although ads appearing astride AI Mode conversations could certainly be low-funnel (think Shopping ads in high-intent situations), much of the opportunity here is thematic. Your company may now enjoy new opportunities to associate itself with higher-order thinking, new audience definitions, and new intent characteristics.

This opportunity probably comes to your door dressed up as β€œlower ROAS.” It may be tempting, therefore, to shy away.

That’s a mistake.

Why?

Like what happened when everyone started using mobile phones, that’s where the consumer will be. Ugly early numbers shouldn’t blind us to the imperatives associated with scale.

When the funnel moves, everything moves

Midsized to larger advertisers should step back and reimagine how they approach growth and market impact. There are meaningful opportunities for companies to align more closely with their audiences.

This has little to do with AI Max, and everything to do with how LLM-driven research works. Compare how publishers have traditionally assembled consumer personas β€” often from fragmented behavioral signals β€” with the much richer context that can emerge from ongoing interactions with an LLM.

A net shift up-funnel could follow. Imagine a world where a significant share of Google search sessions takes place within conversational experiences. Your ads will need to show up there, where appropriate. If that happens, your funnel β€” and your competitors’ β€” will move with it.

Will you be ready?

Kioxia announces new Super High IOPS SSD that helps accelerate AI workloads on Nvidia GPUs β€” 25.6TB drive provides more GPU-accessible memory for faster data access

Kioxia has developed a new AI SSD that is designed to provide a secondary cache for Nvidia AI GPUs. The new drive comes with the manufacturer's XL-Flash that is SLC based and performs at over 10 million IOPS.

8BitDo launches $40 Nintendo 64-inspired wireless controller with 2.4 GHz connection β€” dedicated wireless receiver even works with the original N64

8BitDo has released the 2.4 GHz version of its popular 8BitDo 64 controller; it ships with a Retro Receiver inside the box that can even be connected to an actual N64 console. The receiver can also be bought separately to work over a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection with most 8BitDo first-party controllers, and other third-party ones, too.

SoloDeskPad – Prepare for MTD, chase late payments, and reduce admin


SoloDeskPad prepares UK sole traders for Making Tax Digital and cuts admin so you can focus on work. It checks your MTD readiness, schedules quarterly HMRC reminders, and keeps records tidy with a mileage and expense logger. It also helps you get paid with automated late-payment chasers and creates UK-law-aware contracts from a short form. Join the waitlist to be ready before the 6 April 2026 deadline.

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How Ceros Gives Security Teams Visibility and Control in Claude Code

Security teams have spent years building identity and access controls for human users and service accounts. But a new category of actor has quietly entered most enterprise environments, and it operates entirely outside those controls. Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding agent, is now running across engineering organizations at scale. It reads files, executes shell commands, calls external APIs,

'The fights are another level': I asked the cast of The Madison what to expect from the season 1 finale β€” and their answer is giving me Yellowstone flashbacks

Don't get it twisted: new Taylor Sheridan show The Madison has nothing to do with Yellowstone. But the 'fights' the cast promise in the final season 1 episodes have me thinking otherwise.

Optiscaler delivers improved FSR 4 version for AMD RDNA 2 GPU users

The Optiscaler community has done what AMD couldn’t: bring FSR 4 to RDNA 2 The Optiscaler Community has come together to create an improved version of AMD’s leaked FSR 4 INT8 version. With this new version, FSR 4.0.2b, users of RDNA 2 graphics cards can now use AMD’s improved upscaler with significantly less ghosting. Furthermore, […]

The post Optiscaler delivers improved FSR 4 version for AMD RDNA 2 GPU users appeared first on OC3D.

(PR) Opera GX Gaming Browser Lands on Linux After Community Demand

Opera GX is now on Linux. The gaming browser from Norwegian company Opera now brings its signature performance controls, gaming integrations, and unparalleled options for customization to the platform. Demand for a Linux version of Opera GX has hit a breaking point across gaming subreddits, Discord and Linux forums, with gamers and developers consistently asking for the browser to support the platform in public communities and other forums. With this release, Opera GX delivers what many in the community have been waiting for: a gaming browser that aligns with Linux's privacy-first mindset while still meeting the high-performance expectations of modern gamers.

