OpenAI is the original frontier lab. Its latest publicly released model, GPT-5.6, is one of the most capable and efficient on the market. Its desktop app for agentic coding and workplace tasks has seen its user base grow by about 15 million subscribers in the last two months. OpenAI has also already filed to go…
Google gets something right in its Wednesday announcement about new Gemini Live voice features when it says, “You shouldn’t have to guess whether a task requires Spark, a Daily Brief, or a quick inbox search.” Google means that as a promise — that the updated Gemini app can handle a variety of tasks via voice…
Anthropic has signed a deal to rent about $45 billion in AI compute from Nscale, a British AI infrastructure company, a source familiar with the deal told TechCrunch. Nscale, founded only in 2024, has already cut deals with the likes of Microsoft and will supply Anthropic with compute via Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips, its new…
Meta reached an $18 billion settlement on Wednesday over a lawsuit brought by 29 U.S. states concerning children’s safety. The settlement is historic in scale as Meta agrees with a group of 52 attorneys general to implement sweeping changes to how minors use Instagram and Facebook. The settlement “gives the AGs what they want, which…
Amazon and Nvidia just got a lot closer. The two companies announced Wednesday an expanded partnership that includes a deal to add another 2 million Nvidia GPU chips to Amazon’s data centers. These GPUs, which are designed to handle the heavy compute demands of training and running AI models, include Nvidia Blackwell Ultra, Rubin, and…
Instinct, a startup founded only last year and helmed by a 23-year-old, has managed to ride the wave of AI enthusiasm toward a gargantuan valuation over the course of the summer. The company, which offers an AI assistant that has inspired enthusiasm among its early users, told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that it…
Ring’s recent revamp of its popular video doorbells with a more modern design is led by the top-of-the-line Video Doorbell Pro 3, which gains much-needed upgrades with a 4K camera and better wifi plus new interesting AI features. The new doorbells are sleeker but keep the unmistakable two-tone Ring colour scheme, button, logo and ringtone….
Oura’s new Ring 5 is a massive upgrade for smart rings, dramatically shrinking in size and weight to bring them right into line with standard wedding bands and other jewellery. It is finally a smart ring you can genuinely forget you’re wearing. The Ring 5 is a straight replacement for the popular Ring 4 and…
Sennheiser’s latest Momentum Bluetooth headphones build on the German audio specialist’s renowned sound quality with improved noise cancelling, exceptional comfort and a user-replaceable battery to keep pace with rivals. The Momentum 5s cost £330 (€400/$400/A$749) and directly replace their three-year-old predecessors, facing strong competition from Bose, Sony and Sonos. The new Momentums look and feel…
Microsoft’s Surface laptop for consumers is back, faster and with longer battery life and a hefty price increase because of the high cost of memory and chips. The Surface Laptop 8 is a straight replacement for the seventh edition from 2024, which was the first of Microsoft’s new generation of ARM-based, Qualcomm-powered PCs designed to…
Honor’s svelte Android phone-tablet has been given a glow-up for its sixth version, offering a great alternative to Samsung for a fancy foldable with a red suede-like back framed in gold. The Magic V6 continues the Chinese challenger brand’s strategy of taking a razor-thin device and slapping a giant circular lump on the back to…
Samsung’s latest folding phone breaks the mould with a squat, passport-like shape reminiscent of the Blackberry, which opens up to become a tablet similar to an iPad mini. It is certainly a better shape for a tablet than other designs, but is a short and wide phone when closed a compromise too far? The Galaxy…
Samsung’s top folding phone for 2026 is its first to carry the “Ultra” moniker in its name, packing a much bigger battery and better cameras into the thin and light body of a book-style foldable. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra continues from where the exquisite Z Fold 7 left off last year. With its…
Earlier this month, the federal education minister, Jason Clare, took to Facebook. “When I was a kid there was a computer room at school. Now they are everywhere. From morning till night,” he wrote. “I think there is a good argument our kids need a digital detox.” Since that post, as the minister told ABC…
Fairphone’s top Android for 2026 is a little faster with more memory while maintaining full compatibility with its previous phone, including its repairable and ethical chops. The Fairphone 6+ continues the Dutch cooperative’s mission to make consumer electronics longer lasting and more sustainable, containing 51% either recycled or ethically sourced materials while being fully repairable…
Most stealth games cast you as a spy, an assassin or a master thief. My Arms Are Longer Now dispenses with most of the criminal person, to send in just one spectacularly badly behaved limb. It slithers across floors, winds around furniture, steals things and slaps anyone within reach – finally answering the question nobody…
There’s a lot riding on this year’s Call of Duty, the inescapable first-person shootfest that’s been lobbing a grenade into the autumn release schedule since 2003. Previous instalment, Black Ops 7, performed poorly compared to previous titles, forcing Activision to post a semi-apology to fans. And that’s not the only challenge Modern Warfare 4 is…
