Amazon has announced Alexa+, its new generative AI-powered Alexa voice assistant that has beaten Apple to the punch.

Amazon's new Alexa+ is conversational, proactive, capable of reason and inference, and can learn from context and your life. It is a big leap into the true AI assistant world, where Alexa+ can plan a date, book a restaurant, text your loved ones, create a travel itinerary and add it to everyone's calendar, read your study guide, and give you a test on the answers, remember your favorite foods and movies, as well as finding your smart devices and take action. Phew.

It's not just boasting a host of new AI abilities, but Alexa+ will now be better than everything it used to do, no longer having to use precise phrasing or constantly having to say "Alexa". In the place of Skills, Amazon now has Experts, which is Alexa's various large language models (LLMs) that smartly tap into deliver on your requests however you phrase them -- this includes ordering food, turning on lights, through to things like who has been at your door, and what to cook for dinner.

Tesla has reportedly tapped TSMC to make its new FSD chips for China, using the company's 4nm-5nm process nodes according to the latest reports, just as the company has expanded its Full Self-Driving capabilities to its vehicles in China.

In a new report from UDN, we're learning that as Tesla's huge Full Self-Driving (FSD) rollout in mainland in China is happening right now to great success, industry sources suggest TSMC has secured orders for Tesla's new FSD chips built on the company's 4nm-5nm process node.

Samsung is still providing production and memory support for older Tesla FSD chips, so not all of the chips are in TSMC's basket: pun not intended, but I couldn't not write that. Tesla's Dojo AI supercomputer trains its FSD system, running on chips made by TSMC on its 5nm process with advanced InFo-SoW packaging to provide customized high-speed computing needs.

Steam has set a new multi-million user milestone, ending its first quarter with 40 million+ concurrent users.

PC gaming is on the rise and Valve's digital storefront continues breaking new records. Earlier today around 8:30AM EST, Steam broke 40 million concurrent users for the first time in history. The exact count is 40.26 million by Valve's official Steam Charts, and 40.27 million by SteamDB.

It's worth noting that the vast majority of these users weren't actually playing games. Out of the estimated 40.27 million accounts that were logged into and using Steam at once, only 12.8 million of them, or about 31%, were playing a video game at the time. It's hard to say what the others were doing but they could be buying games and/or content. Nonetheless, these are incredible numbers and Valve also set a new all-time concurrent in-game player peak as well.

PowerColor has officially unveiled its new custom Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 graphics cards in its RDNA 4-powered Red Devil, Hellhound, and Reaper series cards.

The new Red Devil Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards are the flagship RDNA 4 cards from the company, with factory overclocking for maximum performance. PowerColor's new Red Devil series has high-end VRMs, Honeywell PTM7950 thermal pads, and a premium cooling solution with an optimal heat pipe arrangement across its 12-layer PCB.

PowerColor is using a multi-facted design called Hellstone on its new Red Devil RX 9070 series GPUs, with the new RDNA 4-powered cards feature Keystone: PowerColor's new software control hub. Better yet, PowerColor has a Limited Red Devil Edition for both the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards that includes the Red Devil Metal Keycap.

Broadcom has reportedly seen its huge ByteDance project canceled, after the parent company of TikTok tasked the US company to design a new AI accelerator.

In a new post by insider @Jukanlosreve, we're hearing that as US semiconductor restrictions tighten on China, HBM-based chip designs are being categorized as AI-related and subject to tighter controls. Over the last few months, there has been a sustained decline in CoWoS advanced packaging orders from Chinese companies.

The post continues, explaining that Chinese customers including T-Head has "significantly reduced" its CoWoS orders, "which we believe will eventually drop to zero, Sanechip shipments are halted after completing its production in 1Q25, and Broadcom's ByteDance project has also been suspended".

Apple's much-anticipated AI-powered update for Siri was originally slated for release within iOS 19, but it has been delayed according to reports, further highlighting Apple's failure in AI so far.

In his new report on Bloomberg, insider Mark Gurman writes in his PowerOn newsletter that Apple's plans to release an "LLM Siri" that could keep up in world with ChatGPT, Grok, and Alexa+ have been delayed. Right now, Siri inside of iOS 18 essentially has two brains: one that operates the regular Siri commands like timers and making calls, while another handles advanced quieries.

But, in order for Apple Intelligence to be baked into iOS 18, Apple rushed and didn't spend the time melding the two systems together, meaning it doesn't work anywhere near as good, and rivals haven't just caught up, but leap-frogged Apple when it comes to integrating AI into their systems.