"PC gaming has long been associated with a single dominant platform, but that's changing. Bringing GX to Linux users - who are renowned for the control they like to exert over their tools - means gamers and developers can manage browser resources, customize their setup, and keep their system performing exactly the way they want," said Maciej Kocemba, Product Director, Opera GX.

(PR) Strong AI Momentum to Drive 24.8% Growth in Foundry Revenue in 2026

TrendForce's latest research on the foundry industry reveals that continued investment in the AI arms race by North American CSPs and AI startups will keep demand for AI processors and supporting ICs strong in 2026. Global foundry revenue is projected to grow 24.8% YoY to approximately US$218.8 billion, with TSMC expected to post the largest increase of around 32% YoY.

Demand for advanced nodes will continue to be driven by AI GPUs from companies such as NVIDIA and AMD. Meanwhile, North American CSPs, including Google, AWS, and Meta, and AI startups such as OpenAI and Groq, are accelerating the development of their own AI chips. Many of these designs are expected to enter volume production and begin shipping in 2026, becoming key drivers for 5/4 nm and more advanced process technologies.

Counter-Strike 2 Changes Decades-Old Magazine Reloading Rule

If you are a long-time Counter-Strike player, you know how magazine reloading works. Whenever you reloaded in a Counter-Strike game, any leftover ammunition from your magazine would be returned to your reserve supply. However, Valve is now changing this rule after decades of Counter-Strike gameplay. With the latest update, Counter-Strike 2 is introducing a change where reloading will discard your remaining magazine, essentially depleting your ammunition supply. This alters what used to be a standard procedure for gamers. Even after firing a single bullet, players would reload to keep their supply high in case of nearby combat. However, this has now changed in CS2 to make the experience feel more realistic and to introduce higher stakes for both sides. Careful planning, ammunition purchasing, and balancing will now better represent a real-world scenario.
ValveWhen you reload in CS2, the leftover ammo in your magazine is dumped back into an essentially endless reserve supply. And so the decision to reload has never offered significant trade-offsβ€”in a safe position with enough time, you might reload after firing a single bullet, or half a mag, or after firing down to empty, and the rest of the round would be unaffected. We think the decision to reload should have higher stakes, so in today's update reloading has been redesigned. Now, when you reload, you'll drop the used magazine and discard all of its remaining ammo. Instead of 'topping off' your weapon with a few bullets, a new full magazine will be taken from the reserves whenever you reload.

Intel Supplies Core Ultra 200HX Plus in Limited Quantities to Laptop Makers

Laptops powered by Intel's latest Core Ultra 200HX Plus mobile processors won't arrive all at once but will instead be released in stages, according to PC World. Intel is supplying its OEM partners with these chips in waves. Some OEMs are receiving the chips first, while others will have to wait weeks before their shipments arrive. For example, Lenovo and Razer are the only OEMs that can immediately ship their new laptops based on the Core Ultra 200HX Plus chips. Customers of other brands, such as Dell, will have to wait until the end of March, while MSI laptops will ship in the second quarter of this year. Perhaps the most delayed is ASUS, whose laptops will hit the market in late May, allowing ASUS fans and customers to get the new "Arrow Lake-HX Refresh" CPUs.

When considering the reasons for such limited availability at launch, we need to examine Intel's supply chain for the "Arrow Lake-HX." Since TSMC manufactures this generation, Intel's capacity allocation is limited to what the company set months ago. As a result, Intel is supplying these CPUs in waves as they come out of TSMC's fabs. If the process were internal to Intel, the company would likely manage manufacturing more easily with a predictable supply. If the launch involved a server-grade processor or something with a higher margin, Intel would likely allocate more TSMC capacity beforehand. However, since this generation serves the lower-margin mobile market, the current allocation is working adequately, just with a bit of a delay. Below is a complete list of design wins that Intel has secured from OEMs and its partners for Core Ultra 200HX Plus processor family.

