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ASML is the biggest company in The Netherlands, so it makes sense that the Dutch government is kissing the ring to ensure they don't move countries... or expand overseas.

In a new report from Reuters, the outlet covers that the news of the Dutch government making its moves with ASML from newspaper De Telegraaf, citing -- as usual -- "anonymous sources" that said the Dutch ministries involved have called this project "Operation Beethoven".

Economic Affairs Minister Micky Adriaansens said that she wouldn't address every aspect of the paper's report, but during an interview with Reuters, she confirmed a meeting with ASML CEO Peter Wennick in The Hague on Wednesday. Adriaansens added: "I don't know if they would leave," the Netherlands, as "They want to grow. And they want to grow in such an amount, it puts a pressure on our infrastructure."

Intel's next-generation Lunar Lake CPU is expected to have a whopping 1.5x increase in multi-threaded performance over Meteor Lake-U, with Lunar Lake at 17W of power draw.

In a new post on X, "SquashBionic" posted that Lunar Lake at 17W will "almost" a 1.5x increase in multi-threaded performance in tests like Cinebench R23 when benched against Intel's new Meteor Lake-U laptop processor. Lunar Lake will not have any Hyper-Threading technology, so this rumor is juicy.

We don't have the full details of Intel's new Lunar Lake CPU, but we do know that the architecture itself was created from the ground up for thin and low-power laptops of the future. In this comparison, we're looking at the 15W TDP Meteor Lake CPUs, which feature up to 12 cores (2P + 8E + 2LP).

Sabrent's new rocket-fueled SSD, the Rocket 5 SSD, is now available on Amazon in 1TB, 2TB, and monster 4TB capacities.

The new Sabrent Rocket 5 SSD starts at $189 for the 1TB version, while the 2TB will set you back $339, and if you want the biggest 4TB capacity, you'll be looking at $729. You'll want a Gen5-capable motherboard to enjoy those wicked-fast 14GB/sec read speeds... and you won't need some gigantic heatsink to enjoy those huge speeds, either.

Sabrent's new Rocket 5 SSD is a benchmark chart destroyer, ushering in a new era of speed for gamers, content creators, and everyone in between. Our Storage Review Jon Coulter has already looked at the 2TB and 4TB versions of Sabrent's new Rocket 5 SSD, which you can check out in the links below. If you've just built or are about to build a high-end rig and don't know which M.2 SSD to purchase... this is the one.

Apple has long been rumored to have plans to announce a new round of iPad Pro models with the end of March or the beginning of April now the most likely timeframe for that to happen. The company is expected to refresh both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch versions with a new display technology, new chip, and more - but those looking to buy the smaller model might find that getting one is harder than they expected.

That's according to a new report that cites a paywalled post on the X social media website by Ross Young, a display analyst who has historically proven accurate when discussing such things.

According to Young, the 11-inch iPad Pro displays are currently being produced by Samsung Display while LG Display is also expected to begin producing the same displays later this month. LG Display is also producing displays for the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro. However, Young reports that he believes the 11-inch displays are behind schedule when compared to the 12.9-inch displays, something that could then have a knock-on effect and cause the smaller iPad Pro to be available in more limited quantities.

Apple is strongly rumored to be working on bringing new AI features to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and beyond in 2024 and expectations are high that these new features will be announced at WWDC in June. But the AI push is thought to be coming from an unexpected angle with a new report claiming that Apple is working on a new AI-powered ads platform.

That report, courtesy of Business Insider, says that the AI tool that is currently being tested chooses where to place ads in the many App Store placement slots in order to try and maximize the performance of those ads. However, the report goes on to suggest that the AI technology could be used elsewhere as Apple seeks to expand its ad-supported services. One example of a potential place for that to pop up is Apple TV+ with Apple again recently rumored to be working on bringing a cheaper ad-supported tier to the streaming platform.

It's important to remember that Apple's plans can and do sometimes change which means that this news should be taken with a pinch of salt until more firm information is shared. Apple already allows developers tp pay to advertise in various corners of the App Store including the Today tab, at the top of search results, and even on the product pages of competing apps.

