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Google is trying a new method of bot authentication named Web Bot Auth. Google posted a new help document that explains that Web Bot Auth is a “new cryptographic protocol that helps websites to validate that bots are authentic.”

The goal of Web Bot Auth is to help you automate the process of authenticating which AI Agent bots are authentic and which are fraud.

Limited test. Google said the search compan is “testing the protocol with some AI agents hosted on Google infrastructure.” Not all Google user agents are using Web Bot Auth and Google is not yet signing every request of agents using the protocol.

Thus Google recommends that in addition to Web Bot Auth you continue relying on IP addresses, reverse DNS, and user-agent strings as Google gradually rolls out signed traffic.

What is Web Bot Auth. Google defined Web Bot Auth as “Web Bot Auth is an experimental cryptographic protocol used to authenticate requests sent by bots. Instead of relying solely on self-reported headers and IP addresses, Web Bot Auth allows agents to cryptographically sign their requests.”

Web Bot Auth can bring the following benefits according to Google:

• Future-proofing: Help establish a web where agent providers and websites can build mutual trust and make informed access decisions.
• Cryptographic certainty: Move beyond easily spoofed headers to a verified identity and decouple agent identity from IP addresses.
• Better observability: Gain clearer insights into how agents interact with your content.

Why we care. As AI Agents become more and more common across the web, managing which Agents can access your site and web pages may become more and more of a challenge. This new method of authentication may help you allow authentic AI Agents and block the inauthentic AI Agents.

Again, this is an “experimental” feature right now, so keep track of its progress.

One of the major reasons PPC practitioners hold onto syntax-oriented keyword strategies is the disconnect between “query intent” and “conversion intent.” For years, you’ve likely relied on keywords to show you understand what your customers want and to prequalify traffic using syntax-oriented signals.

As user behavior shifts to more conversational queries and AI becomes an increasingly relevant part of the user journey, the distinction between these two intents becomes even more critical to understand and act on.

Here, we’ll define query and conversion intent and explore strategies to apply them effectively. This isn’t prescriptive. You should make decisions based on what will serve your business well. However, it provides a framework for analyzing your data and optimizing for the right humans.

Disclosure: I’m a Microsoft employee, and I’ll be sharing some examples that pull from Microsoft tooling. However, most of the strategies reflect platform-agnostic approaches.

What are query and conversion intents?

Query intent is the underlying need driving the text put into a search function. This search function can be on a SERP (search engine results page), video/social/gaming/email/site search bar, or AI surface.

Conversion intent is the human need to achieve some outcome, understood through stated and inferred data points. These range from text entered in various search experiences, content consumed, and tracked actions taken.

Different examples of query and conversion intent will have higher or lower rates of confidence based on how explicit text is, as well as patterns in content consumed.

For example, if I search “Microsoft ads login,” both query and conversion intent are clear — I want to log in. It’s easy to match ads and organic content to that query. Videos shown in any video query would have to do with logging in, and emails would be focused around login information.

Google SERP

Bing’s SERP

YouTube results

The query “Microsoft ads” is more nebulous, as such, needs to draw from other signals like previously engaged content and search history. While I might get a login page, I’d likely also see blog/sales content, third-party advice on Microsoft ads, and potentially competitor info trying to capitalize on the general nature of the query.

Google SERP

Bing SERP

YouTube results

Let’s look at a non-branded example as well. “Purple hair dye” has a clear transactional intent. While the user might not have a brand in mind, they know they want a specific color. 

We don’t know if the user is looking for a semi-permanent or permanent color. We also don’t know the user’s pronouns, so matching them to a specific demographic to entice a purchase is a gamble. 

Google SERP

Bing SERP

YouTube results

In the query “purple hair dye for long wavy hair,” the transactional intent is maintained. However, the query focuses more on the core needs of the person behind the text. Long, wavy hair means there needs to be enough dye to cover long hair.

Additionally, while some men have long wavy hair, the person behind the query is more likely to identify as female. 

Wavy hair has a different composition than straight or curly hair, so products specifically for wavy hair will be more relevant than those without hair type identifiers.

Google SERP

Bing SERP

YouTube results

In all of these examples, there was clear conversion intent. The human behind the query clearly wanted to achieve something. However, if we relied only on the text (i.e., query intent), we might miss a meaningful opportunity to connect with customers. 

This is why close variants (which have been available on both Google and Microsoft for ~10 years) represent a useful way to unshackle ourselves from syntax alone.

Additionally, by limiting our understanding of queries to SERPs, we ignore critical insights from where our customers connect, work, and play. Microsoft’s internal data from March 2024 shows that brands that use both Audience ads (display, native, and video) and Search see a 6x conversion rate. Part of this is brand recognition, and the power of brand media buys influencing performance.

Yet there’s also the pragmatic piece that some marketers refuse to engage with video and social. By being where your competitors refuse to be, you can shape and capture desire while they fight over a shrinking share of voice.

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How to optimize for each intent

Once you understand the difference between query and conversion intent, you can begin mapping out the actions needed to capitalize on both.

Conversion intent is much easier to understand than query intent. This is why AI systems typically run queries in the background to understand human input and get at the conversion intent behind the query. 

To succeed at shaping queries and capturing conversions, it’s critical to understand the input points for humans and the AI systems that will be serving them results.

Let’s revisit the “purple hair dye for long wavy hair” query:

Copilot surfaces how it arrived at the output by looking up information and finding the best matches. This is similar to the SEO concept of E-E-A-T.

Yet you’ll notice that the results for my personal Copilot are different than the traditional SERP (chiefly that ads aren’t the dominant result — ads serve at the bottom of clearly transactional conversations after organic listings).

This is where the “Details” function comes into play and can help you know where to focus content, feed, and messaging functions:

This product is pretty flat on price, save for some deep summer dips. If I’m desperate for color, I might buy now, or I might wait for what seems like a regular summer sale. I’m also getting insights into why this product is wonderful (hair conditioning, cruelty-free, vibrant, and customizable color, etc.).

These are things I’ve shown interest in through past purchases, conversations with Copilot, and other signals it has access to.

Brands that want to optimize for query intent need to make sure the following are in good order:

• Feed/landing page clarity
  • It should be incredibly easy to map what the product/service is to the query. While there is value in some 1:1 matching of language, it’s much more important that the core offering be understood as aligned with what the human is looking for.
  • For example, DUI and DWI are technically two different charges and have geo implications. However, DUI tends to be the universal legal charge and service.
• Images adding context
  • Visual content is critical to engage humans. However, if the image isn’t clear or is duplicative of another service/product page, you might confuse the user and the machine attempting to understand and position you for queries. This is why it’s critical to add alt text (even on paid landing pages) for images and videos.
  • A good way to test whether your visuals are serving you well is to put the landing page into a PMax campaign creator. If you see the images and they match the correct service text, you’ve done a good job.
• Invest time in understanding how humans and AI are querying
  • Free tools like Google Trends, Microsoft Clarity, and Bing Webmaster offer insights into search trends, citations, grounding queries, and which AI systems and humans are successfully engaging with your content.

Conversion intent is more straightforward, though debatably harder because it requires more creative and critical thinking: 

• Matching messages to personas
  • The reason one person says yes to you might be completely different from the reason someone else does. Locking in conversion intent includes being mindful of how you’re selling yourself. If you ignore what matters to your customers in reviews, intake from customer success or sales, and other signals, you risk selling yourself badly and losing the customer.
  • This is where AI-powered creative and audience mapping can be helpful, since platforms have access to more insights than a brand does during the auction.
• Honor the impulse nature of visual content
  • Someone coming to you from a display spot or short video is very different than someone coming from a text-laden SERP. They were inspired to act and need frictionless paths to conversion.
  • One-click checkout (including solutions like Copilot Checkout) ensures humans don’t need to think to do business with you.

Ultimately, both query and conversion intent need brand and performance marketing to be successful, and it’s critical to understand how the success metrics manifest.

The converging roles of brand and performance

For a long time, brand and performance marketing were treated as separate motions, with separate owners, budgets, and success metrics. 

• Brand was about reach, recall, and long-term connection. 
• Performance was about efficiency, conversion rate, and immediate return. 

That separation made sense when channels, measurement, and user journeys were cleaner than they are today. It’s much harder to maintain in an environment where AI systems infer intent continuously and across surfaces. 

A user doesn’t experience brand and performance as separate. They experience confidence, familiarity, relevance, and ease. Those signals are created over time through exposure, engagement, and trust, and they often determine whether conversion intent ever materializes, regardless of how “high intent” a query might appear on its own.

From a metrics perspective, this convergence is clear. Brand-oriented activity influences performance outcomes even when it isn’t the final touch. Exposure to display, native, or video doesn’t always produce an immediate click, but it changes how humans and systems interpret future behavior. 

When someone later performs a search, engages with an AI assistant, or compares options on a marketplace, prior brand interactions act as accelerators. They reduce hesitation, shorten decision cycles, and increase the likelihood that a conversion signal will be credited downstream.

From a strategy standpoint, this means brand work should no longer be evaluated solely on isolated upper-funnel KPIs, and Performance work can’t be evaluated purely on last-click efficiency. 

Audience-based formats, contextual placements, and visual storytelling directly shape conversion intent by shaping preferences and expectations before a query even occurs. Search and shopping formats then serve as capture mechanisms, translating that latent intent into action.

This is particularly relevant in AI-assisted experiences, where systems synthesize multiple inputs before presenting options or recommendations. Content, feeds, reviews, images, and historical engagement all influence how brands are represented and when they appear.

In these environments, strong brand signals don’t compete with performance outcomes. They enable them by making the brand easier to understand, trust, and choose.

Brand and performance don’t need to use the same tactics, but they must be planned together. Measurement frameworks should account for assistive value, not just final interactions.

Creative strategies should recognize that inspiration and conversion often happen at different moments. Optimization should focus less on forcing intent into rigid buckets and more on supporting the full decision journey.

When we recognize that query intent and conversion intent are related but not identical, the convergence of brand and performance becomes less a philosophical debate and more an operational necessity.

Success comes from designing systems that reflect how humans actually decide, not just how they type.

Key takeaways

• Query intent describes what is said; conversion intent reflects what the human needs to accomplish. They overlap, but they aren’t interchangeable.
• Brand activity shapes conversion intent long before a query is expressed and influences how future interactions are interpreted.
• Performance outcomes improve when Brand signals reduce friction, uncertainty, and choice overload.
• AI-driven experiences amplify this convergence by relying on cumulative signals rather than single actions.
• Sustainable optimization requires aligning brand and performance strategies, metrics, and expectations around the same human outcomes.

In February 2025, the world watched as a small group of humanoid robots took the stage at the CCTV Chinese New Year show for the very first time. It was a charming performance, even if the steps were shaky and the movements were mostly limited to the arms.

Just one year later, at the Spring Festival Gala, the shaky steps were gone and the humanoid robots were able to actually run and do standing somersaults and full kung fu routines with swords and nunchaku. The message was clear: in just one year, we have witnessed a decade’s worth of advancement.

The 10-year leap in technology is real and not limited to robotics. Which raises a critical question for every digital marketer eyeing the world’s largest web population: How has search in China progressed in recent years?

