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NVIDIA Doubles DLSS 5 Speed And Slashes VRAM Use For RTX Spark Launch

Zak Killian — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 14:55:00 -0400

When we tested DLSS 5's 3D-guided neural rendering in NBA 2K27, we were impressed with the upgrade in visual fidelity, but a little less impressed by the enormous performance hit imposed by the tech on non-flagship graphics cards. NVIDIA is well aware that this is a pain point of the technology, and just ahead of the launch of RTX Spark laptops

AI Developer Behind Free Photoshop Clones Now Takes On Microsoft Office

Chris Harper — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 14:49:00 -0400

One unexpected side effect of agentic AI's emergence has been a drastic increase in unofficial porting and reverse engineering efforts, which has expanded from game recomps/decomp ports to ArtCraft now adding support for the Microsoft Office suite. ArtCraft launched as a free, AI-developed alternative to the entire Adobe Creative suite, and

Epic Games Tells Developers No More Hand-Written Code In Major AI Push

Alan Velasco — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 14:43:00 -0400

Epic Games hasn’t shied away from its integration of AI into its development workflows as it continues to deliver a steady cadence of content drops for its various titles including its cash cow, Fortnite. However, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the company is set to push even further with how it deploys AI into the game development

PS5 Jailbreak App Overdrive Defies Sony With Free Games And DLC

Alan Velasco — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 13:23:00 -0400

Sony has been having a rough go of it lately. The company is weathering massive backlash from its decision to end game physical disc releases for its PlayStation consoles, jailbreaks keep popping up and PS5 emulators and translation layers continue to make big strides. The latest project includes a new app that gives owners of jailbroken consoles

Google Unveils Fitbit Edge With iPhone Support And Replaceable 7-Day Battery

Aaron Leong — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 13:14:00 -0400

Google just announced the Fitbit Edge, a fitness tracker that bridges the gap between the full-featured Pixel Watch 5 and screenless, minimalist Fitbit Air. According to Google, the $180 Edge is for users who need comprehensive health tracking and a display, but without the bulk or daily charging demands of a smartwatch. The watch sports

NASA Mars Rover Sets Record That Was 15 Years In The Making

Aaron Leong — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 11:43:00 -0400

Perseverance, NASA’s little rover that could (or can), has set an all-time off-world driving record, traveling farther on another planetary body than any vehicle in human history. Crossing the 28.10 mile (45.22 kilometer) mark across the unforgiving Mars terrain, the six-wheeled robotic scientist barely pipped the previous record held by NASA’s

OnePlus 16 Debuts With A Big 9000 mAh Battery, 200MP Camera & Space-Themed Lighting

Aaron Leong — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 11:08:00 -0400

After dumping us in the States and much of the world faster than a New York minute, OnePlus has unveiled its latest OnePlus 16 flagship in China. Sadly, its cutting-edge internals, gargantuan battery, and heavily upgraded cameras will never be savored on our shores, so all we can do is pine and whine. One of the first things that jumps

Apple Drops New HomeView Smart Display, Apple TV 4K, And HomePod Mini

Aaron Leong — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 10:44:00 -0400

Apple’s "Welcome Home" smart home launch event introduced a major overhaul to its living room ecosystem, unveiling new hardware and software designed to integrate Apple Intelligence more deeply into your home. Arguably the halo rollout is the HomeView that primarily serves a central hub for smart home control, but one can also make FaceTime

Google Pixel 11 Phones Are Up To $250 Off At Amazon And Best Buy

Paul Lilly — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 10:35:00 -0400

If you have been considering an upgrade to a Pixel 11 series smartphone, now is the time to make your move. Every model outside of the foldable variant is on sale at Amazon and Best Buy, with discounts ranging from $100 off for the standard Pixel 11 line, on up to $250 for those opting for the Pixel 11 Pro XL. Meanwhile the Pixel 11 Pro (non-XL)

Apple Slams Chrome Privacy And Battery Life In Spicy Switch To Safari Campaign

Paul Lilly — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 09:45:00 -0400

Apple is urging anyone and everyone with a Mac, iPhone, or iPad to abandon Google's Chrome browser and come to the promised land that is the company's own Safari web browser. As part of a new 'Stay on Safari' campaign, Apple highlights several reasons why Safari is supposedly superior to the most popular browser on the planet, one of which

AMD Ryzen AI Halo Now Packs Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 And 192GB Memory

Paul Lilly — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 08:58:00 -0400

AMD is doubling down on its ultra-compact workstation compute to challenge NVIDIA's DGX Spark and Apple's family of Mac mini systems. Following the launch of its Ryzen AI Halo workstation that we reviewed earlier this year, AMD has unveiled an upgraded model that equips the small form factor (SFF) machine with its flagship Ryzen AI Max+ Pro

AMD Unveils Helion Racks With 32,768 Zen 6 EPYC Cores For Agentic AI

Zak Killian — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 17:16:00 -0400

The Helios AI is AMD's massive, double-wide GPU-focused compute blueprint that has eighteen blades with four GPUs and one CPU each. It's an incredibly powerful system for training frontier AI models like those used for ChatGPT, but most customers aren't doing that. The hot new thing now is agentic AI, and AMD's new Helion platform is directly