If you're an avid user of the Freeform app on the iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you could be getting a big new update later this year if a new report is any indication. That report claims that the Freeform app is going to get a number of new features when the 2024 round of software updates is announced during the WWDC event in June.

We're expecting Apple to announce the iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 software updates during the June WWDC event and now MacRumors reports that the outlet's industry sources say that there are big upgrades coming.

The Freeform app is a large whiteboard of sorts that allows people to collaborate and add just about anything including text, images, and more. It was announced in 2022 and is available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac with Freeform boards syncing via iCloud.

Apple's iMac hasn't changed an awful lot in the last few years and while it's a good-looking, colorful all-in-one computer, it's probably time that it got a new lease of life. What that will look like is unclear right now, but a new report suggests that it could borrow heavily from Microsoft's Surface Studio.

The Microsoft Surface Studio is an all-in-one computer that can be folded almost flat and then used as a giant touch-screen device, including stylus support. The use cases are obvious and include architects and artists, and now it appears that Apple could launch a future iMac that follows somewhat in the Surface Studio's footsteps.

The patent, first spotted by Patently Apple, describes a device that appears similar to a Mac with a tilting touchscreen that can be used by artists and others. The patent doesn't specifically say that of course because they're notoriously vague, but the image that shows what such a device could look like is clearly similar to Microsoft's.

Blizzard recently added a new end-game mode to Diablo 4 late into Season 3 called 'Gauntlet.' A weekly fixed dungeon challenge offers players rewards and the chance to have their names immortalized if they manage to top the leaderboards (broken down into various classes and group sizes).

It's a welcome addition to the game, especially for those players who have reached the 'end-game' or Level 100. A new Gauntlet dungeon to tackle goes live each week, with players vying for the top spot.

However, things aren't quite going as planned, with several players reporting others using exploits to boost their rankings. We're not talking about outright cheating with additional apps or tools, but instead using elements of the overworld and Sanctuary to get a head start - loopholes, if you will.

A principal applied scientist at Microsoft has "successfully" gotten OpenAI's multimodal variant, GPT-4V, to play DOOM, resulting in the researcher issuing a warning about the implications of advanced AI-powered systems.

The Microsoft scientist is Adrian de Wynter, who is also a researcher at the University of York in England, penned a recent research paper with the title "Will GPT-4 Run DOOM?". In short, GPT-4 cannot run DOOM as the large language model is unable to execute DOOM's source code directly. However, its multimodal variant, GPT-4V, or GPT-4 with Vision, which is a large language model designed to take in images and answer questions about them, was capable of acting as a "proxy for the engine".

To achieve this, Wynter designed a process that includes a Manager capturing screenshots of the game engine that are then sent to GPT-4V, which returns natural-language descriptions of those images. Those descriptions are then sent back to the Manager, which sends them to GPT-4, which replies with decisions based on the history it has been sent. Wynter combined that process with an Agent model that's designed to translate its responses into keystroke commands that are then entered into the game.

If Apple follows the release cadence that we're used to it will unveil the iOS 18 iPhone software and macOS 15 Mac software during an event in June before releasing them to the public this fall. And while Apple is yet to confirm anything about the new softwre releases, or indeed that they're even in the works, we're beginning to see leaks suggesting what iPhone and Mac owners should expect.

That report comes from MacRumors and cites industry sources when it says that Apple is working on a number of accessibility improvements as well as new fetures that should be part of the iOS 18 and macOS 15 software updates that are expected to be made available in or around September.

There are a number of improvements expected including Adaptive Voice Shortcuts. This feature allows users to map spoken phrases to an accessibility setting, including custom phrases. The idea is that people will be able to more easily toggle existing accessibility features on or off when neeed.

Apple's iOS 18 iPhone software update is expected to be announced to the world at the WWDC event that's likely to be held in June, but it won't be made available to the wider public until September. A developer and public beta program will run from June until then, but a new report claims that an early version of the iOS 18 software is already in the hands of some.

According to a MacRumors report Apple recently began distributing internal builds of iOS 18 to factories and vendors. The information reportedly comes via a credible source who has proved to be accurate in the past. According to the source, the build that has been made available is called VendorUI, and access to it is highly controlled to ensure that information surrounding its features and capabilities are not leaked to the public.