A parallel in the Chinese search landscape

The answer is that we’re witnessing the first, calculated tremors of a massive shift. AI models have not yet replaced traditional search. The evolution isn’t happening through a single “big bang,” but through a constant, iterative pulse. 

New LLM models are surfacing every few months, each more specialized than the last. Chinese tech giants are increasingly open-sourcing their models, and even industry leaders are hedging their bets. Baidu, for example, is integrating DeepSeek into its search experience, even as its own Ernie (Wenxin) model remains a formidable powerhouse.

Let’s look at how users actually search in China today — and what this nuanced shift from links to reasoning means for your 2026 SEO strategy.

The great narrative fallacy: Is web search dead in China?

In many marketing circles, a specific narrative has been repeated so often it has become an article of faith: “Traditional search on Baidu is dead — and has been for years. Websites are obsolete. In China, everything is WeChat.”

This narrative is almost always driven by service providers whose business models depend on WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, or Xiaohongshu marketing. To them, the “open web” is a ghost town. But is this actually true?

The social supremacy argument

There’s a grain of truth in the hype. The Chinese web is a mobile-first multiverse. Users access and explore the web through super-apps:

• RedNote (Xiaohongshu / Little Red Book): This is the de facto engine for lifestyle research and travel planning.
• Pinduoduo and Douyin: These are the juggernauts of social commerce and impulse buying.
• WeChat: The absolute center of daily life, where everything from a quick message to a utility bill payment via QR code happens.

In this environment, social media isn’t just a channel. It’s the air people breathe. For B2C brands, social ads can — and often do — exceed website-driven sales by orders of magnitude.

The B2B reality check

For those of us working with B2B companies that need real visibility in China, the “Baidu is dead” narrative falls apart the moment you look at the analytics. Clients who invest in Baidu SEO and Baidu search engine advertising (SEA) continue to see a steady, high-volume stream of real human visitors — in many cases generating more qualified leads and higher conversion rates than their counterparts in the UK or Germany.

Why? Because when a B2B procurement officer or a technical engineer needs a specific industrial solution, they don’t just scroll until they find it on a social media feed. They search for a verified, authoritative source. In other words, they look for a website.

Is the social media narrative a lie? No. But ignoring a channel that — at least in the B2B sector — remains more effective in China than in many search-first Western countries is simply bad business. The goal isn’t to choose one over the other; it’s to understand how they coexist. 

And just as we’ve settled the debate between web marketing versus app marketing, a new challenger — the LLM — has entered the battleground to disrupt both.

Mapping the 2026 landscape: Intent-based specialization

To a Google-first marketer, the idea of searching anywhere but a search engine feels like a detour. In China, it’s the standard operating procedure. Users don’t just “Google it.” Instead, they choose the tool that fits the intent.

As a Baidu specialist living and working in China, I see this daily. While I might be optimizing a B2B landing page for Baidu, my wife is likely on Pinduoduo, finding household deals, or on Xiaohongshu, planning our next weekend trip. 

The “everything app” exists, but the “right app” always wins the click.

1. Traditional web search: The authority tier

Despite the “death of the web” narrative, traditional web search remains the primary battleground for B2B and high-authority research. If a user needs a technical whitepaper, a government regulation, or a verified corporate headquarters, they go here.

• Baidu: Still the mobile heavyweight, with a ~70% mobile market share. Its structural advantage is massive: The Baidu app is installed on over 724 million monthly active devices (as of early 2026). It has evolved into an AI-first portal, but for SEOs, it remains the place where the open web lives and breathes.
• Microsoft Bing: The professional’s sanctuary. It has claimed a massive chunk of desktop search for those seeking a cleaner, international, or technical experience.
• Haosou (360 Search): The enterprise default, often pre-installed on corporate PCs and known for its security focus.
• Sogou: Deeply integrated with WeChat, it’s the bridge between the walled garden and the web.
• Google: Yes, Google. Despite the firewall, a significant population of tech-savvy professionals and researchers use it via VPN for global technical data and academic resources.

2. Social discovery: The inspiration tier

This is where search becomes discovery. Users don’t always have a keyword, but they do have an interest. In this context, SEO is about social indexing: ensuring your brand appears when a user looks for proof and not just products.

• WeChat (Weixin): The internal search for official brand news and private traffic.
• Xiaohongshu (RED): The ultimate product-discovery engine. If you aren’t on RED, you don’t exist in the lifestyle or luxury sectors.
• Douyin: Visual, video-first search. Users search Douyin to see how something works.
• Kuaishou: The powerhouse for lower-tier cities and raw, authentic grassroots content.
• Weibo: Real-time search — what is happening right now in the public eye.
• Bilibili: Long-form video search for deep dives, tutorials, and Gen Z subcultures.

3. Ecommerce: The transactional tier

In the West, users often start on Google and end on Amazon. In China, the journey frequently starts and ends in the same place.

• Taobao / Tmall: The grand bazaar. If you want variety and brand stores, this is the first stop.
• JD.com: The Amazon of China for logistics and high-end electronics.
• Pinduoduo: The favorite for daily essentials and group-buy deals. Its search logic is entirely driven by value for money.
• Douyin Mall: The rising star of “impulse search,” merging entertainment with immediate checkout.
• Xianyu (Goofish): The go-to for the thriving second-hand market and hobbyist niches.

4. Generative AI (LLMs): The reasoning tier

This is the newest layer of the map — the “thinking” search. These AI models don’t just produce lists of links. They are assistants that synthesize the web for the user.

• Doubao (ByteDance): Currently the most popular consumer AI assistant, used for casual, conversational queries.
• DeepSeek (Domestic): The choice for developers and those in need of “deep thinking” logic. It’s the engine currently getting tested inside WeChat’s search bar.
• Kimi (Moonshot AI): The king of long-context. Users use Kimi to search through 50-page PDFs or complex financial reports.
• Qwen (Alibaba): Powerfully integrated into the Alibaba ecosystem for business and coding tasks.
• Tencent Yuanbao: The “AI brain” for WeChat content.
• Wen Xiaoyan (Baidu): The AI-facing evolution of Baidu search.

5. Hyper-local and logistics: The utility tier

For the physical world, search is about “now” and “near me.”

• Meituan / Dianping: If you’re hungry or want to see a movie, you don’t use Baidu. You use Dianping for reviews and Meituan for transactions.
• Amap (Gaode) / Baidu Maps: The “search engines of the real world.” SEO on these platforms is purely about point-of-interest (POI) optimization.
• Ctrip (Trip.com) / Railway 12306: The specialized gates for the massive domestic travel market.

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From mapping to maneuvering: The Baidu specialist’s edge

Baidu SEO isn’t dead; your website just isn’t the sole focus of web search anymore.

The ‘walled garden’ SERP: A decade of distraction

If you’re a Google-centric SEO, there are some notable differences when working with Baidu:

• The ad-heavy layout: It isn’t uncommon to see ads claiming the top, middle, and bottom of a Baidu search engine results page (SERP), occupying nearly 50% of the visible real estate.
• The Baidu monopoly: The most coveted organic positions are almost always reserved for Baidu’s own properties. Baidu Baike (the encyclopedia), Baidu Zhidao (the Q&A hub), and Baijiahao (the news/blogging arm) are the permanent residents of Page 1.
• The portal giants: High-authority giants like Zhihu (China’s Quora), Bilibili, and Sohu take up whatever space is left.

Riding the Chinese SERP dragon

In this environment, ranking a corporate homepage for a high-volume keyword is a fool’s errand. Instead, we’ve mastered the art of the “long-tail dragon.”

In the West, we talk about the long tail of search as a small, niche opportunity. In China, with its linguistic complexity and massive user base, the long tail is a winding, multi-layered beast that is often more lucrative than the head terms. 

And we don’t just rank a website; we piggyback on the authority of the platforms Baidu already trusts. If you can’t beat Baidu Baike, you become the verified entry inside it.

Interestingly, it is these very platforms — the ones we’ve been using to bypass the “blue link problem” — that have now become the primary focus of the next generation of search.

What is changing in Baidu SEO?

In China, there is no brand loyalty toward particular AI models, as Westerners have toward platforms like ChatGPT and Claude.

The AI-switching reality

Chinese users are restless. They don’t stick with one model. They switch — sometimes because a hyped model hits a downtime wall, and sometimes because a new model claims the throne of the “most intelligent AI.” In this cycle of competition and user preference, an SEO can’t just focus on the “big sources.”

If you’re following the Western playbook, you’re likely chasing Reddit, Quora, and YouTube as your “sources of truth” for AI training. But in China, that focus is dangerously narrow. To win the reasoning battle, you must understand the investor-source connection.

Brainstorming the wisdom platforms

If you want to train AIs to see your brand in China, you have to look at the platforms they were built on:

• Tencent is invested in Sogou. In 2021, Tencent fully privatized Sogou. This means Sogou Baike is no longer just a Baidu alternative — it is now a core training set for Tencent’s Yuanbao. If you ignore Sogou Baike, you’re invisible to the AI search bar inside WeChat.
• Bytedance owns Baike.com. Bytedance bought Baike.com (formerly Hudong Baike) specifically to fuel its search ambitions. If you want to get cited by Doubao, your content needs to be mirrored here and not just on Baidu.
• The neutral giants: Keep an eye on Zhihu. Because both Tencent and Baidu are heavy investors in Zhihu, it remains one of the few neutral high-authority sources that almost every Chinese LLM uses for opinionated or expert reasoning.

The new SEO commandment

We’re no longer just optimizing for a search engine. We’re optimizing for a data pedigree.

If your client is B2B, you might still prioritize the Baidu ecosystem. But if your client is in ecommerce and you aren’t feeding the Qwen engine via Alibaba’s ecosystem, or the Doubao engine via Baike.com, you’re limiting your visibility across key AI systems.

The 2026 China SEO/GEO blueprint: From keywords to semantic saturation

If you’re waiting for a “DeepSeek optimization checklist” or a “Doubao ranking guide,” you’ve already missed the point. Because users switch models as often as they switch takeout apps, you can’t afford to be “Baidu-only” or “WeChat-centric.”

Here is what’s actually working for SEO in China in 2026:

Optimize for citations and not just clicks

While SEO in the West is focused on generative engine optimization (GEO), in China, it’s all about fact density. 

• The logic: When Kimi or DeepSeek performs a reasoning query, the AI looks for verifiable facts.
• The tactic: Stop writing marketing fluff. Start using the inverted pyramid writing style. Lead with a direct, data-backed answer in your first paragraph. Use hard statistics, expert quotes, and structured lists. If a model can’t extract a fact from your content in 200 milliseconds, it might hallucinate a competitor’s data instead.

Build an entity moat across wisdom platforms

As we brainstormed earlier, every AI has a “parent” with a preferred data source. But since models are now open-sourcing their weights and distilling each other’s intelligence, your brand must achieve entity consistency.

• The goal: Your brand name, headquarters, and core product claims must be identical across Baidu Baike (Baidu), Sogou Baike (Tencent), and Baike.com (ByteDance).
• The result: When these models cross-check their reasoning, they find a consensus. In 2026, consensus is the new authority.

Leverage information gain

Chinese AI models have a well-observed recency bias — they prefer sources that are roughly 25% fresher than traditional search results.

