TechSpot

The Best Ultrawide Gaming Monitors 2026

Tim Schiesser — Fri, 8 May 2026 05:17 -0500

From affordable 34-inch LCDs to flagship 45-inch OLEDs, these are the best ultrawide gaming monitors you can buy right now, tested and recommended by us.

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AI images are getting harder to spot, but physics still gives them away if you know where to look

Daniel Sims — Thu, 7 May 2026 22:06 -0500

A study published in the journal Science explains that while modern image generators are rapidly improving, the models behind them remain fundamentally ignorant of how light and geometry work in the real world. Measuring simple details like reflections or shadows can still give away a fake photo – that gap,...

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Samsung is pulling TVs and appliances from China after losing $138 million to local competition

Shawn Knight — Thu, 7 May 2026 12:32 -0500

The South Korean technology giant said it will make every effort to minimize the impact for existing customers, and is reviewing its support infrastructure for business partners. The decision won't affect Samsung's other divisions in the region, meaning they will continue to sell products such as smartphones and tablets as...

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Open-source project wants to bring stereoscopic 3D gaming back from the dead

Alfonso Maruccia — Thu, 7 May 2026 11:29 -0500

The recently unveiled "wiz3D" project is designed to "resurrect" stereoscopic support in older games, allowing them to run with compatible goggles and other stereo display devices. The open-source tool acts as a stereoscopic 3D wrapper, injecting hooks into gaming APIs to generate real-time stereo 3D output on modern Windows systems....

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Star Fox remake hits Switch 2 on June 25 with 4v4 battle mode and iconic maps

Kishalaya Kundu — Thu, 7 May 2026 10:46 -0500

The official announcement came on Wednesday via a dedicated Nintendo Direct livestream. Star Fox (2026) will launch on June 25 on the Switch 2, marking at least the fifth time the classic title has been remade or remastered by Nintendo over the past three decades.

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Project Mariner is dead, but Google's browser-controlling AI plans are not

Rob Thubron — Thu, 7 May 2026 10:03 -0500

Google first announced Project Mariner back in December 2024. An extension for an experimental build of Chrome, Mariner could execute multi-step commands to browse websites, use Google search, retrieve specified information, go shopping, and more. Google positioned the agent as assisting with tasks that are usually tedious for humans.

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AMD's next Epyc server chip debuts this year with 256 cores and 70% better performance

Daniel Sims — Thu, 7 May 2026 09:31 -0500

During an investor call following the release of AMD's first-quarter 2026 earnings, CEO Lisa Su confirmed that the Epyc Venice processors remain on schedule for launch later this year. The server CPUs will mark the debut of the Zen 6 architecture and AMD's first move to TSMC's 2nm process technology.

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SpaceX will help power Claude with 220,000 Nvidia GPUs despite Elon's attacks on Anthropic

Rob Thubron — Thu, 7 May 2026 08:49 -0500

SpaceXAI, the combined company formed after SpaceX absorbed xAI earlier this year, announced that Anthropic will use compute capacity from Colossus 1, the Memphis data center Musk has repeatedly described as one of the world's largest AI supercomputers. The site offers more than 300 megawatts of new capacity and over...

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Gen Z is turning subscriptions into short-term rentals for shows, movies, and games

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 7 May 2026 08:15 -0500

One of the clearest signals in the data is how Gen Z approaches streaming. The report finds that 59% of users in that group subscribe to and unsubscribe from platforms specifically to watch a single show or film. In effect, streaming subscriptions have become temporary access points rather than ongoing...

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PCIe has doubled bandwidth every generation for two decades, PCIe 8.0 is on track to do it again at 1TB/s

Daniel Sims — Thu, 7 May 2026 07:44 -0500

Manufacturers can now review the 0.5 draft specification for PCIe 8.0. The spec aims to increase bandwidth significantly while reducing power consumption.

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Nintendo is selling the Switch 2 at a loss, so investors are asking for a hefty price hike

Rob Thubron — Thu, 7 May 2026 07:03 -0500

Bloomberg notes that apart from a brief uplift in March when Pokémon Pokopia launched, Nintendo's stock price has been on a downward trajectory this year. It started 2026 at $68.15 but is currently at $47.38, a fall of more than 30%.

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Image generation is now the feature that moves the needle for AI apps

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 7 May 2026 06:15 -0500

This reflects a shift from earlier phases of the AI boom, when advances in conversational models and features like voice drove adoption. Those improvements still matter, but they no longer spark the same immediate interest as tools that generate visual content.

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A student halted multiple Taiwan bullet trains by spoofing the rail network's emergency radio signals

Rob Thubron — Thu, 7 May 2026 05:19 -0500

Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) told local media that on April 5, a 48-minute stoppage affected four trains – though some outlets say it was three trains. The disruption was caused by a General Alarm signal that triggered emergency response protocols instructing the trains to stop manually.

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Steam Controller sells out in 30 minutes as scalpers push prices to $300

Rob Thubron — Thu, 7 May 2026 02:14 -0500

Update (May 7): Valve has announced a new reservation system for the Steam Controller following the chaotic launch earlier this week, admitting that "the experience for a lot of you trying to buy it was incredibly frustrating." Beginning May 8 at 10am Pacific, users will be able to join a...

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Microsoft made Copilot a co-author on every VS Code project, reverted after developers revolted

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 6 May 2026 15:04 -0500

A recent pull request effectively turned Copilot into a "co-author" for every programming project created in Visual Studio Code – even when the programmer behind the screen did not use Copilot at all. Users informed Microsoft that they did not like the change, criticizing the company for adding more "slop"...

