Earlier this year, Nintendo helped popularize the microSD Express standard by requiring it for the new Switch 2 console. Created in 2019, the specification had languished in relative obscurity for years because the cheap, plentiful non-Express microSD cards were generally fast enough for the things that people were using them for, and because most hardware didn’t support microSD Express cards in the first place. However, Nintendo’s console needed performance closer…

In early 2024, Apple removed a blood oxygen monitoring feature from its then-current Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches, following a ruling that the feature violated light-based pulse oximetry patents from a California-based company called Masimo. Removing the feature allowed Apple to circumvent an import ban and continue selling the Series 9 and Ultra 2 (and, later, the Series 10) in the US. Today, Apple announced that it’s…

Rumors about a touchscreen-equipped smart home device from Apple have been circulating for years, periodically bolstered by leaked references in Apple’s software updates. But a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman indicates that Apple’s ambitions might extend beyond HomePods with screens attached. Gurman claims that Apple is working on a “tabletop robot” that “resembles an iPad mounted on a movable limb that can swivel and reposition itself to follow users in…

In June, headlines read like science fiction: AI models “blackmailing” engineers and “sabotaging” shutdown commands. Simulations of these events did occur in highly contrived testing scenarios designed to elicit these responses—OpenAI’s o3 model edited shutdown scripts to stay online, and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 “threatened” to expose an engineer’s affair. But the sensational framing obscures what’s really happening: design flaws dressed up as intentional guile. And still, AI doesn’t have…

As Gemini is increasingly woven into the fabric of Google, the way the chatbot accesses and interacts with your data is in a constant state of flux. Today, Google is announcing several big changes to how its AI adapts to you, giving it the ability to remember more details about your chats for improved answers. If that’s a concern, Google also has a new temporary chat option that won’t affect…

On Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that GPT-4o has returned to ChatGPT following intense user backlash over its removal during last week’s GPT-5 launch. The AI model now appears in the model picker for all paid ChatGPT users by default (including ChatGPT Plus accounts), marking a swift reversal after thousands of users complained about losing access to their preferred models. The return of GPT-4o comes after what Altman described…

A high-severity zero-day in the widely used WinRAR file compressor is under active exploitation by two Russian cybercrime groups. The attacks backdoor computers that open malicious archives attached to phishing messages, some of which are personalized. Security firm ESET said Monday that it first detected the attacks on July 18, when its telemetry spotted a file in an unusual directory path. By July 24, ESET determined that the behavior was…

When something goes wrong with an AI assistant, our instinct is to ask it directly: “What happened?” or “Why did you do that?” It’s a natural impulse—after all, if a human makes a mistake, we ask them to explain. But with AI models, this approach rarely works, and the urge to ask reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what these systems are and how they operate. A recent incident with Replit’s…

In the wake of its big antitrust loss, Google could soon find itself forced to sell one of its crown jewels. Among the government’s proposed remedies in the search case is a requirement that Google divest its market-leading Chrome browser, and Perplexity is already throwing its proverbial hat into the ring with a whopping $34.5 billion offer. The problem, however, is that Perplexity doesn’t have nearly that much cash. Perplexity…

It’s been less than a week since the launch of OpenAI’s new GPT-5 AI model, and the rollout hasn’t been a smooth one. So far, the release sparked one of the most intense user revolts in ChatGPT’s history, forcing CEO Sam Altman to make an unusual public apology and reverse key decisions. At the heart of the controversy has been OpenAI’s decision to automatically remove access to all previous AI…