Two games have been cancelled at WB Montreal since the disappointing release of Gotham Knights, sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

After booking $384 million in impairment charges from two costly failures, WB Games has been restructured. Executive leadership has departed, studios like Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith Productions have been closed down, and top brass has ordered a strict greenlight process that focuses on just a handful of IPs and franchises.

With all the talk about studio closures, gamers want to know: What's happening with WB Montreal? The studio did make Batman: Arkham Origins, which has received high praise. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, WB Montreal has mostly become a support studio rather than a group leading its own projects, but the team has apparently pitched a Game of Thrones project.

Obsidian's new high fantasy roleplaying game Avowed may reach nearly 6 million players in its first month on the market, new estimates from data group MindGame Data indicate.

Avowed may be a popular game that will be played by 5.9 million people across Xbox and PC in its first month, with full game sales and Xbox Game Pass subscribers combined. The figure comes from a quick newsletter from MindGame Data, a firm that collects what's called "mindshare" data and uses that to estimate the potential playerbase of that game for a given period of time. These aren't confirmed or verified figures, and it's important to know that mindshare sources data from searches on Google as well as highlight data from YouTube and Twitch.

Apple is slated to unveil the next generation of iPhone later this year, and according to a recent leak, we can expect some major design changes.

It has been rumored for quite some time the iPhone 17 generation will introduce some major design changes, which will be a breathe of fresh air for Apple fans that have been enduring the same aesthetics for many generations with incremental upgrades in performance. According to new iPhone 17 CAD renders that have been leaked from Sonny Dickson, the iPhone 17 standard won't look much different compared to the iPhone 16, but the Pro models, the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, will look different.

Reports indicate the standard iPhone 17 will get the Always-On display and ProMotion features, instead of the design update. As for the Pro Models, the CAD renders show a camera bar but with the lenses being in the same orientation as what we are used to on previous generations. However, the flash, microphone, and LiDAR scanner have been moved to the opposite side of the device instead of being placed above and below the innermost camera lens, as we have seen in previous generations.

Microsoft will soon let Copilot Labs testers try out its new gaming AI technology.

Days ago, Microsoft made waves by announcing its first generative AI toolset for video games. It's called Muse, and it can generate actual gameplay sequences from user input (albeit at very low frame rates, around 10FPS or thereabouts). Theoretically, you can just hook up a controller and start pressing buttons and moving the joysticks, and Muse will generate, on-the-fly, video sequence footage based on your commands.

Soon the tech will be available for experimental runs on Copilot Labs, which is Microsoft's digital testing bed for new AI-oriented software and features. There's not an exact timeline on when you'll be able to try out Muse for yourself, and the games are meant to be short and smaller-scale slivers of experiences, potentially akin to mini-games, maybe like something you'd find in Fusion Frenzy.

New details about Sony's cancelled live service Twisted Metal game have emerged thanks to an programmer's portfolio page.

Just a few years ago, Sony announced plans to launch 12 live service games by 2026. A new Twisted Metal project was among these games. The next-gen Twisted Metal would be made for PS5 with online multiplayer, and it'd be developed by Firesprite. The Twisted Metal game was believed to be cancelled in February of last year.

Now there's some updated information about the project. A programmer has uploaded a brief description of Project Copper, which had been in development at Firesprite, and sounds suspiciously like a Twisted Metal game.

After years of exclusivity deals with PlayStation, Square Enix is now ready to sell its games on all platforms. This sentiment is found at both the executive and creative level, especially with the leads of the newer Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy.

It sounds like everyone is shrugging off exclusivity these days. After buying Activision, Microsoft starting selling its first-party games on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Then there's Square Enix, who had finally brought Final Fantasy XIV over to Xbox last year and pledged to launch more games on all systems--PC and Xbox included. That plan will continue, and the third chapter of the FF7 remake trilogy could be a multi-platform release.

Sony recently profiled FF7 Rebirth game director Naoki Hamaguchi on the topic of hardware and compatibility, and Hamaguchi's answers fall in line with those spoken by Square Enix's CEO:

Nintendo has confirmed that it will remove its first game from the Switch Online subscription service, showing the catalog is not permanent or static.

Later this month, Nintendo will delist a retro Super Nintendo classic from its subscription-only retro vault. The game in question, Super Soccer from 1992, isn't all that exciting, but it's still an ill omen to game preservationists and classic gaming nerds everywhere. It's unknown exactly why Super Soccer is being removed but it could have something to do with licensing rights--in this case, the rights holder is Japanese games firm Spike Chunsoft.

"Super Formation Soccer (Spike Chunsoft), a title included on Super Famicom Nintendo Switch Online, will cease distribution at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, March 28, 2025. Once distribution ends, even those who have already downloaded Super Famicom Nintendo Switch Online will no longer be able to use it," reads a post from Nintendo's Japanese account.

