If you are an avid user of Siri, you have undoubtedly experienced substantial frustration at the digital assistant completely fumbling a request. But that is about to all change.

According to Bloomberg reporter and Apple insider Mark Gurman, Siri is about to have her IQ massively increased in an upcoming iOS update. According to Gurman, who has long been entrenched in the happenings at the Cupertino company, Apple developers have shifted their focus to iOS 18.4, which is slated to "finally include changes to the Siri digital assistant that were originally announced at WWDC in June 2024. So, what will these improvements include? Siri is about to get a whole lot smarter.

Gurman writes the new major update will enable Siri to "tap into personal data to fulfill queries," but it won't be at the same level of sophistication as an AI assistant. The Bloomberg reporter says Apple is still very far behind in terms of turning Siri into a fully fledged AI-powered assistant (besides the integration of ChatGPT) and that iOS 18.4 won't be the update that brings Siri up to that level. The iOS 18.4 update is expected to hit beta in the coming days or sometime between the middle of this week and next week.

For sophisticated AI chatbots to exist, they need to be trained on large swaths of data, but where things get murky is when the big question is posed to the companies behind these AI chatbots - where did you get this data from? And was it obtained legally?

Since their massive rise in popularity, companies behind these AI chatbots have been accused of stealing copyrighted data, which is then used by the AI for training purposes to further increase its sophistication and, ultimately, the price the company charges for access to the AI. Obtaining datasets legally means companies must pay a licensing fee for copyrighted material, and also agree to a bunch of hoops set by the owner of the data. Why go through all that expenditure and stipulations when the dataset can just be pirated in the same way a movie can be illegally downloaded?

Companies such as OpenAI are currently embroiled in copyright lawsuits for these reasons, but OpenAI isn't the only AI company facing copyright lawsuits, as a lawsuit against Meta has recently been leaked online that accuses the Mark Zuckerberg-run company of obtaining 82 terabytes (TB) of books from an illegal source for AI training. The lawsuit states Meta illegally downloaded the contents of the books from "shadow libraries" such as Anna's Archive, Z-Library, and LibGen, with the suit quoting a Meta researcher who was against the use of pirated material.

Lemokey is the gaming-focused brand of Keychron, one of the most popular and respected makers of mechanical keyboards in recent years. Today, Lemokey has launched a Kickstarter campaign (already funded) for its new creation, the Lemokey L5 HE 8K Magnetic Gaming Keyboard, which is positioned as the ultimate board for PC gamers.

It also supports Rapid Trigger functionality, with magnetic Lemokey Ultra-Fast Lime MHall Effect magnetic switches that can be adjusted with an actuation point between 0.01 and 3.35mm and an insane microscopic sensitivity adjustment increment of just 0.01mm. The interface is also ultra-low-latency with an 8K or 8,000 Hz polling and scan rate for "immediate keystroke registration."

The Lemokey L5 HE 8K ships with a high-end keyboard processor and even supports a custom 'Analog Mode' for keypresses that replicates the triggers on modern gaming controllers as the keyboard can detect how far down you press. Lemokey hints that this feature would be great for racing games like Forza Horizon 5.

As a programmer and pioneer of the first-person shooter genre, John Carmack needs no introduction. His credits include Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth, Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, and more. John Carmack was also instrumental in making VR gaming successful after joining Oculus in 2013 as its CTO, where he continued to drive and shape the Meta Quest platform until 2022.

With the release of a fully playable and unofficial Quake 3 VR mod by Team Beef that uses the game's free demo version as its basis for multiplayer, the quality and impressive way in which it captures the iconic shooter's feel in VR has garnered a lot of attention in the VR and classic gaming community - including John Carmack. If you ever played Quake 3 back in the day, the Quake 3 VR footage above (via @verociity on X) will bring back some fond memories.

After being asked about the port on social media platform X this past weekend and about it being made cannon (as in official), John Carmack confirmed that's precisely what he tried to do while he was at Meta. He even went so far as to promise id Software and Microsoft over one million dollars in sales for Quake 3 VR to be officially available on the Meta Store, but was still rejected.

As one of the fathers of the FPS genre and the programmer responsible for both Doom and Quake's smooth gameplay, John Carmack is an absolute legend in the game development and PC gaming community. After leaving id Software, he's probably best known for jumping in on the rise of VR gaming, joining Oculus and then, later, Meta.