MacRumors says that the VendorUI builds are sent out to factories for quality control testing every year, but because the software is in a preproduction state the interface isn't complete. In fact, it doesn't resemble the interface that Apple will announce in June. To ensure that leaks are kept to a minimum the report claims that the version of iOS 18 sent to vendors is limited in terms of the apps that are installed, ensuring that only those that are required for testing are available.

Apple's latest M3-powered MacBook Pro laptops are available in both 14- and 16-inch configurations and are undoubtedly the best MacBook Pros that the company has ever made. But there's no rest for Apple's engineers and plans were always going to eventually turn to what comes next in the never-ending need for more power. Now, a new report suggests that Apple is hard at work on getting its next MacBook Pro ready for its debut - although it isn't yet clear when we should expect that to happen.

Writing as part of a Q&A session, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple has started formal development of an M4 MacBook Pro machine, saying that he currently uses a 16-inch M1 Max MacBook Pro and will look to upgrade to the M4 once it is available. Information on what the M4 will have to offer is hard to come by right now, but it's possible that a chassis design change is in the cards given the lack of any tweaks in the last couple of generations.

Apple updated the MacBook Air to add M3 chips very recently but it could be some time before we see the M4 devices make their appearance. The current M3 MacBook Pro models start at $1,599 for the 14-inch laptop with an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD but there are upgrades available. Additional RAM and more storage are all offered, while the top-of-the-range 14-inch model comes with an M3 Max with a 14-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 36GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. The RAM and storage can also be upgraded here, but the starting price for that configuration is an eye-watering $3,199.

The Apple Car project first began as Project Titan way back in 2014 and it's struggled ever since. Apple finally took the decision to cancel the project recently in a move that meant finding a home for its 2,000-strong team. Now, more details about the ill-fated project have started to leak and it seems that Apple's much-vaunted silicon team was heavily involved.

Writing as part of a Q&A session Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has confirmed that Apple was working on bringing some serious processing power to an electric vehicle that was expected to offer self-driving capabilities among other things. The chip that would power the whole thing, Gurman says, was equal to about four M2 Ultras combined, and its development was almost finished when the project was canceled.

Gurman says that Apple's most important focus in terms of the Apple Car was on its AI brain which might explain why it was keen to use a chip that would theoretically be fourth times as powerful as anything that it has shipped in a Mac. The M2 Ultra currently powers the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, while an M3 Ultra is surely going to be unveiled later this year. The M2 Ultra is a highly capable chip and the idea of four of them bonded together could potentially make for interesting implementations in the future. Could such a chip one day find its way into a high-end Mac?

Saudi Arabia robotics company QSS unveiled its humanoid robot called Mohammad at a premiere described as the "meeting place for the global artificial intelligence ecosystem." During the unveiling, Mohammad appeared to reach out and try to grab a female reporter's backside.

The DeepFest event in Riyadh was held last week and during the event a female reporter for Al Arabiya named Rawya Kassem, was standing in front of the humanoid robot talking to the audience. The above video shows the robot reaching its hand out with the goal of what appears to be touching the backside of Kassem. The reporter quickly moves back away from Mohammad raising her palm towards it before she continues to address the crowd.

It wasn't long before users on X began to accuse the humanoid robot of attempting to grope the reporter, but QSS has responded to the claims, telling Metro that Mohammad is built to help out in hazardous situations and may have been attempting to encourage Kassem to step further back on the stage to prevent falling all its edge. Additionally, QSS stated it conducted a thorough review of the footage and the circumstances surrounding the incident and found there were "no deviations from expected behavior".

A long-standing science fiction concept for space travel is to create artificial gravity aboard the spacecraft to create a more suitable environment for astronauts.

Artificial gravity in sci-fi movies and TV shows has multiple benefits for passengers aboard the spacecraft, such as feeling more at home aboard the spacecraft, leading to psychological improvements. There are also physical improvements, such as being able to move around the spacecraft more effectively. What isn't typically considered with artificial gravity, or the lack of gravity throughout space travel, is the impact zero gravity has on astronauts' bone density levels.