• The tactic: Don’t just regurgitate what’s already on Zhihu. Provide a “unique data slice.” If everyone says “The best time to post on Douyin is 6 PM,” and you publish a case study proving “11 AM is better for B2B industrial leads,” the AI will cite you as the “nuanced exception.” That citation is worth more than ten #1 rankings.

The era of the entity architect

We’ve come a long way from the shaky steps of the 2025 CCTV Gala.

In 2026, China’s search ecosystem is no longer a directory of links. It’s a living, reasoning entity.

For the Western search specialist, the lesson is clear: The “super app” was a distraction. The real story is the fragmentation of intent.

My wife still goes to Pinduoduo for the best price. My colleagues still go to Bing for technical sanctuary. And the “I, Robot” enthusiasts of 2026 are using a rotating door of LLMs to find their answers.

As a Baidu specialist, my job has shifted from “ranking a website” to “architecting an entity.” We no longer build for the bot; we build for the source. If you’re the undeniable source of truth across the platforms that shape China’s information ecosystem, it doesn’t matter which model delivers the answer.

You’ll be the one they’re cheering for.

be quiet’s Dark Rock 6 series CPU coolers are launching this month be quiet has officially announced their new Dark Rock 6 and Dark Rock 6 Pro CPU coolers, both of which are launching this month on May 19th. These coolers feature all-new designs, promising significantly improved CPU cooling performance compared to their predecessors. This […]

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A 44% discount has been spotted for the Logitech G515 Lightspeed, a ten-keyless, wireless gaming keyboard we highly recommend for its superb battery life, responsive controls, low-profile design, and more.

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Combining cutting-edge ergonomic design with convenient productivity features, the latest mouse in the Trust Home & Office range - the Vyran Ergonomic Multi-Wireless Hyperscroll Mouse - is the perfect choice for professionals looking for a comfortable mouse that works as hard as they do.

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Kensington, a worldwide leader of desktop computing and mobility solutions for IT, business, and home office professionals, today announced an expansion of its USB-C GaN charging portfolio with the addition of new multi-port power adapters and a 240 W USB-C fast-charging cable, designed to support fast, efficient charging across multiple devices.

The expanded lineup adds 70 W and 140 W USB-C GaN chargers that allow users to power laptops, tablets, smartphones, and accessories from a single compact adapter, reducing the need for multiple chargers and outlets.

When Bloomberg recently asked Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick why the company has not yet discussed a PC version of GTA 6, he emphasized the importance of focusing on the company's "core" users. The comments imply that Take-Two still views the PC as a secondary market. Despite this, Zelnick acknowledged that...

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The basic concept is straightfoward: generate electricity from waves, use it on the spot, and run AI chips with no connection to the grid. Panthalassa builds autonomous platforms it calls nodes, tall steel structures that sit mostly below the surface and rise and fall with the motion of the sea.

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According to Korean publication The Elec, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have asked substrate manufacturers to move forward with DDR6 production. The companies are now coordinating designs and conducting preliminary development of the new memory standard.

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Every AI tool, workflow automation, and productivity app your employees connected to Google or Microsoft this year left something behind: a persistent OAuth token with no expiration date, no automatic cleanup, and in most organizations, no one watching it. Your perimeter controls don't see it. Your MFA doesn't stop it. And when an attacker gets hold of one, they don't need a password. OAuth

Threat actors are actively exploiting a critical security flaw impacting an open-source content management system (CMS) known as MetInfo, according to new findings from VulnCheck. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-29014 (CVSS score: 9.8), a code injection flaw that could result in arbitrary code execution. "MetInfo CMS versions 7.9, 8.0, and 8.1 contain an unauthenticated PHP code

Apple has once again raised the possibility of making its chips at Fabs besides TSMC, as it is in early talks with Intel and Samsung. Intel & Samsung Emerge As Potential Fix To Apple's Supply Constraints Affecting Its Consumer Chips Bloomberg has just dropped some big news surrounding Apple, which is in early talks with Intel and Apple to secure additional supply for its consumer lineup. The report highlights that Apple has held "exploratory" discussions with the two semiconductor firms as it aims to diversify the production of its chips. The company has so far relied upon TSMC for its […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/apple-eyes-intel-samsung-fabs-in-early-stage-talks-a-rare-crack-decade-long-tsmc-loyalty/

Being fast can be a problem, well, you haven't heard that one right? Apex Legends developers just fixed an issue with physics calculations on AMD Ryzen X3D CPUs caused by their high single-threaded performance. Apex Legends Patch Addresses Physics Calculations-Based Stutters Encountered On CPUs With Fast Single-Threaded Performance, Such as AMD's Ryzen X3D Apex Legends rolled out its latest patch, "Overclocked," which includes a range of changes, including performance improvements on the PC platform. One of the changes is unexpected, which calls out the fast single-threaded performance of AMD Ryzen X3D and a similarly performant CPU as the primary cause […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-x3d-cpus-so-fast-they-broke-apex-legends-physics/

Around five months ago, CI Games CEO Marek Tyminski signaled a shift in tone for Lords of the Fallen 2 away from "political correctness" and toward, among other things, skimpy female armor designs. Now, that's been confirmed with the official reveal of five concept art pieces that leave little to imagination: the female characters will feature much more revealing armor sets in the upcoming Soulslike sequel. The studio claimed to be responding to players' feedback: You wanted fierce. You wanted beautiful. You wanted provocative. The reveal also took place in partnership with content creator TheBackgroundNPC, who focuses specifically on female […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/ci-games-lords-of-the-fallen-2-skimpy-armor-female-characters/

Lenovo has focused on trimming fat and including a brilliant display and long battery life with the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition.

The facility will close a gap that has put JSR at a disadvantage relative to its two largest Japanese rivals.

Apple is reportedly in early talks with Intel and Samsung to secure more production for its advanced chips, as the company is constrained by the limited availability of advanced nodes that its SoCs are produced on.

The Inland QN450 is a surprisingly capable Gen 4 drive with strong all-around performance and exceptional power efficiency. It outshines the NV3 but has hardware uncertainty and low TBW.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang reiterates that American companies should be able to ship their products globally, but maintains that the latest AI accelerators should remain in America.

Every hardware component you need to build a top-tier gaming PC, all in one Newegg combo bundle. It also helps that it saves you a whopping $1,385 and includes a powerful RTX 5080 and 9850X3D.

Grab a huge $1,120 saving on this RTX 5080 gaming laptop from HP, with 32GB DDR5, 2TB SSD, and a 16-inch OLED with a 240Hz refresh rate.

Karaads is a social platform that lets you connect, share moments, and earn rewards by engaging with ads. It offers a personalized space where you can build friendships, watch relevant ads, and discover the latest trends tailored for you. Scroll through an algorithm-driven feed, follow creators, and engage in conversations to build authentic communities.

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Essay Grader AI helps teachers grade essays quickly, delivering specific feedback, error detection, and rubric-aligned scores. It supports custom rubrics, bulk uploads, and class organization, plus built-in summarization and AI content detection. Companion tools generate questions, lesson plans, and classroom materials to streamline daily work.

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AI pager that investigates incidents before wakeups

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Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has admitted that the expectations for Grand Theft Auto 6 have him terrified, even as industry analysts expect the game to sell exceedingly well.

Surfshark has just launched a dedicated app for Amazon's newest Fire TV sticks running the Vega operating system, delivering faster streaming and robust protection against hackers.

AI might be better than your entry-level workers for productivity today, but it could spell disaster for future employment.

I've been campaigning for all three BBC Paradise crime dramas have a crossover episode for at least a year — and the Beyond Paradise season 4 cast is completely up for it.

Spotify could be solving a big lossless pain point for offline downloads, and playback speed control could be coming to music.

The newest Airwraps are great, but competitor brands have seriously upped their game recently.

Watch free streams from the Italian Open 2026 as Jannik Sinner seeks a first home men's win for 50 years – tennis TV channels, broadcasters and streams.

Dummy units of Apple’s iPhone Ultra folding phone have been leaked in a new YouTube video.

Resident Evil Requiem producer Masato Kumazawa has said the negative reaction to Nvidia's DLSS 5 version of Grace Ashcroft from players meant Capcom achieved the best design for the character.

Rockstar Games won't release GTA 6 on PC on November 19, 2026, and Take-Two's CEO effectively says it's because console players are the main audience.

Sam Altman says many companies might be 'AI washing', blaming AI for job cuts that would have happened anyway.

I'm still not over last week's epic Amazing Race crossover that ended in hilarious disaster. But when do Hacks season 5 episodes 6 and 7 drop on HBO Max?

The technology sector has a habit of spotting contradictions everywhere except in its own workforce strategies.

The restructuring is aimed at addressing market volatility and increasing the use of AI tools to improve efficiency.

The startup has put a spin on repurposing EV batteries, CEO Edward Chiang told TechCrunch.

Google says a new wave of users are learning that Search can handle more complex questions, changing how they search.

The post Google Says A New Wave Of AI Users Is Transforming Search appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google says AI's ability to surface common information makes human experience and subjective insights more valuable for content.

The post Google: AI Makes Human Experience More Important For Content appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

In February 2024, Gartner predicted that traditional search volume would drop 25% by 2026. It didn’t. Google’s search revenue accelerated to 17% year-over-year growth, crossing $63 billion in Q4 2025 alone. But clicks per search are falling while query volume explodes. The pie got bigger. The slices got redistributed. And most search teams are still optimizing for the old pie.

Are you still poring over spreadsheets full of organic keyword rankings like it’s 2003? Your customers don’t care where they’re getting their answers. They’re just looking for answers they can trust. And they’re finding those answers across more surfaces than your rank tracker knows exist.

If your organic strategy lives in one spreadsheet, your paid strategy in another, and your AI search strategy in a third (or nowhere), you’re optimizing for a search experience that no longer exists.

What “search” actually looks like now

Google “best tax software” right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Count the surfaces on that single results page. Sponsored ads across the top. An AI Overview with its own recommendations and citations. A Reddit thread (because Google knows people trust other people more than brands). Organic listings from CNET, H&R Block, and others. A video carousel. Discussion forum links. A product carousel with images and prices. More sponsored results at the bottom. And a “People also search for” section feeding the next query.

That is one search. One keyword. And nobody owns it.

Now think about how different people actually use that page. I scroll past everything to find the Reddit thread, because I want to know what real humans recommend. My dad clicks the first sponsored ad because he doesn’t understand paid advertising (sorry, dad!) and just trusts Google to surface the best option up top. Someone else reads the AI Overview, gets a good-enough answer, and never clicks anything at all. A fourth person watches the Smart Family Money video and leaves.

Same query. Four completely different paths. Four different “winners.” And if you’re the brand celebrating a number-three organic ranking on this page, you may be missing that most of the real estate, and most of the user attention, lives somewhere other than those blue links.

This is what I mean by the total SERP experience. Your customer sees the whole page. You should too.

The AI layer changes the math

AI Overviews now appear on roughly 25% to 48% of Google queries, depending on the study. ChatGPT processes 2.5 billion prompts a day. Perplexity is up 239% year over year. These are real numbers from real platforms where real buyers are forming opinions about your brand, or not forming opinions because you’re nowhere to be found.

But before the panic sets in: AI tools still account for less than 1% of U.S. web traffic. Google sends 300x more referral traffic than all AI platforms combined. The sky isn’t falling, but the ground is shifting.