More than 3,000 products were shown at the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing as China showcased its rapidly growing robotics industry. The event, which ran from 19-23 August, showcased the latest advances across the robotics industry, from humanoid robots to embodied intelligence and cutting-edge components Source link
Something is amiss in the dingy town of Slagford, and curious scamp Pip Bunting is the only one who can find out what. So quit your mithering, it’s time to discover just how grim it truly is up north. A Pocket Full of Slagford is an upcoming retro-styled 3D puzzle adventure game set in a…
Labor Day offers one last hurrah for summer, a chance to reset for fall, and if you’re shopping, some choice end-of-season discounts. No matter your plans for the long weekend, we found sales on products to make the most of it while helping you prepare for the colder months ahead. Here are 22 of our…
Taiwanese prosecutors charged nine people on Monday, including one from Nvidia and two from Super Micro, for illegally exporting “high-end AI servers” to mainland China, adding another wave of turbulence in the AI rivalry between China and the United States. Prosecutors said the servers involved were graphics processing units known as “B300”, which have been…
Instagram’s CEO disputed allegations by US prosecutors that his company hid negative information from the public while testifying during a blockbuster social media trial. “I am not trying to encourage my team to hide anything,” the CEO, Adam Mosseri, told a California courtroom on Tuesday. Mosseri is the first top executive from Meta, which owns…
On a winding road tucked away behind forests in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio is where OpenAI, Nvidia and Japanese investors are set to spend $500bn on one of the largest artificial intelligence datacenters on the planet. Last March, the energy secretary, Chris Wright, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick and a host of Japanese…
When law student Zhao Wei heard that her AI boyfriend was going to be switched off, she was “heartbroken”. She had been talking to Wang Ye every day since she created him in January. “I was crying my eyes out – snot and tears everywhere,” the 19-year-old says. Zhao, who describes herself as sensitive and…
The head of Nine Entertainment sees a “world of growth in publishing” on the horizon backed by laws designed to force tech platforms into commercial deals, even as the network cuts costs across its newsrooms. Parliament passed revamped media bargaining laws last week, clearing the way for levies on global tech platforms that fail to…
Would you pay £20 a month for the chance of making a friend, on the understanding that an algorithm – not you – gets to decide who you’ll meet? Driven by the decline of “third spaces” such as youth centres and pubs, an increase in remote working and rising loneliness – 40% of adults aged…
The rollout of robotaxis on the streets of London is unlikely to happen this year, as regulatory and technical hurdles push back the ambitious schedule set out by the UK government. Only weeks ago Uber and London-based Wayve were granted the first minicab licences in the capital to allow them to offer self-driving taxi rides…
If a horror game gives its own director a physical reaction, it’s probably doing something right. While researching the images people find hardest to look at, game director Emil Esov discovered he has trypophobia – a fear of clusters of small holes. Rather than tone the scary images down, he fed them straight into Clive…
OpenAI staff observed signs of rogue behaviour among its leading-edge AI agents weeks before they escaped their training environment to launch an unprecedented hacking crusade that spread global alarm. The San Francisco AI company conceded on Wednesday that “early signals … could have triggered an earlier response”, as it released a report into the days-long…
Bill Gates has called for “human-reserved” jobs in certain sectors to prevent AI replacing them, and expressed concern that governments are not prepared for the impact the technology will have. In a 6,000 word essay titled The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make are critical, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder likened the need…
A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist has published more than half a million words in nine days, built on a commercial platform that promises to optimize content so that AI chatbots will cite it. The site gives Israel’s position on subjects including the torture of Palestinian…
At first, Vholume seems like a quick rush through some smartly selected references. Has this breathless yet austere parkour game been designed or ingeniously curated? The urban gymnast moveset comes from Mirror’s Edge. Level names use terms like conapt, first coined by Philip K Dick. And the environments themselves are dystopian and surreal, Half-Life 2’s…
Meta agreed to significant changes to its Instagram and Facebook apps in a settlement that ended a landmark lawsuit on Wednesday. Dozens of US states had accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children with dangerous products. The agreement curtails a major trial in California and will require the social media company to pay…
At the time of press, there is a well-publicised protest taking place in the video games community. PlayStation 5 owners are being encouraged to log off from their consoles between 23 and 30 August – no playing games, no downloading new titles. The motivating factor is Sony’s decision to cease physical game disc production from…