Astronauts returning from tours aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were found to have shocking decreases in bone density that can lead to health problems such as frail bones that can easily shatter, and if humans want to travel to distant locations within the solar system, artificial gravity is going to have to be implemented into the spacecraft so they don't arrive at the location with weak bones, or more importantly, return back to Earth with major health problems.

Competition in the GPU space is good news for PC gamers because it leads to innovation and better value. However, outside of entry-level and mainstream performance, NVIDIA and GeForce dominate the discrete offerings, followed by AMD and Radeon.

So even though it was humorous that the Chinese-developed Moore Threads MTT S80 got destroyed by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti when we checked in on its performance last year - it would have been excellent to have seen it reach the heights its hardware and specs point to. 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, MUSA architecture delivering 14.4 TFLOPS of raw performance.

Well, it looks like we can add another knockout blow to the Moore Threads MTT S80, as German publication Computerbase has posted some new benchmark results that show the Ryzen 7 8700G with its integrated Radeon 780M graphics outperforming the MTT S80 by up to 90%.

Porsche has just finished launching its new Taycan Turbo GT electric vehicle, and the company had a surprise for Apple Vision Pro users close to the end of its presentation.

The livestream was predominately dedicated to the new Taycan Turbo GT EV but also featured a surprise appearance from Apple CEO Tim Cook, who congratulated Porsche on its new EV lap record and overall progress in the EV market. The Apple CEO commented on the demonstration by Porsche CEO Oliver Blume, who can be seen using the coming Apple Vision Pro app called Race Engineer Cockpit.

The new app is designed to allow Vision Pro users to experience different angles of the race all at once; this includes driver-facing camera angles, over-the-shoulder road perspectives, TV coverage angles, and real-time driving data such as the speed of the vehicle, lap time, battery levels and more.

"NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the most amazing graphics card to come in a very long time," Anthony wrote in his review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in 2017 - seven years ago (and three NVIDIA GPU generations). The flagship GeForce GTX 1080 Ti was a game changer, offering a 35% performance uplift compared to the baseline GeForce GTX 1080 for just $699 USD.

It was expensive at the time, but hindsight is everything. Inflation aside, in 2024, the idea of a flagship GPU priced at $699 is wild-complex hardware, and advanced nodes have steadily driven prices up since the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti hit the scene.

The crown jewel of the Pascal generation, the 1080 Ti is powered by the GP102 chip with its 16nm process, 3584 CUDA Cores, Boost Clock speed of 1582 MHz, and 11 GB or GDDR5X memory.

A week ago, Microsoft teased a new update to DirectX 12 for developers that will usher in "a new era of performance and efficiency." Today, we've got more details on what the new 'Work Graphs' entail and what to expect from PC games that take advantage of this potential game changer. Will it help eliminate or minimize poorly optimized releases? Potentially, the big thing with 'Work Graphs' is that it will help eliminate CPU bottlenecks.

For those needing a crash course in GPU rendering in PC gaming, a CPU bottleneck is a situation where the CPU is limiting the overall performance of the game - leaving untapped GPU horsepower on the table. In my recent review of the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, you can see this in action when playing Horizon Zero Dawn at 1080p. In the chart above, 8 of the most powerful GPUs deliver roughly the same performance because the CPU, engine, or other factors bottleneck performance.

'Work Graphs' aims to reduce the need to use the CPU for tasks and scheduling and switch to a more robust GPU-driven rendering system.

For quite some time Elon Musk has been attempting to compete with Google with various business ventures, with one being the creation of OpenAI to be a counter weight to Google, and now X, formerly Twitter, pushing head first into video adoption.

Before Musk took over Twitter and changed it into X the platform was primarily a text and image-based platform, but that since changed with the integration of video in both long and short form. Now, Elon Musk has teased that X's video capabilities won't be exclusive to desktops, laptops and smartphones, as a dedicated X app is being developed for smart TVs.

Fortune reports, along with Elon Musk teasing the feature via a post to his personal X account, developers behind the scenes are working on a new X app that will be coming to Amazona and Samsung smart TVs first, according to a source that spoke to Fortune. This exclusive report and Elon Musk's post echo X's sentiments published in a recent blog post where the company wants to be seen as a "video-first platform" which is part of the company's overall push to turn X into the "everything app".