OpenAI is hoppin’ mad about Anthropic’s new Super Bowl TV ads

On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch complained on X after rival AI lab Anthropic released four commercials, two of which will run during the Super Bowl on Sunday, mocking the idea of including ads in AI chatbot conversations. Anthropic’s campaign seemingly touched a nerve at OpenAI just weeks after the ChatGPT maker began testing ads in a lower-cost tier of its chatbot. Altman called…

February 5, 2026
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Steam Machine and Steam Frame delays are the latest product of the RAM crisis

When Valve announced its Steam Machine desktop PC and Steam Frame VR headset in mid-November of last year, it declined to announce pricing or availability information for either device. That was partly because RAM and storage prices had already begun to climb due to shortages caused by the AI industry’s insatiable need for memory. Those price spikes have only gotten worse since then, and they’re beginning to trickle down to…

February 5, 2026
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Microsoft releases urgent Office patch. Russian-state hackers pounce.

Russian-state hackers wasted no time exploiting a critical Microsoft Office vulnerability that allowed them to compromise the devices inside diplomatic, maritime, and transport organizations in more than half a dozen countries, researchers said Wednesday. The threat group, tracked under names including APT28, Fancy Bear, Sednit, Forest Blizzard, and Sofacy, pounced on the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-21509, less than 48 hours after Microsoft released an urgent, unscheduled security update late last…

February 4, 2026
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Should AI chatbots have ads? Anthropic says no.

On Wednesday, Anthropic announced that its AI chatbot, Claude, will remain free of advertisements, drawing a sharp line between itself and rival OpenAI, which began testing ads in a low-cost tier of ChatGPT last month. The announcement comes alongside a Super Bowl ad campaign that mocks AI assistants that interrupt personal conversations with product pitches. “There are many good places for advertising. A conversation with Claude is not one of…

February 4, 2026
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User blowback convinces Adobe to keep supporting 30-year-old 2D animation app

Adobe has canceled plans to discontinue its 2D animation software Animate. On Monday, Adobe announced that it would stop allowing people to sell subscriptions to Animate on March 1, saying the software had “served its purpose.” People who already had a software license would be able to keep using Animate with technical support until March 1, 2027; businesses had until March 1, 2029. Per an email sent to customers, Adobe…

February 4, 2026
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Netflix says users can cancel service if HBO Max merger makes it too expensive 

There is concern that subscribers might be negatively affected if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s) streaming and movie studios businesses. One of the biggest fears is that the merger would lead to higher prices due to Netflix having less competition. During a Senate hearing today, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos suggested that the merger would have an opposite effect. Sarandos was speaking at a hearing held by the US Senate…

February 3, 2026
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Nvidia’s $100 billion OpenAI deal has seemingly vanished

In September 2025, Nvidia and OpenAI announced a letter of intent for Nvidia to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI’s AI infrastructure. At the time, the companies said they expected to finalize details “in the coming weeks.” Five months later, no deal has closed, Nvidia’s CEO now says the $100 billion figure was “never a commitment,” and Reuters reports that OpenAI has been quietly seeking alternatives to Nvidia chips…

February 3, 2026
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Nintendo Switch is the second-bestselling game console ever, behind only the PS2

Although it was finally replaced last year by the new Switch 2, the orginal switch isn’t done just yet. Many recent Switch games (and a handful of major updates, like the one for Animal Crossing) have been released in both Switch and Switch 2 editions, and Nintendo continues to sell all editions of the original console as entry-level systems for those who can’t pay $450 for a Switch 2. The…

February 3, 2026
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The rise of Moltbook suggests viral AI prompts may be the next big security threat

On November 2, 1988, graduate student Robert Morris released a self-replicating program into the early Internet. Within 24 hours, the Morris worm had infected roughly 10 percent of all connected computers, crashing systems at Harvard, Stanford, NASA, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The worm exploited security flaws in Unix systems that administrators knew existed but had not bothered to patch. Morris did not intend to cause damage. He wanted to…

February 3, 2026
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Streaming service Crunchyroll raises prices weeks after killing its free tier

Crunchyroll is one of the most popular streaming platforms for anime viewers. Over the past six years, the service has raised prices for fans, and today, it announced that it’s increasing monthly subscription prices by up to 20 percent. Sony bought Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2020. At the time, Crunchyroll had 3 million paid subscribers and an additional 197 million users with free accounts, which let people watch a limited…

February 2, 2026
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