Signs point to a sooner-rather-than-later M5 MacBook Pro refresh

Mac power users waiting on new high-end MacBook Pro models may have been disappointed last fall, when Apple released an M5 upgrade for the low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro without touching the M4 Pro or Max versions of the laptop. But the wait for M5 Pro and M5 Max models may be nearing its end. The tea-leaf readers at MacRumors noticed that shipping times for a handful of high-end MacBook Pro…

January 19, 2026
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Asus confirms its smartphone business is on indefinite hiatus

An unconfirmed report early this month suggested Asus was pulling back on its smartphone plans, but the company declined to comment at the time. Asus chairman Jonney Shih has now confirmed the wind-down of its smartphone business during an event in Taiwan. Instead, Asus will focus on AI products like robots and smart glasses. Shih addressed the company’s future plans during a 2026 kick-off event in Taiwan, as reported by…

January 19, 2026
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10 things I learned from burning myself out with AI coding agents

If you’ve ever used a 3D printer, you may recall the wondrous feeling when you first printed something you could have never sculpted or built yourself. Download a model file, load some plastic filament, push a button, and almost like magic, a three-dimensional object appears. But the result isn’t polished and ready for mass production, and creating a novel shape requires more skills than just pushing a button. Interestingly, today’s…

January 19, 2026
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Meta’s layoffs leave Supernatural fitness users in mourning

Tencia Benavidez, a Supernatural user who lives in New Mexico, started her VR workouts during the Covid pandemic. She has been a regular user in the five years since, calling the ability to work out in VR ideal, given that she lives in a rural area where it’s hard to get to a gym or work out outside during a brutal winter. She stuck with Supernatural because of the community…

January 17, 2026
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Rackspace customers grapple with “devastating” email hosting price hike

Rackspace’s new pricing for its email hosting services is “devastating,” according to a partner that has been using Rackspace as its email provider since 1999. In recent weeks, Rackspace updated its email hosting pricing. Its standard plan is now $10 per mailbox per month. Businesses can also pay for the Rackspace Email Plus add-on for an extra $2/mailbox/month (for “file storage, mobile sync, Office-compatible apps, and messaging”), and the Archiving…

January 16, 2026
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OpenAI to test ads in ChatGPT as it burns through billions

On Friday, OpenAI announced it will begin testing advertisements inside the ChatGPT app for some US users in a bid to expand its customer base and diversify revenue. The move represents a reversal for CEO Sam Altman, who in 2024 described advertising in ChatGPT as a “last resort” and expressed concerns that ads could erode user trust, although he did not completely rule out the possibility at the time. The…

January 16, 2026
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RAM shortage chaos expands to GPUs, high-capacity SSDs, and even hard drives

Big Tech’s AI-fueled memory shortage is set to be the PC industry’s defining story for 2026 and beyond. Standalone, direct-to-consumer RAM kits were some of the first products to feel the bite, with prices spiking by 300 or 400 percent by the end of 2025; prices for SSDs had also increased noticeably, albeit more modestly. The rest of 2026 is going to be all about where, how, and to what…

January 16, 2026
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Spotify’s 3rd price hike in 2.5 years hints at potential new normal

After a dozen years of keeping subscription prices stable, Spotify has issued three price hikes in 2.5 years. Spotify informed subscribers via email today that Premium monthly subscriptions would go from $12 to $13 per month as of users’ February billing date. Spotify is already advertising the higher prices to new subscribers. Although not explicitly mentioned in Spotify’s correspondence, other plans are getting more expensive, too. Student monthly subscriptions are…

January 15, 2026
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Are people avoiding iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass? It’s complicated.

Last week, news about the adoption rates for Apple’s iOS 26 update started making the rounds. The new update, these reports claim, was being installed at dramatically lower rates than past iOS updates. And while we can’t infer anything about why people might choose not to install iOS 26, the conclusion being jumped to is that iPhone users are simply desperate to avoid the redesigned Liquid Glass user interface. The…

January 15, 2026
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Wikipedia signs AI training deals with Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon

On Thursday, the Wikimedia Foundation announced licensing deals with Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral AI, expanding its effort to charge major tech companies for using Wikipedia content to train the AI models that power AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. While these same companies previously scraped Wikipedia without permission, the deals mean that most major AI developers have now signed on to the foundation’s Wikimedia Enterprise program,…

January 15, 2026
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