SpaceX's quest to achieve full reusability of Starship is expected to come to a close next year, according to company CEO Elon Musk.

Musk recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he explained SpaceX's goals with rocket development and how the company is aiming to first achieve full reusability and then rapid reusability. Musk explains that the Falcon 9 rocket, while technically reusable due to its booster being able to land, SpaceX still loses the upper stage, which costs $10 million and a few days of time to build before another launch can take place. The goal is to achieve full rapid reusability of both the upper and lower stage, the booster, and the ship (cargo part of the rocket).

It should be noted that full rapid reusability can be compared to an aircraft, which can take off and land without any damage at all. Full reusability would be defined as both the upper and lower stages of the rocket landing but sustaining some damage that requires repair time.

Musk says the orbital heat shield is currently SpaceX's biggest problem with making the Ship fully reusable, which is necessary to make Starship a fully reusable rocket.

Upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere, the rocket travels at extreme speeds through Earth's dense atmosphere. This resistance with the atmosphere causes friction, and just like a meteor, the increase in temperature eventually causes flames. This is where the orbital heat shield comes in.

SpaceX has equipped its rockets with a shield designed to disperse the heat generated by reentry, but unfortunately, no one has made a fully reusable heat shield. Musk briefly discussed what the orbital heat shield is made of, saying it needs to be constructed of extremely fine strands of glass and aluminum oxide (sapphire) fibers organized in a very specific geometry for the highest efficiency.

AMD has just announced its new Radeon RX 9070 series "RDNA 4" graphics cards, and while we know the horrors of trying to find one of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" GPUs... it seems RDNA 4 will have significantly higher stock levels.

In a new video posted by leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're hearing that "supply is going to be significantly higher for RDNA 4 than it is what from what we've seen with Blackwell expect 3-10x the shipments of RDNA 4 cards compared to something like an RTX 5080"

"Now, to be clear about that though: it's more or less a standard launch maybe slightly above average overall I would say it's just that when I say 3 -10x more cards than the 5080 at launch... Blackwell was just that low volume of a launch it was basically entirely fake. I would roughly summarize the quantity for the 9070 series actually as around what the 7800 XT at launch which was a lot a lot of people were able to get one on launch day for an hour or so online".

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore were left "stranded" aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after Boeing's Starliner limped its way to the floating laboratory on June 5. The plan was to stay aboard the ISS for a week, but Williams and Butch are still yet to return to Earth - eight months later.

Boeing's first astronaut mission to the ISS ended in failure when the Starliner capsule returned to Earth without the astronauts in September last year. The capsule that transported the two NASA astronauts to the ISS for an intended week-long stay endured helium leaks on its way to the ISS, and after an evaluation by NASA it was determined the capsule didn't meet safety standards for the return journey, resulting in both NASA astronauts having to stay aboard the ISS.

NASA doesn't officially consider the astronauts "stranded" but instead has extended the mission duration for a return sometime in March 2025 aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. However, new information has come to light from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he said that SpaceX offered to return both astronauts "early," but the Biden administration rejected this offer for "political reasons."

Activision could launch this year's Call of Duty game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles to squeeze out another year's worth of spending from gen 8 gamers.

Call of Duty 2025 is currently in development for last-gen consoles, sources tell Insider Gaming and Charlie Intel. The move is consistent with Microsoft's latest aggressive push into maximizing game sales, microtransactions, and services across as many platforms as possible--an ethos that has manifested in Xbox's current anti-exclusive business model.

Neither Activision nor Microsoft have confirmed the news, and sources appear to be unsure whether or not the game will actually launch on last-gen platforms. The current reports just say that COD '25 is in development for those systems.

WB Discovery has commented on the commercial failures of its video games unit, telling investors that what happened in 2024 probably won't happen again.

WBD just posted up its Q4 2024 results, and included in the report is an update on the WB Games division. Recent reports from Bloomberg indicates that WB has shut down 3 studios (which was later confirmed) in a restructuring move that management says will help created growth in 2025.

In the prepared remarks to investors, the company indicates that WB Games currently is not profitable. The games segment recorded a total impairment charge of $384 million for the entire year; basically, WB dramatically reduced the worth of its gaming assets in 2024. The significant losses from Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and Multiversus are the main culprits.

Miss the heady days of Windows Vista? Well, some people must, as the ancient operating system from Microsoft has been recreated in a modern take, as a theme for Windows 11.

To be precise, this is a DIY patchwork theme for the utility Windhawk that goes by the name of the 'Windows Vista 2025 Edition.'

Windows Central spotted this, and explains that the setup process is rather convoluted (not to mention that it comes with something of an oddity).