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Hackers used Daemon Tools' own website to silently install backdoors on thousands of PCs for nearly a month

Kishalaya Kundu — Wed, 6 May 2026 14:17 -0500

Cybersecurity researchers at Kaspersky found that the attack compromised multiple versions of Daemon Tools, from 12.5.0.2421 through 12.5.0.2434. What made the campaign particularly difficult to detect was that the malicious installers were distributed directly from the official website and signed with legitimate digital certificates belonging to AVB Disc Soft, the...

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Myst and Riven remakes head to PlayStation, Xbox, and Microsoft Store

Shawn Knight — Wed, 6 May 2026 13:36 -0500

On the PS5, players will have access to HDR and 4K gameplay as well as PS5 Pro enhancements and support for ray tracing. HDR / 4K and ray tracing are also supported on the Xbox and Microsoft Store versions, we're told.

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Roku and TCL face lawsuit over software updates that allegedly brick smart TVs

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 6 May 2026 12:53 -0500

The lawsuit alleges that a series of updates pushed to certain Roku-powered TVs introduced recurring issues that, in some cases, rendered the devices unusable. The models named include Roku Select Series and Roku Plus Series sets, along with TCL's 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-series TVs running Roku OS.

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Game engines were built for video games, but Japan is finding more interesting things to do with them

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 6 May 2026 11:49 -0500

A recent report by Nikkei Asia highlights several interesting cases in which 3D engines are being used for far more than simply powering commercial video games. Japanese sources describe the "extended life" of popular SDKs such as Unity and Unreal Engine, which together account for around 70% of the traditional...

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Nvidia partners with Corning to build the fiber optic backbone for next-gen AI data centers

Shawn Knight — Wed, 6 May 2026 11:10 -0500

Nvidia said the deal will expand Corning's US-based optical connectivity manufacturing capacity tenfold and boost its domestic fiber production capacity by more than 50%. Collectively, the new facilities will create north of 3,000 high-paying jobs, we are told. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, nor was a timeline...

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The quiet reinvention of search in the age of AI

SerpApi — Wed, 6 May 2026 10:42 -0500

"Search is dead" has been a recurring headline for years. First, it was social media that was supposed to replace it. Then apps. Then, voice assistants. Now it's generative AI.

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A single Micron SSD can now store 245TB and use half the power of hard drives

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 6 May 2026 09:56 -0500

The recently introduced 6600 ION SSD is available in both U.2 and E3.L form factors and can provide up to 245 terabytes of storage in a single drive. Micron describes the new unit as the highest-capacity commercially available SSD in the industry, in line with other high-capacity drives released in...

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Apple is paying $250 million after overselling AI features before they actually worked

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 6 May 2026 09:17 -0500

The complaints focused on how Apple marketed its AI features alongside the iPhone 16 and certain iPhone 15 models. Consumers who purchased those handsets between June 2024 and March 2025 may be eligible for payments of up to $95 per device. Apple denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

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Scientists create "living plastic" that can self-destruct on command

Rob Thubron — Wed, 6 May 2026 08:51 -0500

Scientists at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology have developed a "living plastic" with a built-in kill switch. The material contains spores from engineered Bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacterium, that remain inactive during normal use.

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Microsoft Edge stores all your saved passwords unencrypted in memory

Daniel Sims — Wed, 6 May 2026 08:16 -0500

Security researcher Tom Jøran Sønstebyseter Rønning recently shared evidence that Microsoft's web browser-based password manager stores all of its saved passwords in memory without encryption while running. He released and demonstrated a simple proof of concept that displays the passwords and their associated accounts.

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AMD warns gaming revenue will plunge over 20% as memory prices drive up PC hardware costs

Rob Thubron — Wed, 6 May 2026 07:46 -0500

AMD's first-quarter results were good news for investors. Revenue hit $10.3 billion, up 38% year over year, while the data center segment climbed 57% to $5.8 billion on the back of Epyc CPUs and Instinct GPUs. Client and Gaming also improved, rising 23% to $3.6 billion, with gaming revenue up...

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A major study claiming ChatGPT improves student learning has been retracted

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 6 May 2026 07:03 -0500

By the time of the retraction, the paper had already traveled far. Published in May 2025 in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, it attempted to measure ChatGPT's impact by combining results from 51 separate studies. The authors compared outcomes between students who used the chatbot and those who did not,...

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Microsoft kills Gaming Copilot for Xbox consoles and mobile

Rob Thubron — Wed, 6 May 2026 06:15 -0500

It was only two months ago at GDC 2026 when Sonali Yadav, Xbox's Gaming AI partner group product manager, said Gaming Copilot would be coming to current-gen Microsoft consoles, with the rollout expected to take place this year.

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Frame Generation Doesn't Fix Bad Performance!

Tim Schiesser — Wed, 6 May 2026 05:21 -0500

Lego Batman is advertising 60 FPS, but it's really 15 FPS. Frame generation is supposed to make good performance better, not hide the fact that a game is running poorly. Lego Batman's spec sheet just crossed that line.

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Google Chrome has been silently pushing a 4GB AI model to your device without asking

Daniel Sims — Tue, 5 May 2026 18:06 -0500

Google Chrome users who have noticed unusual disk activity or unexplained drops in available storage should look for a folder called "OptGuideOnDeviceModel" inside their Chrome directory. It holds roughly 4GB of weights for Google's Gemini Nano LLM, downloaded by the browser without user consent.

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