The shift that matters most is behavioral. Wynter’s 2026 research found 68% of B2B buyers now start their research in AI tools before they ever open Google. They ask ChatGPT to narrow the field, then Google the shortlist to validate. AI evaluates, Google verifies, and your website converts. If your brand is missing from that first AI conversation, you’re not even on the shortlist when the Googling starts.

Why the click data is more interesting than scary

A Search Engine Land analysis of 25 million organic impressions across 42 clients found organic CTR drops 61% when an AI Overview appears. In addition, paid CTR drops 68%.

EVERYBODY FREAK OUT!!! Right? Not quite.

Here’s what the panicked LinkedIn posts leave out: brands cited inside AI Overviews see 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks. Being in the AI Overview doesn’t cannibalize your traffic. If anything, it amplifies it. The AI Overview functions like a trust signal, a stamp of “this brand is relevant to your question” that makes people more likely to click your listing below.

The real twist, though, is that ranking well in organic doesn’t guarantee you show up in AI. Tom Capper’s research at Moz found 88% of AI Mode citations are NOT in the organic SERP for the same query. Organic and AI are pulling from different source pools. You can be number one in Google and completely invisible in ChatGPT’s answer to the same question.

And the small amount of traffic that does come from AI? It converts at more than quadruple the rate of organic, according to Semrush. These visitors arrive more informed, more intentional, and more ready to buy. Which makes sense, because they’ve already done the evaluation inside the AI interface. By the time they click, they’re just confirming and often converting.

The org chart is the problem

Most companies have SEO reporting to content, PPC reporting to demand gen, and AI search reporting to nobody. BrightEdge found 54% of organizations have handed AI search to the SEO team alone, which is a little like asking your plumber to also handle the electrical work because, hey, it’s all in the same house.

The waste from this setup is real. One branded Performance Max campaign paid roughly $500,000 for clicks that would have come through organic anyway. Google’s own research confirms: when you rank number one organically, only half your paid clicks are truly incremental. The other half? You bought what you already owned.

Meanwhile, McKinsey found that a brand’s own website makes up only 5% to 10% of the sources AI references. AI pulls from Reddit, review sites, affiliates, publishers, and user-generated content. You can have the best SEO program in your category and be completely absent from AI search results because AI is reading what other people say about you, not what you say about yourself.

The unified approach works. Level cut acquisition costs 18% and boosted SEO leads 22% by merging paid and organic for a B2B SaaS client. And we can use tools in our Level Intelligence Suite to connect performance signals across search surfaces. The channels compound each other. Treating them as separate line items on separate P&Ls leaves that compounding on the table.

Three audits you can run Monday morning

You don’t need a six-month transformation to start seeing the gaps. Three lenses, applied to your top 20 keywords, will show you where the opportunities and the waste are hiding.

Lens 1: Where do you actually appear? Check your organic rankings, paid ad coverage, and AI visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for the same set of keywords. Semrush has a free AI visibility checker. Most teams have never looked at all three surfaces side by side, and the gaps are almost always larger than they expect.

Lens 2: Where are you paying for traffic you already own? Cross-reference your number-one organic rankings with active PPC bids on the same terms. Start with branded keywords, where the waste is usually largest and the test is cleanest. If you rank first and you’re still bidding, you’re probably buying your own clicks.

Lens 3: Where is AI ignoring you? Compare your organic rankings with your AI citation presence. Only 11% of domains get cited by both ChatGPT and Perplexity, so strength in one guarantees nothing in the other. And check your robots.txt while you’re at it. If you’re blocking AI crawlers like OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot, you’ve pulled yourself off those shelves entirely.

This diagnostic shows you the full picture. What to do about it, the actual unification framework, is what I’m laying out at SMX Advanced.

The window won’t stay open

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) keyword difficulty currently averages 15 to 20, compared to 45 to 60 for equivalent SEO terms. That gap will close. Once an LLM selects a trusted source, it reinforces that choice across related prompts. The brands getting cited now are training the models to keep citing them. Winner-takes-most dynamics are being baked into the weights.

Many companies are seeing search traffic drop significantly. Those same brands, the ones that get it right, are seeing the inverse when it comes to business growth. Rankings and revenue have decoupled. The brands that win from here are the ones that stopped measuring channels in isolation and started measuring the search experience their customers actually have.

We’re presenting a search unification framework at SMX Advanced in our session, “Organic, paid, and AI search: one strategy to rule them all.” If you want to stop optimizing for three separate channels and start compounding performance across every search surface, join us for the session or come find the Level team at Booth #9.

Remember: The search experience that existed in 2023 is gone. The strategy should be too.

Halo Studios plans to remake the original Halo Trilogy According to a report from Rebs Gaming, Halo Studios is planning to create remakes of the original Halo Trilogy. Remakes of Halo 2 and Halo 3 are reportedly in early development, and both projects will continue regardless of the performance of Halo: Campaign Evolved. Halo: Campaign […]

The post Halo 2 and Halo 3 remakes are currently in development – leaker claims appeared first on OC3D.

Team Group expands its Elite and Elite PLUS DDR5 range with new DDR5-8000 kits Team Group has officially released new JEDEC standard DDR5-8000 memory modules for its Elite and Elite PLUS product ranges. These modules can deliver 8000 MT/s speeds at 1.1V with CL56-56-56-128 timings, and support both AMD Ryzen and Intel Core Ultra systems. […]

The post Team Group launches new DDR5-8000 memory kits for Intel and AMD Ryzen PCs appeared first on OC3D.

Valve's new hardware survey shows that a quarter of Windows users are holding on to Windows 10, while the most popular PC components paint a broader picture.

The Diablo 4 Cow Level has finally been discovered, and it will take you some real effort to grab this Cow Kings Crown

Playground Games has detailed six reward cars for Forza Horizon 6 that players of the previous games can get their hands on, and they're going to give you a definite leg up right out of the gate.

be quiet!, the German manufacturer for premium PC components and peripherals, is proud to announce Dark Rock Pro 6 and Dark Rock 6. These high-end air coolers feature an all-new design, significantly better performance thanks to optimized heat sinks and optimized high-performance heat pipes, as well as an extended feature set for even greater ease of use and compatibility. Both coolers are built for users who demand powerful cooling performance, maximum compatibility with high-end motherboards and RAM modules, and the virtually inaudible operation that defines be quiet!'s Dark Rock series.

"With Dark Rock Pro 6 and Dark Rock 6, we have taken our high-end air cooling portfolio to the next level," says Aaron Licht, CEO of be quiet! "With improved performance and a new level of quietness through its optional semi-passive mode, the Dark Rock 6 series delivers the cooling power and elegance users expect from be quiet!, whether they are building a heavily overclocked workstation or a compact high-end gaming system."

LG Display, the world's leading innovator of display technologies, announced today that it is unveiling its next-generation OLED technologies at SID Display Week 2026, further strengthening its OLED leadership.

During the exhibition, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from May 5 to 7, LG Display will present OLED display solutions optimized for the AI era under the theme, "OLED Evolution for the AI Era." SID Display Week is the world's largest display event, where global companies and researchers gather to present research papers and showcase mid- to long-term future technologies and new products.

Last week, news broke that Lenovo had bought Phoenix Technologies' firmware (BIOS) technology business and now it looks like AMI—also known as American Megatrends Inc—is about to get a new owner, namely Lattice Semiconductor. That leaves Taiwanese Insyde Software as the only independent UEFI/BIOS developer in a market that at least on the desktop side has been largely ruled by AMI and is likely to continue to be so, even with AMI now being a subsidiary to Lattice Semiconductor.

Lattice is offering US$1.65 billion in cash and stock for AMI, which is a privately held company today. For those unfamiliar with Lattice, the company makes a range of FPGA solutions for a wide range of markets and is a competitor with AMD's Xilinx subsidiary and Altera, which is part owned by Intel. It's not entirely clear what the synergy is between Lattice and AMI, but a statement by Lattice CEO Ford Tamer suggests that the company thinks it might help its customers "deploy complex systems faster and with greater confidence" under Lattice's "everywhere companion chip strategy". Time will tell if this will lead to changes to AMI's current customers or not, since as the biggest UEFI/BIOS vendor out there, used by almost all mainstream motherboard makers and many other x86/x64 hardware makers, they have something of a unique position in the market.

The CPU market looks very different from six months ago. Intel's back in the conversation, AMD's X3D chips still rule gaming, and there's genuine value at every price point.

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While the software industry has made genuine strides over the past few decades to deliver products securely, the furious pace of AI adoption is putting that progress at risk. Businesses are moving fast to self-host LLM infrastructure, drawn by the promise of AI as a force multiplier and the pressure to deliver more value faster. But speed is coming at the expense of security. In the wake of the

The North Korea-aligned state-sponsored hacking group known as ScarCruft has compromised a video game platform in a supply chain espionage attack, trojanizing its components with a backdoor called BirdCallto likely target ethnic Koreans residing in China. While prior versions of the backdoor have primarily targeted Windows users only, the supply chain attack is assessed to have enabled the

Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3 has yet to be officially announced, but recent statements from director Naoki Hamaguchi suggest the game's reveal and release aren't too far off. According to a high-effort leak posted on ResetEra, the third and final entry in the remake trilogy will be revealed during this year's Summer Game Fest opening showcase on June 5, but many of the details sound too good to be true. "I am posting this on behalf of somebody else I know to protect their identity who works somewhere in the chain between Square Enix marketing and Summer Game Fest event staff. The level of […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/final-fantasy-vii-remake-part-3-detailed-leak-too-good-true/

The memory shortage faced by Apple can be avoided as the company can purchase DRAM quantities in bulk for a multitude of products, but one area where the Cupertino firm may continue to struggle is chip supply. As TSMC is operating at its maximum capacity by fulfilling 3nm silicon orders for AI customers, it’s adversely affecting iPhone 17 Pro Max shipments to the point that a customer who has been searching around for a flagship unit is unable to find one in a U.S. state. Low A19 Pro chip supply could also affect the second-generation MacBook Neo shipments, as Apple will […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/iphone-17-pro-max-shipments-affected-due-to-low-chip-supply/

China is targeting 70% local wafer sourcing as firms like Eswin scale 12-inch production, aiming to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers and support growing AI chip demand.

Notepad++ creator Don Ho has filed a trademark complaint with Cloudflare and is threatening further legal action against the developer of a macOS port.

A YouTuber has tested Intel's 12 P-core Core 9 273PQE and discovered the chip outperforms the Core i9-14900K by up to 9% in games potentially making the 273PQE Intel's fastest gaming CPU.

An enthusiast has taken the time to recreate the Apple Lisa, the first commercial PC with a GUI, with an FPGA board.

Levelop helps developers master coding patterns and system design through interactive challenges, an intuitive system design canvas, and daily practice. It adapts to your goals, tracks progress with personalized dashboards, and uses AI-powered guidance to keep you focused and productive. Join a community of learners and builders, set achievable milestones, and consistently grow your skills.

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Vimi is an AI-powered photo studio that turns selfies, pet shots, and couple photos into polished portraits and creative artwork. Browse themed collections like Cute 3D World, Premium Portrait, Playground FX, and Elegant Sari to find a look you love. Upload photos, pick a style, and generate unique images for profiles, gifts, or celebrations in minutes.