John Carmack is no longer at Meta, but over the weekend, the talented programmer took to X to post his feelings on the current state of VR - specifically PC VR gaming. It's no secret that VR never quite took off in the way PC gaming handhelds have in recent years. It's still considered a niche thing to put on a headset to play a game, even heavy hitters like Half-Life: Alyx or Star Wars Squadrons.

John Carmack notes that when it comes to VR, the release of standalone all-in-one headsets like the Meta Quest was "the biggest win that VR ever had." And it was never a case of the right AAA title arriving before everybody would get into VR gaming and make it mainstream. "Beat Saber was far more important than Half-Life: Alyx," he adds.

It's been a gradual shift, but with the arrival of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series, we're seeing a clear shift to AI-enhanced rendering becoming a major component of gaming's future. We're already seeing the benefits of this today with technologies like the AI-powered NVIDIA DLSS and Frame Generation, which is spilling over into the console space thanks to the PlayStation 5 Pro.

AMD, too, is set to switch its FSR upscaling model to an AI-based one to match DLSS and Intel's XeSS. Microsoft's next Xbox console is rumored to heavily use ML or machine learning hardware and software. One catalyst for the change has been the arrival of cutting-edge real-time ray-tracing, as seen in 'Full Ray Tracing' titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2.

With the arrival of the GeForce RTX 50 Series, NVIDIA is not only enhancing the AI capabilities of its next-gen RTX Blackwell architecture for new AI-enhanced rendering but is bringing its innovations to the software space. The company's RTX Kit for game developers has just been given a significant update and is packed with new neural rendering technologies.

When NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 50 Series at CES 2025 in January, it noted that the GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti would launch sometime in February 2025. According to retail listings and leaks, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti will hit retail first on February 20, starting at $749.

This MSRP will see the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti launch at a price $50 lower than the original GeForce RTX 4070 Ti from 2023, and the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER refresh from 2024. Like the SUPER model, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti will ship with 16GB of VRAM, the new and fast GDDR7, and a 256-bit interface.

NVIDIA has not confirmed the February 20 launch date for the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. However, MSI's French store prematurely posted a new countdown page for the launch that, you guessed it, was counting down to February 20. The page has been taken down, but not before @aschilling, the editor of Hardware Luxx, captured a screenshot.

MSI's GeForce RTX 50 Series lineup is impressive, with the company giving all of its existing designs a makeover and adding a few new designs/looks into the mix. At CES 2025, we got to check out the company's full suite of GeForce RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 GPUs - from the revamped VENTUS and SUPRIM cards to the new VANGUARD and INSPIRE models.

MSI also teased a special edition GeForce RTX 5090 LIGHTNING GPU currently in development. The card is rumored to be built with the same compact PCB featured in NVIDIA's Founders Edition design. The point is MSI already has several GeForce RTX 50 Series options, and the list is growing thanks to new store listings for the stealth-inspired SHADOW series.

The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti SHADOW and GeForce RTX 5080 SHADOW, available in OC and non-OC variants, sport an all-black look free from RGB lighting are on the way.

In the latest edition of the Power On newsletter, known Apple insider Mark Gurman claimed Apple is preparing to launch a new iPhone "this week."

Gurman writes that Apple is preparing to launch a new iPhone next week, and that hasn't changed, with the Apple insider seemingly being very adamant about the prediction. Notably, Gurman has been spot on with Apple's plans in the past, with the analyst correctly calling the date for Apple's last WWDC, and other Apple-related announcements. As for what new iPhone will purportedly be announced this week, Gurman says Apple will be unveiling a redesigned iPhone SE 4, which will be priced below the $500 mark.

Furthermore, Gurman says that's not all Apple has up its sleeve, as the company is also planning on unveiling a new M4 MacBook Air and its iPad Air lineup. The Bloomberg reporter also states in the Power On newsletter the new iPhone SE will come with a larger screen and look reminiscent of the iPhone 14. Additionally, the new iPhone SE is slated to be the device that features Apple's first in-house cellular modem chip, which will be paired with the A18 processor and Apple Intelligence. Moreover, the home button will be replaced with FaceID, and there will be the inclusion of a USB-C port over the now-outdated Lightning port.