Intel's new feature can improve game loading times by up to 3x β€” Precompiled Shader Delivery comes to Arc Xe2 and Xe3 GPUs following DirectX SDK release

Following in Nvidia's footsteps, Intel has now officially adopted Microsoft's Advanced Shader Delivery to make shader compilation much faster in games. Intel is calling it Precompiled Shader Distribution and it's available on a bunch of Arc GPUs right away, supported in 11 games at launch, with more likely to follow. AMD is now the only company left who hasn't officially embraced this feature.

BabyMealBot – Send recipe links to WhatsApp to get baby-safe versions


BabyMealBot lets you send any recipe link or screenshot to WhatsApp and returns a baby-safe version tailored to your child's age and allergies. It extracts ingredients, steps, and tips from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and recipe websites, then saves meals to an organized, searchable cookbook. Create grocery lists with one tap and share access with family so everyone stays in sync. Start with three free recipes, then choose simple plans for personal or family useβ€”no app download required.

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DarkSword iOS Exploit Kit Uses 6 Flaws, 3 Zero-Days for Full Device Takeover

A new exploit kit for Apple iOS devices designed to steal sensitive data from is being wielded by multiple threat actors since at least November 2025, according to reports from Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), iVerify, and Lookout. According to GTIG, multiple commercial surveillance vendors and suspected state-sponsored actors have utilized the full-chain exploit kit, codenamed DarkSword

ExactOnce – Single-use actions with atomic guarantees


ExactOnce is an API for creating and consuming single-use actions with atomic guarantees. It resolves concurrent requests deterministically, prevents duplicate side effects, and returns clear failure states like already_used or expired. You can time-bound actions, add optional PIN protection, and get an immutable audit trail. Batch-create actions via CSV for use in magic links, invitations, password resets, secure downloads, approvals, and one-time codes.

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Renamer.ai – Bulk rename files with AI that understands their content


Renamer.ai is an AI-powered file renaming tool that looks inside your files to understand what they are, renaming thousands of them in seconds. Drop a folder full of IMG_4382.jpg, Screenshot 2026-02-13 at 10.43.12 AM.png, and Untitled-3-final-v2.pdf files, and get back clean, descriptive filenames without manually touching a single one.

Most batch renamers require you to write rules and patterns. Renamer.ai skips all that; the AI reads the content of each fileβ€”images, documents, assetsβ€”and generates meaningful filenames on its own. It's available on Windows, Mac, and web, with no naming conventions to memorize, no regex to learn, and no manual sorting ever again.

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Sony To Rebrand PlayStation Network in Late 2026

According to Insider Gaming, Sony will soon be rebranding the PlayStation Network branding, including "PSN," by September 2026. This news comes by way of an email sent to developers in preparation for the branding shiftβ€”likely as a way to ensure that future game marketing messaging reflects the change. The email explains that the shift away from PSN and PlayStation Network "properly capture the breadth of our evolving digital service," but that the change is merely a branding exercise, so it seems unlikely that the actual functionality of the service will change. At the time of writing, it's unclear what will replace PSN and PlayStation Network, but it seems reasonable to assume some more generic branding will take its place. The full email follows.

Nametastic – Free AI name generator - 1,000+ available domains, ranked and explained


Nametastic exists because naming a startup shouldn't take longer than building one. Describe your business idea in a few sentences, and the AI generates over 1,000 brandable suggestions - each scored for memorability and pronounceability, each checked against live domain registries across 50+ extensions in real time. The best ideas surface first, and you can see what's available without leaving the page.

Most generators combine random word fragments and hope something sticks. Nametastic actually reads your description, understands the concept, and produces options that fit your industry and tone. Five minutes from idea to a shortlist with available domains. Free, no signup required.