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Discreet brainwave wearable for real-time mental insights

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AI fraud detection for documents, IDs, and images

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Want to know what the future of smartphone displays looks like? Check out the latest Samsung Display showcase.

Apple is no longer an enterprise outlier

Trump administration uses national security to justify stalling the development of 165 wind farms that could power 15 million homes

AI is making digital advertising easier to run. It is also making fraud easier to scale.

Microsoft's latest report says even more big changes are coming to AI in the workplace.

Key details are still missing, but Trellix says it found no evidence of source code release or distribution process being affected.

AI bots reshape digital discovery, forcing brands to rethink visibility, control, and competitive positioning online.

Sony's WH-1000XX The ColleXion has been spotted adorning the ears of Damson Idris, in what appears to me to be an early tease of the super-premium cans

iOS 26.5 is almost here and Apple has confirmed three major features that will be included, but a rumored iOS 27 Wallet upgrade is even more exciting.

To address the challenges of water quality and availability in the Scheldt Basin, a vital river network flowing through Belgium, Google is supporting Agua Segura and Agr…

The next Call of Duty game isn’t coming to PlayStation 4 Over the weekend, rumours began circulating that the next Call of Duty game is being developed for last-generation consoles. This means that the game was being developed with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in mind. In response to these rumours, Activision has used their […]

The post It’s official; no PS4 – Call of Duty is abandoning last-gen appeared first on OC3D.

DDR6 memory is officially in development All major memory manufacturers, including Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, have reportedly started developing DDR6 memory. Alongside substrate manufacturers, “joint development” for the standard has reportedly begun. According to The Elec, this happens “more than two years before product launch”, placing DDR6’s launch in a 2028-2029 timeframe. JEDEC has […]

The post DDR6 memory is officially in development – 2028-2029 launch planned appeared first on OC3D.

Are you looking for esports-level performance without unnecessary weight? The SKILLER SGM70W delivers professional performance in an ultra-lightweight design - whether used wired or wireless. Equipped with the precise PixArt PAW3395 sensor, an extremely high polling rate, and ultra-smooth glass feet, it offers maximum control with minimal weight and is perfect for ambitious gamers who demand speed, precision, and flexibility.

The SKILLER SGM70W relies on the proven optical PixArt PAW3395 sensor, delivering up to 26,000 DPI to capture even the smallest movements with accuracy. This ensures the precision needed for fast reactions and exact tracking during competitive gameplay. Whether wired or wireless, the SKILLER SGM70W adapts effortlessly to any gaming situation. Both modes offer professional performance, while the wireless mode benefits from an impressive 8,000 Hz polling rate for especially responsive input.

A critical security vulnerability in Weaver (Fanwei) E-cology, an enterprise office automation (OA) and collaboration platform, has come under active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability (CVE-2026-22679, CVSS score: 9.8) relates to a case of unauthenticated remote code execution affecting Weaver E-cology 10.0 versions prior to 20260312. The issue resides in the "/papi/esearch/data/devops/

Microsoft has disclosed details of a large-scale credential theft campaign that has leveraged a combination of code of conduct-themed lures and legitimate email services to direct users to attacker-controlled domains and steal authentication tokens. The multi-stage campaign, observed between April 14 and 16, 2026, targeted more than 35,000 users across over 13,000 organizations in 26 countries,

This morning, Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment posted its Q1 2026 financial report, which revealed, among other things, a new sales milestone for CONTROL: 6 million units sold. The year's first quarter was profitable but slightly down year over year, with revenue falling 1.9% to €13.1 million, though EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) actually improved to €2.9 million from €2.6 million. The more notable shift is in the revenue mix: game sales and royalties nearly doubled to €5.0 million (from €2.6 million in Q1 2025), while development fees fell from €10.7 million to €8.2 million as CONTROL Resonant nears completion. […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/remedy-ceo-control-resonant-franchise-6-million-units/

The SPEC CPU 2026 features more tests and an emphasis on portability, running on everything from fleets of servers down to a Raspberry Pi.

From screen to polished video in minutes

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Automated cancer diagnostics

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Social media security for brand accounts

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AI clinical trial matching for patients

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Smartphone eye tests for refractive errors

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Native CAD autocomplete — 2.5x faster, 4x fewer clicks

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Foundation model of the Immune System

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Microbiome test kits with AI nutrition guidance

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School cafeteria ordering and payments platform

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AI ultrasound analysis for echo reports

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AI analytics agent for hospitality revenue teams

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Global Neobank for digital businesses

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Stop guessing where your money goes — Hutsy tells you

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The perception layer for Marketers and their AIs

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App-free AR publishing for brand campaigns

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Agentic infrastructure powering video search & monetization.

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Turns business updates into training content

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WhatsApp expense invoicing for company teams

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Enterprise user research platform for product teams

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AI agents for data center cooling and power

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Turns PDF P&IDs into queryable engineering data

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As AI-driven attacks surge, organizations struggle to keep pace with growing threat complexity.

The Keychron V1 Ultra 8K delivers an impressive feature set for its price, including 8,000Hz polling over wired and 2.4GHz wireless connections and hot-swappable Silk POM switches.

Using AI purely to reduce headcount misses its true transformative potential.

Vodafone is buying out CK Hutchison from the VodafoneThree joint venture for £4.3 billion.

This ChatGPT image prompt can turn two personal photos into a realistic meeting across time

Elon Musk’s courtroom battle with OpenAI now has him warning about the future of the Terminator films.

AI investment is decided by infrastructure, where power, speed and compute shape real outcomes.

The BLUETTI FridgePower succeeds because it focuses on solving a very specific problem exceptionally well.

How do these Macs match up? You might be surprised.

Serious power, properly portable

XPG, a leading provider of high-performance products for gamers, esports pros, and tech enthusiasts, today announced the launch of its groundbreaking new memory series, NOVAKEY. As the flagship of the series, the NOVAKEY RGB DDR5 features the world's first patented "Infinity Mirror" design. Delivering speeds up to 6,400 MT/s and capacities up to 32 GB per module, it is engineered for mainstream gamers and creators who demand a perfect balance between sophisticated style and rock-solid performance.

The launch of NOVAKEY marks a significant milestone in XPG's brand evolution. The name combines "Nova," representing the brilliant energy and infinite potential of a supernova, with "Key," symbolizing the essential technology that unlocks next-level performance. Its patented "Infinity Mirror" design utilizes a futuristic geometric silhouette to create mesmerizing 3D visual depth. To complement the trend of modern PC builds with large glass panels, the XPG design team applied optical reflection principles to the heat sink, creating an "infinite time tunnel" effect from any viewing angle. The exterior features XPG's signature slanted-cut language, while the matte black metal accents and brushed aluminium finish ensure a premium, refined look even when the RGB lighting is turned off.

Global memory leader Team Group Inc. continues to advance product performance with the introduction of new high-frequency specifications for its ELITE PLUS DDR5 and ELITE DDR5 desktop memory modules. Both products deliver speeds of up to 8000 MT/s and operate at 1.1 V with CL56-56-56-128 timings, fully compliant with JEDEC standards. Designed to meet the growing demand for high-frequency operation, these modules not only fulfill performance requirements but also enhance overall system performance and computing experience, highlighting Team Group's technological strengths in high-performance memory. Both products are expected to be available soon on Amazon in North America.

As demand for high-performance computing and digital technologies continues to grow, Team Group introduces the ELITE PLUS DDR5 8000 MT/s and ELITE DDR5 8000 MT/s as new high-frequency, low-power consumption desktop memory modules. Through frequency upgrades, they are engineered to support a variety of desktop use scenarios, including learning and entertainment. Operating at 1.1 V, the modules effectively lower power consumption while extending the computer's lifespan. They are also equipped with DDR5 Same-Bank Refresh technology and an optimized IC architecture, maintaining smooth operation under multitasking conditions and improving overall system efficiency.

OpenAI appears to be fast-tracking its plans for an AI-enabled smartphone, partially in a bid to bolster its IPO that might land as soon as this year. And, in its urgency, OpenAI appears to be settling on a customized version of MediaTek's upcoming flagship Dimensity 9600 chip as the SoC of choice for the planned smartphone. OpenAI's smartphone will use a customized version of the Dimensity 9600 chip, replete with a dual-NPU architecture and enhanced HDR for real-world visual sensing The famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed towards the end of April that OpenAI had relegated its planned range of consumer […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/openai-picks-mediatek-over-qualcomm-for-its-first-smartphone-customizing-the-dimensity-9600-with-a-dual-npu-architecture-to-challenge-the-iphone/

TwainGPT is an AI humanizer that transforms AI-generated text into natural, undetectable writing using advanced algorithms. Simply paste any draft and TwainGPT rewrites your content to sound genuinely human, bypassing leading detectors like GPTZero, ZeroGPT, Copyleaks, Turnitin, QuillBot, and Grammarly. The platform also includes a built-in AI detector to analyze content from models like ChatGPT and Gemini before publishing. With support for 100+ languages and a smooth mobile experience, TwainGPT is built for anyone who needs human writing that bypasses AI detectors.

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Incident Index turns raw incident notes into structured RCAs and stakeholder-ready reports in minutes. Paste a plain-language description or run a guided Conduct session, and it generates timelines, root causes, 5 Whys, and fishbone diagrams aligned to your team's standards.

Export to PDF, Word, or Markdown, collaborate with version history, and keep a searchable knowledge base of past incidents to spot patterns and reuse learnings.

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The AI-powered calendar that plans your day for you.

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Your #1 new customer is an AI agent. Are they getting an A?

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Learn and master breathwork with guided breathing exercises

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A quiet pace instrument for your Mac

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Turn your voice and screen into shareable videos instantly.

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AI design engineer. Design & ship real UI.

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Parallel agents, diff reviewer, and multi-model comparisons

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Production browser automation, built and maintained by AI

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AI agents built directly into Unity workflows

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Steam Input, now in controller form

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macOS agent that turns prompts into automated clicks

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A local AI coding assistant to delegate tasks to AI agents

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Write and publish posts on LinkedIn & X

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Protect your screen in public with one shortcut

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The antidote to fluffy specs.

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The context layer for production-grade AI agent

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Verify and correct AI outputs before users see them

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Mixed reality tabletop sandbox for XR on Quest & Vision Pro

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Eye-tracking assessments for brain health

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Is your AI spend actually paying off? Prove ROI

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Spot market API for cheaper LLM inference

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Automating business capital access with AI agents

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AI that runs equipment rental businesses

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Agentic AI for frontline hiring and onboarding

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Personal memory layer that works across AI apps

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Identity governance for apps without SCIM

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Talent OS that predicts performance, not just parses resumes

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WhatsApp collections and transfers for independents

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Business spend management with cards and approvals

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AI agents for accounting firms

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Enabling creators to train their communities at scale.