We've seen some innovations on the DIY front with PCs, but few as daring as hooking up a household air conditioner box to cool a computer and a heavyweight GPU.

Tom's Hardware noticed this effort from a Chinese PC enthusiast on Bilibili whose name translates to 'Electrolytic sodium carbonate.'

The setup works using a 12,000 BTU air conditioning unit to power the liquid cooling for the PC, which as it stands, packs an RTX 4090 graphics card with a Core i9-13900K processor.

Researchers have discovered seismic signals can reach deeper into Mars than previously anticipated, according to two new papers published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Scientists looked at how meteoroids hitting the surface of Mars can cause Marsquakes that vibrate through the various layers of the Red Planet. Using data from NASA's InSight Lander, a robotic lander designed to measure the seismic activity of Mars, and combining that with the data on a recent meteoroid impact, researchers discerned the seismic activity caused by the impact of the meteoroid traveled much deeper than previously anticipated.

Before this recent meteoroid impact, researchers believed Mars' layers had a dampening effect on seismic activity, resulting in seismic waves caused by meteoroid impacts only traveling so far. However, the recent impact crater in the Cerberus Fossae has busted that theory or at least revealed something more is at play. The Cerberus Fossae impact crater measured 71-foot-wide, and according to the studies, the seismic wave it produced took a more direct route to the planet's mantle, with one of the InSight team members describing Mars' interior as having some sort of "seismic highway" through to the mantle.

Sir Lanka's energy minister confirmed to the press the nation's power grid was brought down after a monkey came into contact with the grid transformer, resulting in 22 million people being left in temperatures above 86 degrees (30C).

The nationwide power outage was traced back to a power station located south of the capital, Colombo, and according to energy minister Kumara Jayakody, a monkey interacted with the grid transforming, resulting in an imbalance in the power system and the eventual outage. Sri Lankan media and social media users were very quick to start poking fun at the situation, with some pointing out that even just one monkey can cause total chaos across a nation. On a more serious note, some users pointed out the flimsiness of the grid if it can be brought down by one explorative monkey.

Jamila Husain, editor-in-chief of local newspaper the Daily Mirror, wrote: "Sri Lanka's national grid is so outdated that even a monkey can cause an island-wide blackout." How did this happen? According to the Power and Energy Ministry, a group of monkeys made their way into the Pandura Power Station and a fight between the monkey's broke out. During the brawl one of the monkey's hit the transmission line, resulting in an immediate imbalance in the power grid and the outage.

Valve has continued its push to add more consumer protections on Steam: introducing a platform-wide ban for any games that force users to watch or engage with advertising.

The change was first sighted on Gaming on Linux, where users reported the new advertising guidelines added to the SteamWorks Documentation. The guidelines clearly outline that while product placement, cost promotions, and paid advertising outside Steam are allowed, developers cannot use paid advertising as a business model in-game. Examples cited included 'requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play' or gating gameplay behind advertising.

The move comes in direct opposition to the freemium, ad-driven model that plagues a large portion of the mobile game market. It also follows an update, released last week, that provides warnings if an early access title hasn't been updated for a duration of longer than 12 months.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card has been tweaked by overclocker Der8auer, with a custom water block used, reducing GPU and GDDR7 memory temperatures by very impressive numbers.

Sure, you can buy a custom RTX 5090 with a pre-installed water block from the likes of ASUS, but NVIDIA has a mighty impressive PCB design and liquid metal on the GB202 GPU. Der8auer modded the RTX 5090 FE, disassembling it and then installing a custom water block.

The overclocker also checked the liquid metal on the card, using a spectroscope to work out that NVIDIA is using 10% thin, which is similar to Conductonaut (which is a Thermaly Grizzly product) but not as high-performance as their Extreme version, adds Der8auer.

AMD will be "very aggressively" pricing its new Radeon RX 9000 series "RDNA 4" graphics cards according to new rumors, ready to take the gaming GPU fight to NVIDIA and even its own RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 7800 XT.

In a new post on X by leaker @haruzake5719 and a share from IThome, AMD's new Radeon RX 9000 series "RDNA 4" graphics cards are said to be priced "very aggressively". But what does that mean? In previous leaks from Moore's Law is Dead, we heard that the flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT would be $599, and the RX 7090 non-XT would be $499.