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CISA Warns of Zimbra, SharePoint Flaw Exploits; Cisco Zero-Day Hit in Ransomware Attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has urged government agencies to apply patches for two security flaws impacting Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint, stating they have been actively exploited in the wild. The vulnerabilities in question are as follows - CVE-2025-66376 (CVSS score: 7.2) - A stored cross-site scripting

NeuralOps – Keeps remote teams balanced and focusedβ€”privacy first, no micromanagement


NeuralOps is an AI-powered work rhythm intelligence for distributed teams that delivers visibility without micromanagement. It maps focus, collaboration, and recharge patterns, shows real-time activity dashboards and screenshots, and highlights focus time versus meetings and burnout risks. Teams stay in control with transparent tracking, clear indicators, and one-click pauses, with no keystroke logging. Managers coordinate better with team and individual views, while AI nudges help improve workflows across macOS and Windows. Save up to $12K annually compared to similar products.

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founder/mode – Get LinkedIn posts written and scheduled in your voice each week


founder/mode helps founders publish high-performing LinkedIn content in less than 30 minutes a week. Share voice notes, transcripts, and links in a shared knowledge base, then its fine-tuned model drafts posts in your tone while human editors refine every line.

Approve with one click and schedule to post, keep your voice consistent, and turn ideas into conversations with customers, partners, and leads

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S2Flow – Business OS where AI agents run sales, marketing, and e-commerce


S2Flow is a Business OS that uses AI agents to run and improve marketing, sales, and e-commerce operations. You set goals and KPIs, and it generates strategies, assigns agents across departments, and executes tasks like ads, content, SEO, email, and reporting while continuously optimizing to hit targets.

You control guardrails via a strategy queue that auto-applies high-confidence actions and flags others for review. S2Flow tracks metrics such as ROAS, pipeline velocity, and average order value, feeds results back into planning, and keeps your growth engine improving without manual orchestration.

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Arch Tools – Call 61 AI tools with one key and pay per use in USDC


Arch Tools provides 61 production-ready AI tools via a single REST API and MCP protocol. These tools include code analysis, web scraping, image generation, NLP, sentiment analysis, crypto data, search, and more. You pay per API call with x402 USDC micropayments on Base, Polygon, Avalanche, and Solana, or you can use traditional API keys. AI agents can discover tools through MCP and pay autonomously without human approval. A free tier offers 100 credits per month, and TypeScript and Python SDKs are included.

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GNOME 50 Ditches X11 but Launches With Improved Color Management, Native Fractional Scaling, and VRR Support

In the lead-up to the official launch, Gnome 50 has been previewed in beta via distributions like the Fedora 44 beta, but the updated version of the desktop environment, dubbed Tokyo, has officially launched in stable form, bringing with it a slew of long-expected changesβ€”although some features did not make the cut for Gnome 50 and will be pushed back to Gnome 51. The biggest additions to Gnome 50 are the official launch of variable refresh rate and fractional scaling, both of which are enabled as long as the hardware supports it. Beyond implementing VRR and fractional scaling, Gnome 50 also features a low-latency cursor mode that allows the cursor to refresh independently from the window behind it when VRR is active. It also features workarounds for the NVIDIA driver for stuttering and frame timing issues, which should result in "noticeably smoother window animations and general desktop fluidity for users with NVIDIA GPUs."

The desktop UI also now features a power profile indicator, which is a nice quality-of-life feature for laptop users; the settings app also now has a toggle for reduced motion for accessibility, as well as parental control with daily screen time limits, app restrictions, and schedules for child accounts. With Gnome 50, the developers have implemented bug fixes to the color management and display calibration options, making it more viable for creatives doing color-sensitive work, and the sound settings screen also more clearly denotes input and output audio devices and volumes. The remote desktop functionality in Gnome now features GPU acceleration, which is nice for high-performance applications or Unfortunately, while a great many changes were made in Gnome 50, mostly enabling better performance, enhancing security, or polishing the UI, session restore functionality did not make the cut for Gnome 50. Gnome 50 also removed the Mutter backend code for X11 support entirely, which has been a somewhat controversial choice, given that some workflows and features are still unable to be replicated on Wayland.