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Vision-first QA testing across web and mobile

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Privacy-first KYC and KYB verification API

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AI study copilot for college coursework

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Autonomous SEO and lead generation for B2B teams

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AI space insights from satellite data

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Real-time electrolyte monitoring from existing wearables

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AI studio for image and video creation

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Truck parking reservations for commercial drivers

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AI revenue workflows for enterprise GTM teams

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Extract, document and modernize legacy mainframe systems

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B2B client and supplier verification platform

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Cash rewards app for saving and paying off debt

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Home-buying software for first-time buyers

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AI orchestration for satellite data networks

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The Infrastructure Behind AI Agencies | White-Label Platform

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Real-time AI answers during sales calls

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AI CTO for codebases

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Procurement marketplace for hotel purchasing teams

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Gamified mental health support for kids

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This compact machine is super easy to master, produces delicious coffees and will save you plenty of time in the mornings.

TSMC is turning into a victim of its own success as the world's preferred chip foundry, leaving its heretofore prized customers such as Apple in a bind of sorts as they suddenly find themselves crowded out by AI hyperscalers. In its frustration, Apple is now reportedly exploring the possibility of dividing up its silicon load between Samsung, Intel, and TSMC rather than remaining largely TSMC-exclusive. Apple is looking for contingencies by tentatively probing Intel and Samsung as additional vectors for manufacturing its custom chips According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has already held "early-stage talks" with Intel for using its […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/apple-quietly-courts-intel-and-samsung-for-its-most-critical-chips-as-tsmcs-advanced-nodes-remain-choked-under-ai-demand/

Samsung might have a lot of faults, but a lack of innovation is certainly not among those. As a case in point, look no further than the recent SID exhibition in the United States, where Samsung just unveiled two revolutionary display technologies, unlocking a veritable suite of biomarker-led applications in the process. Samsung flexes its innovative muscle with the "Flex Chroma Pixel" and "Sensor OLED" The famous tipster Ice Universe has just detailed two new display technologies that Samsung recently showcased at the SID exhibition. Samsung's "Flex Chroma Pixel" display combines next-gen emissive materials, such as phosphorescent sensitized fluorescence (PSF), […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/samsung-flaunts-a-smartphone-display-that-can-measure-blood-pressure-with-a-single-touch/

Online Whiteboard lets you create and share a real-time canvas with one click. Open a board in your browser, send the link, and collaborate instantly across devices with no sign-up or installs. Teachers, remote teams, and creators sketch ideas, plan projects, and diagram concepts on an infinite canvas that loads fast and stays simple, so you can focus on thinking together.

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GPT Image 2 lets teams create marketing visuals, product imagery, realistic screenshots, and editable assets with high prompt fidelity and readable text. You can start from a prompt or reference, then refine layout, style, and subject with targeted edits that preserve the brief. Use it to produce campaign key visuals, posters, explainers, commerce imagery, and storyboards, then carry the approved still into video workflows.

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CreatorSpark is an AI writing tool for educational YouTube creators that learns your voice, beliefs, and point of view—not just how you sound. Instead of just copying your word choices, it learns what you actually think—your beliefs, your take on your niche, and the positions you’d push back on. You tell it once and it applies that to everything it helps you write. With training from your best content, it helps creators reach 80-90% accuracy instead of the industry standard 60%. Built by a YouTube creator and 10-year copywriter who built her own solution out of frustration.

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Nextcloud Hub is easy to install on your web-based server. Here are the steps.

Logitech's HITS (haptic inductive trigger system), introduced with the G Pro X2 Superstrike gaming mouse in late 2025, made serious waves in enthusiast gaming mouse spaces, but, as is the case with many of Logitech's innovations, the mouse the tech came with was imperfect and commanded a premium price. Now, it seems as though at least two Chinese peripheral makers are lining up to challenge at least some of Logitech's capabilities with their own magnetic switch tech. First, and the one we know the least about, is Keychron, surprisingly enough who is apparently preparing a micro switch called the MagOpt. The MagOpt switch was teased by Keychron on the brand's own YouTube channel, where it showed off a switch design that looks to use a hybrid optical and magnetic sensing mechanism combined with a traditional click leaf. It seems as though Keychron's MagOpt switch will attempt to mimic some of the functionality of the HITS system—like rapid trigger, adjustable actuation, and better longevity—but without a lot of the adjustability enabled by the haptic feedback of Logitech's HITS system.

The other incoming contender is Snaptiq, a product by a Russian streamer (shared by @goonerfps on X), and this system appears to have much more feature parity with Logitech HITS. The sensors in Snaptiq are analogue, like those found in Logitech's implementation, but these use magnets and either Hall effect or TMR sensor in place of Logitech's inductive switches. More importantly, Snaptiq will also mimic the tactile feedback with vibration motors, similar to HITS. How this pans out remains to be seen, but Lunacy claims that it will be able to detect movement as fine as 1 micron (0.001 mm) and that the mouse clicks themselves will be completely silent. Lunatic's Snaptiq is slated to launch by the end of 2026, although it is unlikely to launch in Western markets. However, this and Keychron's implementation may be the start of a wave of Chinese brands adopting similar tech to Logitech HITS.

A recent survey from Internet Matters reveals that the UK's Online Safety Act has had limited effectiveness in stopping minors from accessing social media and adult content.

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Capy Trips is a travel discovery and planning site that helps you find the right destination and map out your getaway. Browse regions and popular cities with data from real travelers, explore hidden gems as alternatives to famous spots, and save ideas to My Trips.

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Nyata AI is Bristol’s AI companion that helps residents find free meals, hot showers, local services, and community events through a friendly chat. It connects you with housing and mental health support, job centres, and when needed, directs you to trained professionals for personalised guidance.

Built by locals and registered with the UK ICO, Nyata AI focuses on accessible, accurate, and privacy-conscious support for people navigating community resources.

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The Nvidia CEO seems to feel that claims of AI's job-killing potential have been greatly exaggerated.

Google's Liz Reid unpacks consequential changes to user search behavior that also impact how to approach SEO.

The post Google On Keyword Fragmentation And User Needs In AI Search appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

When NVIDIA first revealed DLSS 5 and its neural rendering, a lot of the online backlash that was leveled at the feature centered around Capcom's Resident Evil character, Grace, and how DLSS 5 changed her facial features. Now, in a recent interview with Eurogamer, Koshi Nakanishi and Masato Kumzawa, the game's director and producer, have responded to the DLSS 5 outrage and to the game's overall reception at and since launch. Addressing the DLSS 5 debacle, Kumzawa took the backlash as a positive indication, commenting that "the fact a lot of players commented they really liked the original design of Grace and didn't want to see it changed was a positive—it meant we got the design right," and that it was an indication that "Grace quickly established herself as a fan favorite." The Nakanishi and Kumzawa did not comment on previous allegations that Capcom had not involved game developers or even inform them of the potential changes to the character designs ahead of time.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of Resident Evil Requiem can be found here]

Just 16 days after Resident Evil Requiem launched, it had already sold over 6 million units, making it the fastest-selling Resident Evil game to date. Commenting on the overall success of the game, the pair said that "we were very happy to see the reaction of players around the world after the game launched. In particular, because we were very tight-lipped in order to maintain the surprise for players, especially about what happens after the return to Raccoon City. So, watching people's clips and online reactions, we felt not only pleased that they were enjoying it, but relieved our strategy was right to try and save that for them." Notably, the Resident Evil developer publicly asked gamers not to spoil surprises about the game when the game's plot was leaked online shortly before the official launch.

The R 5 Arreté from Audiovector looks incredible, and should sound it too, even though it's far from cheap.

We are adding $10 million to the AI Opportunity Fund to help students, educators and workers learn essential AI skills.

The move comes in response to proposed state regulatory measures designed to protect minors from accessing harmful content within the company’s apps.

Topic summaries are determined by artificial intelligence, with the app’s team providing oversight to avoid violating community guidelines.

The feature will allow users to generate audio samples that replicate their own voices, offering new capabilities in digital audio.

The 13-page publication outlines key product trends in the app and provides an overview of related subreddit communities. 

A new partnership with Vistar Media will allow advertisers to bring their campaigns to more than a million placements beyond the app.

The feature is rolling out for accounts that post artificial intelligence-generated content, and the labels will appear on profiles and content.

The platform will allow creators to replace copyrighted songs with royalty-free instrumental clips, while also using conversation context to filter video comments.

As rumors suggest that Google is interested in using Intel for its next-generation tensor processing unit (TPU) chips, well known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has shared his thoughts on the matter. The analyst believes that yields will be a key factor in Google's decision, especially since the technology giant has started to focus on cost savings for the Humufish next-generation TPU's design. Intel's Yields With The EMIB-T Packaging Technology Will Play Key Role In Google's TPU Orders, Says Analyst Intel's EMIB-T packaging technology, short for Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge Through Silicon Vias (EMIB-T) relies on using a 'bridge' that is embedded […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/analyst-warns-googles-intel-tpu-bet-hinges-on-a-brutal-yield-jump-from-90-to-98/

Nintendo fans and Nintendo Switch 2 owners have a lot to look forward to in 2027-2028, if interviewer Kiwi Talkz is to be believed. Reece 'Kiwi Talkz' Reilly, who you may recognize as a YouTuber who regularly interviews game developers and someone who has occasionally leaked accurate information ahead of its official reveal, has shared his latest tidbit that's stirred speculation, and it points to more Metroid, Zelda, and Smash Bros. to look forward to. What 'more' for any of those franchises means is less clear. There's the Legend of Zelda movie that's coming next year, which Reilly mentions, but […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nintendo-switch-2-smash-bros-zelda-metroid-coming-2027-2028-rumor/

Birthday Invitation AI is an all-in-one platform for creating beautiful birthday invitations and managing RSVPs. It offers over 500 curated theme templates like Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Unicorn, Minecraft, and more, or you can describe a custom theme in any language. The AI creates personalized, print-ready invitations in minutes. Features include QR code RSVP tracking, real-time guest management, and automatic email reminders. It supports birthdays for all ages, milestone birthdays, 8 languages, and offers a free RSVP form for custom designs.

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PictaBase is a lightweight digital asset manager that helps field teams, agencies, and inspectors turn scattered photo libraries into searchable business assets. Organize images with custom tags and industry templates, then find shots in seconds with chip-based filters and AI-assisted suggestions you control. Upload directly from the browser to your S3 for zero-knowledge privacy, keep portable sidecar metadata, annotate assets for clear feedback, and deliver branded client galleries. Enjoy fast browsing across huge libraries and simple pricing starting with a one-time lifetime license.

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Looking for Quordle clues? We can help. Plus get the answers to Quordle today and past solutions.

Looking for NYT Connections answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, plus my commentary on the puzzles.

Looking for NYT Strands answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, including the spangram.

Enhanced geothermal startup Fervo Energy’s IPO could value the company at up to $6.5 billion.

U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA says the CopyFail bug is being actively used in hacking campaigns, and poses a major risk to servers and data centers that rely on Linux.

Google's Liz Reid says AI Mode is suited to complex follow-up queries, while browsy searches may still benefit from the full search results

The post Google: Browsy Queries May Favor Full SERPs, Not AI appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Responding once again to online speculation, Activision has confirmed the status of Call of Duty 2026 on Xbox One and PS4, and it doesn't make for good reading for players on both. Even if it's the right decision to make.

Microsoft is highlighting recent Windows 11 changes to show progress and rebuild trust, leaning on Insider feedback as it prepares bigger updates.