These new rumors add some fuel to that fire, as "very aggressively" sure would be flagship RDNA 4 for $599, as the Radeon RX 9070 XT priced at $599 would be a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti killer that costs $150 less... as the RTX 5070 Ti will be priced at $749. If this pricing truly is "very aggressive" then $599 + $499 for both RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs would be just that: very aggressively priced.

US-based startup 'Figure AI' has reported a 'major breakthrough' in robot intelligence after years of working in collaboration with OpenAI. Figure AI's CEO, Brett Adcock, took to X to share the recent news, and his excitement to share something in the next 30 days 'no one has ever seen on a humanoid'.

Figure AI recently received a funding round of $675 million, placing the company at a $2.6.B as they prepare to release their Figure 02 robot to the market. Figure 02 stands at 5"6 can carry 44 pounds, and work for up to 5 hours on a single charge. With a humanoid design, its hands allow it to open doors, use tools, climb stairs, lift boxes, and more.

The firm recently announced its decision to leave its agreement with OpenAI on the heels of its latest accomplishments, with Adcock citing:

Perplexity is an AI-powered search tool designed for research, offering users the ability to ask questions and generate responses based on multiple sources.

In a LinkedIn Post on Friday, Perplexity announced that file and image uploads will be receiving an expanded context window of 1 million tokens for free users. Meaning, users uploading files, or images, will be able to upload substantially more content for processing, as long as they have an account.

A 1 million token context window is massive - allowing users to process an entire book (350-400 pages), a month's worth of financial reports (1,000 pages of PDFs), or tens of thousands of lines of code (25,000-50,000 lines) at a time. For reference, ChatGPT's maximum context window caps out at 128,000 for OpenAI's GPT-4o - a model that's offered on a paid plan.

NVIDIA and Carnegie Mellon researchers have introduced a new AI model called ASAP (Aligning Simulation and Real-World Physics for Learning Agile Humanoid Whole-Body Skill). Designed to teach humanoid robots complex movements through simulations, the model was recently showcased in a video demonstrating its ability to replicate the motions of iconic athletes, including Kobe Bryant, Cristiano Ronaldo, viral K-Pop star Rose, and NBA superstar LeBron James.

In the footage, you can spot the humanoid robot dressed in its favorite athlete's uniforms, performing actions ranging from Kobe Bryant's iconic fadeaway jump-shot, to a famous celebration coined by Lakers forward LeBron James. The way it works: researchers pre-train the robot in simulation, eventually teaching it to replay the motion based on collections of video footage. The advancement is a step towards making humanoid robots move like real people in the future.

E-ink, otherwise known as ePaper, is a display type we're seeing more and more of in consumer devices. TCL showcased its NXTPaper line of phones at CES 2025. ReMarkable arrived on the scene with paper-like tablets. In a recent announcement, Samsung showcased its range of gigantic 75-inch 5K e-ink displays.

The next-generation displays were announced at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2025. Designed for commercial utility, the Samsung Color E-Paper (EMDX model) aims to provide an ink-like experience suitable for commercial signage while limiting power consumption. The Samsung E-Paper can display digital ink across the full range of colors. Impressively, it functions with a 0.00W power draw when displaying static images, and consumes minimal energy during image transitions.

Efficient power consumption is one of the key benefits of e-paper displays. For example, the TCL NXTPaper 10 can stretch a single charge to last seven days. Samsung's E-Paper display takes this efficiency even further, drawing zero power while displaying static images and consuming only minimal energy during transitions. While designed for commercial use, businesses will undoubtedly benefit from its drastically reduced energy costs.

A new fraud scandal has emerged involving the sale of used hard drives from data storage manufacturer Seagate. An investigation by Heise has revealed that used HDDs have been sold across global markets as 'brand new,' with over 200 cases confirmed worldwide.

Investigations have traced the scam back to several German retailers, including Alternate.De, Wortmann, Galaxus, and Proshop. Similar used drives have also been identified in adjacent European regions, along with cases confirmed across Australia, Japan, and Thailand.

Many of the drives are recorded to have logged between 15,000 and 50,000 hours of use prior to their resale, with affected units traced back to mining operations in China. The units were used to mine Chia, a popular cryptocurrency that led to a surge in HDD demand during the early years of the pandemic.