Scientio – Organize ideas and projects with an AI-first knowledge platform


Scientio is a knowledge management platform that helps you capture ideas, plan projects, and publish knowledge bases. It uses an AI-first chat interface to create markdown pages and journals compatible with Obsidian and Logseq, while automatically indexing topics and cross-referencing notes. Share read-only online knowledge bases so others can browse your research or documentation without making changes.

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Intel Silently Adds Core i7-13645HX to Its Raptor Lake Mobile CPU Lineup

Intel has quietly rolled out a new mobile CPU in the Raptor Lake lineup, the Core i7-13645HX. The chip is built with Intel's 10 nm process and splits its 14 cores across six Performance cores and eight Efficient cores, just like the Core i7-13650HX. That means both share the same 20-thread count, 24 MB of Smart Cache, max turbo clock at 4.9 GHz, and power specs: 55 W base, 157 W peak. However, there are some differences. The i7-13645HX supports DDR5-5600, up from 4800 on its older sibling. With that comes also an increase in memory bandwidth to 89.6 GB/s, up from 76.8 GB/s. It also sports a more capable Intel UHD Graphics P730 with 32 execution units versus just 16 on the i7-13650HX. The older part still has a slight edge in efficiency: its E-cores can boost to 3.6 GHz, while this one tops out at 3.5 GHz. But for users who need faster memory and better integrated graphics, especially those running light gaming or video workloads, the new chip might be the better choice.

Compared to the i7-13700HX, which has eight P-cores, a higher boost clock (5.0 GHz), 30 MB cache, and slightly more power headroom, this one feels like something in between, less raw performance than the top-tier HX model but with better memory support. Intel rebranded Raptor Lake as Core 200 series in late 2024, positioning it for higher-end laptops. The i7-13645HX appears to be part of that push: a refined option for systems targeting mainstream performance without stepping up to the full HX stack. No official pricing yet, as this is likely to show up in select gaming and creator machines over the next few months. Remember that just this Tuesday, Intel rolled out its Core Ultra 200HX Plus mobile processors, including the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus. These processors add new features and architectural refinements, including support for the new Intel Binary Optimization Tool that can improve native performance in select games.

The Legend of California Gets Alpha Playtest in Late March, Minimum Specs Call for RTX 2060 Super

Jeff Kaplan's new game studio, Kintsugiyama, recently announced The Legend of California as its first titleβ€”a Western-inspired open-world, online FPS exploration game with shades of the survival-craft genre. Kaplan, who previously served as lead designer on Overwatch, said that The Legend of California was slated for a 2026 launch, but it now seems as though Kaplan was serious, with the game studio announcing a public alpha playtest in a new video on YouTube. The playtest will start on March 26 and end on March 30, while participants can sign up on the Steam store page and will be selected randomly via Steam sometime around March 25. The playtest will be online-only, and players will be able to play solo or in a squad of up to four players.

In the playtest announcement video, Kaplan admits that it will be a limited playtest, so not everyone who registers will get a slot to play. Kaplan calls it the "next important moment for the development of this game," suggesting Kintsugiyama will use the data and feedback gathered from the playtest for further improvement and development of the game. A FAQ on the game's Steam page claims that there will be another playtest "in summer," and that the game will launch in Early Access before getting a full release. The FAQ also addresses the game's minimum hardware requirements, which were seemingly added to the Steam page along with the playtest announcement. According to the FAQ, the minimum hardware specificationsβ€”an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6600 8 GB, 16 GB of RAM, and an Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700Xβ€”will target 30 FPS, while the recommended specβ€”an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800, 32 GB RAM, and an Intel Core i7-12700K or AMD Ryzen 7 5700Xβ€”will target 60 FPS.
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