With the official launch of Forza Horizon 6 around the corner, Microsoft and Playground Games have just divulged a little more information about the upcoming driving sim, specifically its world, car line-up, and official console performance modes and expected frame rates. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly Forza Horizon 6 will feature two distinct performance modes on the Xbox Series X and S consoles. Performance Mode will allow the game to run at 60 FPS on both consoles, at 4K resolution with dynamic upscaling on the Series X and 1080p with dynamic scaling on the Series S. Quality Mode, on the other hand, will target 30 FPS on both Xbox variants, at 4K native resolution with "increased visual fidelity" on the Series X and 1440p with dynamic scaling to maintain the target frame rate. Horizon 6 will also feature a number of accessibility features, including AutoDrive, Proximity Radar, High Contrast mode, colorblind filters, and ASL and BSL interpreters for cut-scenes. There is also an option to modify the game speed in offline mode, which should make the game more accessible to kids and those with limited mobility and reflexes, especially when used in conjunction with difficulty settings.

The announcement revealed that gamers can start preloading Forza Horizon 6 on both PC and Xbox already, from the library page for preorderers and Game Pass subscribers, from the Microsoft Store, or using the Xbox app for smartphones if you're planning on buying a physical edition. Microsoft will also be giving Forza veterans login rewards in the form of free special car unlocks that will appear in players' garages after they complete the introductory mission. These cars depend on the game players previously played: 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray for Forza Motorsport; 2021 Mercedes-AMD ONE for Forza Horizon 5; 2016 Aston Martin Vulcan for Forza Horizon 4; 2016 Lamborghini Centenario LP 770-4 for Forza Horizon 3; 2014 Lamborghini Huracán LP-610-4 for Forza Horizon 2; and 2013 Dodge SRT Viper GTS for Forza Horizon.

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and Solid State Drives (SSDs) are among the most sought-after commodities in computing today, as the expansion of AI data centers consumes everything in its path. According to Seagate, Sandisk, and Western Digital, demand is so high that customers are signing long-term supply agreements lasting up to five years. This duration is significant because customers are now planning their contracts around demand expansion, which is not only substantial but will also bring better balance to the supply chain. With customers driving steady demand, HDD and SSD manufacturers know exactly how much spinning rust or NAND Flash to produce to meet this demand. Over time, this is a positive development for a supply chain that will adapt with expanding production capacity. However, it poses a short-term challenge for PC gamers.

For example, at the start of this year, we reported that HDD prices have soared by an average of 46% since mid-September. These changes have made spinning rust an expensive commodity, but this is minor compared to NAND Flash prices, which have increased 500% in just a few months. The expansion of AI data centers has depleted any remaining inventory of HDDs and SSDs, leaving the consumer PC market to compete for the few remaining units available for gaming PCs. Interestingly, HDDs contain almost no silicon for storage purposes, so their significant price increases are a supply chain issue unrelated to the semiconductor industry. Apart from the controllers that use silicon, HDD platters are made from materials that are not currently in short supply. However, high demand keeps their prices elevated.

U.S. carriers often have a truckload of salivating deals for customers to upgrade to the latest-generation flagships at a sizable discount, just as long as they satisfy certain requirements. On this occasion, one subscriber was on his way to becoming the proud owner of a Galaxy S26 Ultra, and seeing as how Verizon had one that wasn’t just $600 off, but it was also rewarding an additional line, not to mention an upgraded plan at no additional cost, the offer was a steal. Unfortunately, these deals are only enticing if Verizon can honor them, and due to serious negligence, the […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/galaxy-s26-ultra-deal-600-off-and-more-missed-by-customer-due-to-verizon-mistake/

Intel appoints Alex Katouzian to lead client computing and physical AI efforts and confirms Pushkar Ranade as CTO, signaling a deeper shift toward AI-driven and edge computing systems

The Trump administration is said to be discussing an executive order that would establish a government review process for new AI models before they’re released to the public.

AuthorOS is an AI-powered publishing studio that takes you from a half-formed book idea to a finished, Amazon-ready title. It guides you through four phases (Plan, Write, Prepare, Publish) across 11 stages, capturing your knowledge and voice, building an outline, drafting chapters that sound like you, and producing the cover, listing, and export files Amazon needs.

It's built for first-time authors who have a book in them but don't have a year, a ghostwriter, or a publisher. You bring the idea and the voice. AuthorOS handles the rest, and your name is the only one on the cover.

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Micron has warned on the gravity of the RAM crisis, meaning that every major memory chip maker has now done so.

A Tennessee solar farm integrates cattle grazing using adjustable panels, offering potential income diversification as agricultural revenues decline across the United States.

The Shark ChillPill is a portable cooling system that's essential for summer, travel, migraines, menopause and anyone else who gets too hot.

I've had my doubts about Microsoft's campaign to fix Windows 11 this year, but they're slowly melting away.

AI chip maker Cerebras is heading for a blockbuster IPO that could value it at $26.6 billion or more. Its relationship with OpenAI is deep and rich.

During National Small Business Week, jumpstart your growth with tools like Gemini, Workspace and Ads — plus, resources and exclusive offers from Google.

Event-Driven Webhooks are a push-based notification system that eliminates the need for inefficient polling.

Even though it looks as though Valve may be preparing for some upcoming large-scale hardware shipments, and it has officially launched the Steam Controller that was slated to launch with the Steam Machine, the gaming giant has yet to even announce a price for the Steam Machine. While we know from a previous statement that this is due to the ongoing RAM shortage, Valve's Steve Cardinali and Lawrence Yang have just addressed the Steam Machine's launch again in a recent interview with PC Gamer. Yang explains that "I mean, obviously we're bummed that this is the state of things. At the very least we're not the only ones in this boat. Like, everyone's kind of figuring out how to overcome these obstacles and challenges—RAM shortages, memory shortages, price hikes, everything."

Despite this somewhat pessimistic outlook, Yang also says that Valve is still aiming for competitive pricing on the Steam Machine: "You know, it's unavoidable that it will impact basically anything we make that has any of those parts in them. So we're doing our best to make sure that we can make the product and have it still available at as good and competitive a price as we can." It also seems as though Valve didn't expect the memory price hikes and shortages to be quite so steep and severe, as Cardinali explains that "you're, like, right there, and then you have this whole challenge thrown at you last minute. It's frustrating. But yeah, we're working our hardest to get resolution there." Yang also commented that, even though it was expected that all three hardware products would launch around the same time, Valve knew that the Controller might launch ahead of the Frame and Machine, stating that "we knew that there was some chance that schedules would move, and we would just ship them when they were ready," and he again confirms that Valve was not prepared to launch the Steam Machine without launching the controller first or at the same time.

Cape Town authorities had effectively asked for public comment on a draft AI bill that contained hallucinated sources.

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Bazzite 44 is a big one. Built on Fedora 44, this gaming-focused Linux distro lands with KDE Plasma 6.6 and Gnome 50, the OGC kernel 6.19, and Mesa 26.0.5 for better GPU support across Vulkan and OpenGL titles. The release also strengthens security with signed ISOs and updates bundled tools.

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Video game studios don't often comment on rumours, but when they do they offer welcome points of clarity for players. Today, Activision chose to comment on a rumour that ran rampant yesterday and most of today, which was that the next Call of Duty game (which is largely reported to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4) is being made for last-gen consoles, specifically PS4. The official X (formerly Twitter) account for the shooter franchise cleared the air on that, and seemingly confirmed one of the biggest questions surrounding 2026's Call of Duty entry. "Not sure where this one started, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/call-of-duty-no-longer-ps4-xbox-one/

NVIDIA's Open-Source "Nemotron 3 Super" AI model has topped the EnterpriseOps-Gym leaderboard, showcasing NVIDIA's software prowess. NVIDIA Is Topping Both AI Hardware and Software Leaderboards With Its Open-Source Nemotron 3 Super, Leading The Pack In March this year, NVIDIA introduced its Neomtron 3 Super, a 120B AI model with 12B active parameters. Based on a hybrid MoE architecture, the model is designed to deliver a 5x throughput versus the previous Nemotron Super model, and tackles large context with a native 1M-token context windows that gives agents long-term memory for aligned, high accuracy reasoning. Some of the highlights of NVIDIA's Nemotron […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nvidia-nemotron-3-super-tops-the-open-source-ai-model-chart-beating-deepseek-gpt-oss/

Grand Theft Auto VI will be the biggest video game launch, and perhaps the biggest launch of any single piece of entertainment in history, when it arrives. Whether that's on November 19, 2026, as is the current plan, or on a different date due to an unforeseen delay, that statement is practically set in stone, and that'll happen despite GTA 6 only arriving on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles to start, and not on PC. Why it won't arrive on PC is a topic of much debate, with speculation being that Rockstar and Take-Two would rather let players […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/take-two-boss-why-gta-6-comes-to-consoles-first-pc-second/

In a recent interview with Mundfish founder and CEO Robert Bagratuni about the Atomic Heart series, I inquired about the studio's opinion on NVIDIA DLSS 5, the surprise announcement at GDC 2026 that proved highly controversial among developers and modders: some people love it, others hate it. Atomic Heart already supports NVIDIA DLSS technologies like Super Resolution and Frame Generation. Is Mundfish considering DLSS 5? Well, Bagratuni called it "highly promising", though he added that the developers are following its progress and will evaluate its potential addition in future releases. In short, he hasn't committed yet. DLSS 5 is a very […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/mundfish-dlss-5-ai-tools-atomic-heart-development/

Valve's long-anticipated Steam Controller sold out almost immediately, and scalpers have stepped in with price demands of $300 or more.

Convoe unifies team chat, task tracking, and calendar in one place. Its built-in AI, Kai, reads conversations to extract actions, deadlines, assignments, and events, then syncs them to boards and calendars so nothing slips. Use channels, threads, and DMs naturally; Convoe turns talk into tracked work with zero manual entry and notifies the right people. It replaces separate chat, task, calendar, and AI tools to keep teams aligned at lower cost.

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DecidexAI is an AI data analyst for SaaS teams that monitors Stripe and GA4 metrics 24/7, detects anomalies, and sends real-time alerts via Slack or email. It delivers daily briefings, AI-written weekly executive reports, and answers natural-language questions while providing interactive dashboards with 68 prebuilt metrics. It also predicts churn with customer risk scores and action plans, plus cohort, MRR, and retention analyses, helping you catch revenue dips early and make faster decisions.

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Appfigures finds visual model launches generate 6.5x more downloads — but most don’t convert that spike into revenue.

Katie Haun announced on Monday that $1 billion has been raised across new funds to continue the firm’s thesis of backing crypto and blockchain startups.

An active phishing campaign has been observed targeting multiple vectors since at least April 2025 with legitimate Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) software as a way to establish persistent remote access to compromised hosts. The activity, codenamed VENOMOUS#HELPER, has impacted over 80 organizations, most of which are in the U.S., according to Securonix. It shares overlaps with clusters

A former Bethesda artist has said the studio thought about swapping to Unreal Engine 5 for Xbox's Starfield, but stuck with Creation for its mod support.

A new report claims that Xbox and Halo Studios are developing remakes for Halo 2 and Halo 3 that are similar in scope to Halo: Campaign Evolved.

Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., a global leader in high-performance computer hardware, is excited to announce the official launch of its Z890 PLUS series motherboards. Engineered to maximize the value and power of the new Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus series processors, this lineup, led by the high-value Z890 AORUS ELITE PLUS, delivers a significant leap in gaming performance without the premium price tag.

