It’s been a really busy month for Google as it apparently endeavors to outshine OpenAI with a blitz of AI releases. On Thursday, Google dropped its latest party trick: Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, which is a new AI model that uses runtime “reasoning” techniques similar to OpenAI’s o1 to achieve “deeper thinking” on problems fed into it. The experimental model builds on Google’s newly released Gemini 2.0 Flash and…

Home Assistant announced today the availability of the Voice Preview Edition, its own design of a living-room-friendly box to offer voice assistance with home automation. Having used it for a few weeks, it seems like a great start, at least for those comfortable with digging into the settings. That’s why Home Assistant is calling it a “Preview Edition.” Using its privacy-minded Nabu Casa cloud—or your own capable computer—to handle the…

Another company has publicly cut ties with Broadcom’s VMware. This time, it’s Ingram Micro, one of the world’s biggest IT distributors. The announcement comes as Broadcom eyes services as a key part of maintaining VMware business in 2025. But even as some customers are reducing reliance on VMware, its trillion-dollar owner is laughing all the way to the bank. IT distributor severs VMware ties Ingram is reducing its Broadcom-related business…

Intel’s Core Ultra 200S desktop processors—the company’s biggest overhaul of its desktop platform since 2021—consume less power and run a lot cooler than the company’s 13th- and 14th-generation Core CPUs. However, early reviewers found that the processors sometimes struggled to match, let alone beat, those older desktop CPUs in some tasks. This was particularly true for games, and people who build their own gaming PCs are a key constituency for…

Amazon announced in September that it will require workers to be in the office five days a week starting in January. Employee backlash ensued, not just because return-to-office (RTO) mandates can be unpopular but also because Amazon is using some of the worst strategies for issuing RTO mandates. Ahead of the mandate, Amazon had been letting many employees work remotely for two days a week, with a smaller number of…

In theory, it ought to be as good a time as ever to be a gamer on the iPhone. Classic console emulators have rolled out to the platform for the first time, and they work great. There are strong libraries of non-skeezy mobile games on Apple Arcade and Netflix Games, streaming via Xbox and PlayStation services is continuing apace, and there are even a few AAA console games now running…

Arm and Qualcomm’s dispute over Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips is continuing in court this week, with executives from each company taking the stand and attempting to downplay the accusations from the other side. If you haven’t been following along, the crux of the issue is Qualcomm’s purchase of a chip design firm called Nuvia in 2021. Nuvia was originally founded by ex-Apple chip designers to create high-performance Arm chips…

On Wednesday, OpenAI launched a 1-800-CHATGPT (1-800-242-8478) telephone number that anyone in the US can call to talk to ChatGPT via voice chat for up to 15 minutes for free. The company also says that people outside the US can send text messages to the same number for free using WhatsApp. Upon calling, users hear a voice say, “Hello again, it’s ChatGPT, an AI assistant. Our conversation may be reviewed…

How do you fit 32 terabytes of storage into a hard drive? With a HAMR. Seagate has been experimenting with heat-assisted magnetic recording, or HAMR, since at least 2002. The firm has occasionally popped up to offer a demonstration or make yet another “around the corner” pronouncement. The press has enjoyed myriad chances to celebrate the wordplay of Stanley Kirk Burrell, but new qualification from large-scale customers might mean HAMR drives…

Return-to-office (RTO) mandates have caused companies to lose some of their best workers, a study tracking over 3 million workers at 54 “high-tech and financial” firms at the S&P 500 index has found. These companies also have greater challenges finding new talent, the report concluded. The paper, Return-to-Office Mandates and Brain Drain [PDF], comes from researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Baylor University, The Chinese University of…