Sorry Radeon Fans, AMD May Hold RDNA 5 Until Late 2027

Chris Harper — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:28:00 -0400

Although it has been roughly 17 months since the initial release of its RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9000 series cards, news regarding its next generation RDNA 5 graphics architecture remains scarce, with rumors indicating we could be waiting another year for anything solid to materialize. We have official confirmation of some things, including

NZXT Partner Fragile Rescues Gamer Scammed By Stolen Rental PC Sale

Alan Velasco — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:04:00 -0400

A PC gamer got a nasty surprise when the computer they purchased from someone on OfferUp ended up being a stolen system. Luckily, there’s a happy ending to this story. After posting about their ordeal on the pcmasterrace subreddit they were able to get in contact with Fragile, which operates NZXT’s Flex program, and ended up with a legitimate

SCSKiller Tool Aims To Eliminate GPU Shader Stutters For Free

Zak Killian — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 14:55:00 -0400

Game hitching and stuttering is the enemy of a good experience. It's a plague on modern gaming, though it's far from exclusively a modern affliction; we just notice it more because we have higher expectations and lower frame times. A significant source of stuttering is "shader compilation", where the graphics program source code in a game

Microsoft's Maia 300 AI Chip Aims To Make AI Cheaper And Faster

Marco Chiappetta — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 14:37:00 -0400

As Microsoft continues to build-out multi-gigawatt cloud and AI infrastructure deployments, its custom silicon remains a major focus. Today Microsoft reiterated that its Maia 200 is production-proven and deployed across regions in the United States, Europe, and Australia, and that the next-generation Maia 300, which reportedly boosts AI inference

Microsoft Warns Old Windows PCs Face An Update Cutoff In 2027

Chris Harper — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:35:00 -0400

If you haven't updated your Windows PC in a year or more, you'll need to apply an update in the near future to prevent another wave of certificate expirations from locking you out of future Windows updates. Devices that aren't updated before the May and June 2027 deadlines will not only be locked out of future improvements to Windows 11,

Apple TV Refresh And HomeView AI Smart Hub Leak Ahead Of October Event

Alan Velasco — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:20:00 -0400

Just weeks after revealign its new slate of iPhones, Apple is preparing to drop more new products this month, focused on smart home products that leverage the improved Siri AI assistant. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman the centerpiece of this rollout will be a smart home hub, which will be flanked by a host of accessories thanks to a

Black Hole Grown In A Lab Traps Sound Waves In Wild Physics Experiment

Aaron Leong — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 11:48:00 -0400

By adapting cosmic black hole physics, acoustic engineers have created a device that swallows sound inside pipes to eliminate unwanted acoustic energy such as echoes and vibrations. When sound travels through enclosed ducts, ventilation, or plumbing systems, encountering obstructions normally creates jarring echoes. A research team led

Microsoft Pres Says Milk Is More Regulated Than AI, Satya Nadella Urges An Emergency Brake

Aaron Leong — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 11:15:00 -0400

As artificial intelligence... oh sorry, super intelligence, grows exponentially in capability and autonomy, some tech leaders are sounding alarms about the striking lack of government regulation compared to things like milk and aircraft. For one, Microsoft has issued a series of blunt warnings regarding the urgent need for global AI safety

Alienware 16 Aurora Gaming Laptop With RTX 50 Hits $1,099 At Walmart

Paul Lilly — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:50:00 -0400

As you get ready to finish up your first semester back at school, are you finding that you could use a new laptop and want one that also has some gaming chops? If so, take note that Dell's Alienware 16 Aurora with RTX 50 firepower is back on sale, with Walmart advertising a massive $900 discount. That's admittedly a bold claim, but there is

Wing Commander 3 Remaster Confirmed After EA Finds Original FMV Tapes

Aaron Leong — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:30:00 -0400

At the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, Electronic Arts producer Jim Vessella surprised the gaming community by announcing Wing Commander III: 30th Anniversary Edition, a fully remastered version of Chris Roberts' popular 1994 space flight simulator. During a presentation called "The Lost Tapes: Preserving the EA Vault and Restoring an FMV Classic,"

Nintendo Reveals Fate Of Physical Switch Games As Sony Shifts To Digital

Paul Lilly — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:03:00 -0400

One of the biggest question marks in video games right is what the future holds for physical media. Sony set the stage for an all-digital future on consoles by saying it will no longer release PlayStation game discs starting in 2028, and the reaction to the announcement has been divisive and heated. But while Sony rival Microsoft determines

Steam Tops 43 Million Concurrent Players To Smash Another Record

Paul Lilly — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 09:17:00 -0400

Millions of players logged into Steam over the weekend, which in and of itself is not unusual. However, so many gamers flooded Valve's digital gaming platform that Steam set a new concurrent player record with a 24-hour peak of a little over 43.5 million players on Sunday, according to data tracked by SteamDB. It's the second time this year

Microsoft Will Pay You $1K To Ditch MacBooks For Surface Laptop Ultra

Chris Harper — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 13:40:00 -0400

In addition to a number of other offers for various devices, Microsoft is offering a massive trade-in bonus of "up to $1000" for potential buyers of its new NVIDIA RTX Spark-powered Surface Laptop Ultra, if they're willing to trade-in a MacBook Pro. When using Microsoft's trade-in tool, the top M5 Max / 128GB / 4TB 16-inch Apple MacBook