High-Value Performance for Every Gamer
The Z890 PLUS series is specifically designed for enthusiasts who prioritize performance-per-dollar. By focusing on models like the Z890 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 PLUS, Gigabyte provides a feature-rich platform that supports the latest high-performance processors. Internal testing against Intel 14th Gen CPUs reveals that these new processors offer up to 28% better gaming performance. In separate internal benchmarks, the series also demonstrates up to 35% better productivity performance compared to the previous generation. These distinct improvements make the PLUS series the ideal choice for both modern competitive gaming and intensive creative workloads.

The handheld is powered by a Unisoc Tiger T618 octa-core CPU alongside a Mali G52 GPU ticking along at 850MHz. The combo is paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of eMCP storage, and supports expansion via TF card slot. WiFi 5 comes standard, as does Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, and...

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A recent report by Semi's Silicon Manufacturers Group found that the silicon wafer industry is growing once again. The quarterly analysis confirmed that global shipments for silicon wafers increased 13.1% compared to the same quarter a year earlier, rising from 2,896 million square inches (MSI) to 3,275 MSI. Shipments declined...

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A Chinese simulation tool modeled the B-21 using public data, claiming aerodynamic gains while raising questions about accuracy and intent.

This week, AI is all about Elon Musk's ongoing feud with OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman.

Refer to these as "budget Macs," but remember they are still very powerful machines.

Star Wars Day 2026 is packed with new drops and big discounts, and I’ve rounded up the best deals and collectibles worth grabbing right now.

You can get a Prestashop online in just a few minutes, especially if you're a Hostinger customer. Here's how.

Two weeks in and I'm still struggling to watch Richard Gadd's latest TV show. But when does Half Man episode 3 drop on HBO Max and BBC iPlayer?

China’s Lingsheng supercomputer aims for exascale performance using a CPU-only architecture, though its claims remain unverified for now.

The flagship Bartlett Lake chip can be a bit faster than the flagship Raptor Lake Refresh CPU, but this isn't the case in ever game. Bartlett Lake 12-P-Core Chip Delivers 5-9% Higher Performance in Games Than 24-Core Intel Core i9 14900K Intel's Bartlett Lake is an interesting CPU lineup, despite not being meant for the consumer segment. We have previously seen some users making efforts in running the flagship Bartlett Lake chip on a regular LGA 1700 motherboard, as technically, the Bartlett Lake CPUs are compatible with the LGA 1700 socket. Since no official BIOS is available from Intel, mainstream […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/intel-core-9-273pqe-is-reportedly-up-to-9-faster-in-gaming-vs-core-i9-14900k/

Samsung is not expected to fundamentally alter the prevailing mold when it launches the Galaxy Z Flip 8 later this summer. Even so, the South Korean tech behemoth is looking at a few iterative improvements that are likely to improve the device's ergonomics and aesthetics. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 will weigh 8 grams less than its Flip 7 counterpart, and come equipped with a new hinge and a crease-free display South Korea-based Yeux1122 has now published a new blog post detailing that the Galaxy Z Flip 8 will be slimmer than its Flip 7 counterpart by around 0.5mm, courtesy […]

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Valve's latest Steam Controller, and the first of its previously announced new hardware products, has officially launched and is available for players to order directly through Steam. If you get through to one, that is, as the controller launched and promptly sold out within 30 minutes. Any new popular product release in video games or in any market today is a race to see whose connection worked faster or who could type in their credit card details faster, and the Steam Controller was no different. The new gamepad shot directly to the top of Steam's best-selling charts, and as quickly […]

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Start your next gaming build with this this combo from Newegg featuring a Ryzen 5 7600X, 16GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and a Micro-ATX B650M motherboard from ASRock for just $430.

Secretlab dropped a Mandalorian Edition, along with other Star Wars-themed designs, to its Titan Evo gaming chair lineup on Star Wars Day.

PDFGate is a developer-centric platform to generate PDFs, collect secure digital signatures, and manage document workflows through a clean, predictable API. Create and send signature requests in minutes, embed signing in your app, and track status in real time from a simple dashboard. It offers fast performance, 99.9% uptime targets, and GDPR-compliant processing on EU servers. Teams get clear docs, quick integration, and responsive support to automate agreements while keeping control of data privacy.

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Days after the disclosure of a critical vulnerability in popular web hosting software cPanel and WHM, hackers are now targeting and hacking thousands of vulnerable websites.

Here are Google’s latest AI updates from April 2026

Automation doesn’t fail on its own — it does exactly what it’s trained to do. The problem is that when Google Ads is fed incomplete, misaligned, or overly broad signals, it can optimize toward the wrong outcome faster than most advertisers realize.

In our second installment of SMX Now, our new monthly series, Ameet Khabra of Hop Skip Media will break down a real account where a 417% jump in conversions turned out to be the wrong kind of success. She’ll use that case study to explain the four key ways automation drift enters an account: signal drift, query drift, inventory drift, and creative drift.

You’ll leave with a practical framework for diagnosing drift early, understanding where human oversight matters most, and managing automation more deliberately so it works toward real business goals — not just platform-reported wins.

Join us May 6 at noon ET.

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Progress Software has released updates to address two security flaws in MOVEit Automation, including a critical bug that could result in an authentication bypass. MOVEit Automation (formerly Central) is a secure, server-based managed file transfer (MFT) solution used to schedule and automate file movement workflows in enterprise environments without requiring any custom scripts.  The

It’s finally here! Valve’s Steam Controller is now available to purchase It’s official: Valve’s second-generation Steam Controller is now available, giving PC gamers a premium gamepad optimised exclusively for PC gaming. No PS5 DualSense or Xbox controller, just pure PC goodness. In the UK, the Steam Controller is available for £85, and Valve currently claims […]

The post Valve’s Steam Controller is available now appeared first on OC3D.

Valve has confirmed that it's working on a successor to the Steam Deck, but that doesn't mean you should expect it anytime soon. Here's why an ARM-based SoC makes a lot of sense for the platform in the current tech landscape.

Almost every ThinkPad ever made has had a TrackPoint pointing system, and one engineer wants to repurpose them to create affordable accessibility controllers for PC gaming and more.

A short-lived Microsoft support page set 32GB of RAM as the worry-free level for gaming, yet Steam’s hardware data shows the majority of players fall below that mark.

It seems we are not too far from the next-generation Double Data Rate 6 (DDR6) memory for desktops and servers, as memory manufacturers are working with JEDEC to establish a new standard. According to South Korean media outlet The Elec, major memory makers such as SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron have reportedly begun designing DDR6 in their labs and are gradually coordinating module development with substrate manufacturers. This collaborative effort is taking place under the supervision of JEDEC, the industry authority that oversees standard development and ensures a common foundation for design. Manufacturers could have accessed JEDEC's first DDR6 draft since 2024, but the draft still lacks concrete specifications such as finalized voltage ranges, signal usage, power envelopes, and pinout design. However, this is expected to change as manufacturers are now accelerating standard development.

Last year, we reported that the major players mentioned above had already moved past the prototype stages and embarked on rigorous validation cycles. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the designated throughput of 8,800 MT/s, with plans to scale up to a staggering 17,600 MT/s, nearly doubling the ceiling of today's DDR5. This increase is driven by DDR6's 4×24-bit sub-channel architecture, which requires entirely new approaches to signal integrity. It also differs from DDR5's current 2x32-bit sub-channel structure. To overcome the physical limits faced by DIMM form factors at higher speeds, the industry is betting on CAMM2 technology. Early indications suggest that server platforms will lead the change, with high-end notebooks following once manufacturing ramps up.

Former Roomba maker Colin Angle returns to the robot game and talks to us about his new "Familiar", a robot that looks like but is not a bear.

New Mexico is calling Meta products a public nuisance and no one is certain what com es next.

Can the open-source Piwigo replace Google Photos? It's time to find out.

Shimizu’s Luma Ring proposes covering the moon’s equator with solar panels and transmitting energy to Earth via wireless microwave and laser systems.

Only three episodes remain before The Boys is officially over — this is when you can watch the first of that final trio.

This lamp is guaranteed to grab guests' attention, but if you're new to smart home tech, you may prefer to skip the app and use its remote control instead.

3DMark is a widely used benchmarking tool that measures GPU and CPU performance using a range of graphics tests, including modern ray tracing workloads, making it useful for everything from quick system checks to in-depth performance comparisons across different hardware configurations.

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The Redditor, who claims to have attended the event, posted photos of Huynh holding the device on stage, along with what appear to be key specifications displayed on a background screen. Huynh reportedly confirmed that the Halo will launch in June, but did not provide any details on pricing.

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In a galaxy far, far away, the Death Star wasn't just a weapon... it was a monumental achievement of (fictional) engineering and human resource management.

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Today, Playground Games confirmed several key Forza Horizon 6 details ahead of the game's May 19 launch. First and foremost, the game is now gold, and preloading is available on Xbox Series S and X and PC via the Xbox app, with Steam preloading coming soon. You'll have to make a lot of space in your storage drive, though: Playground also shared that there will be two graphics modes to pick from on Xbox Series S and X. The former console will allow 1440p at 30 frames per second or 1080p at 60 frames per second, while the latter enables […]

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As compute requirements grow in AI datacenters, so do the power requirements, which are estimated to reach 17x higher with NVIDIA's Feynman. NVIDIA Feynman Racks Estimated To Feature 17x Higher Power Semi Costs Per Rack Versus Blackwell NVIDIA Feynman GPUs feature several groundbreaking features and will launch in 2028, after Rubin. The company has been working hard to deliver more efficient AI solutions, but as requirements grow, power requirements have increased tremendously. Morgan Stanley Research has published a chart that visualizes the total power semi content of three AI rack solutions from NVIDIA. Starting with the baseline Blackwell or B200, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nvidia-feynman-gpus-push-power-semi-content-17-times-higher-vs-blackwell/

Bungie's new extraction shooter, Marathon, is still trying to find its footing as the latest triple-A multiplayer shooter on the market. While it's been critically praised by many (myself included), it seemingly hasn't reached the level of commercial success that Bungie or PlayStation Studios hoped it would reach. Despite that, Bungie isn't letting on that it has any concerns about Marathon, and in a recent interview has just re-emphasized how it has long-term plans for the game. As we continue to see multiplayer games launch with plenty of excitement and hullabaloo, only to die within a year for a myriad […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/bungie-emphasizes-long-term-commitment-to-marathon/

The Alienware 16 Area-51 is a slightly updated spaceship of a laptop that's powerful and finally gets an OLED display option.

The Ryzen AI 5 435G shows similar performance to the existing Ryzen 5 8600G in new Geekbench 6 benchmarks.

Navos is an AI strategy advisor for business leaders. It learns how your company works, tracks external forces that affect it, and tells you what changed, what it costs you, the scenarios, and your options. You get a strategy review of where you stand, a weekly brief on what moved in the world and what it means for you, live tracking of your performance against targets, and an advisor you can ask anything that answers from your actual numbers.

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Stuart Russell is a long-time AI researcher who thinks governments need to restrain frontier labs.

The raise gives Sierra more than $1 billion to work with — capital the company says it will use to become the "global standard" for AI-powered customer experiences.