TechSpot

IBM unveils sub-1-nanometer chip architecture that stacks 100 billion transistors onto a fingernail-sized processor

Skye Jacobs — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 06:15 -0500

Rather than continuing to shrink components along a flat plane, IBM is stacking transistors vertically. That change comes as semiconductor designers run up against the physical limits of traditional scaling, making further miniaturization increasingly difficult and less efficient.

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Valve quietly changes Steam Machine's 4K/60fps claim after performance criticism

Rob Thubron — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 05:19 -0500

Beyond that painful price and restrictive hardware, Valve's claim about 4K/60fps gaming was another Steam Machine element that's come in for heavy criticism. It's now led to Valve altering the language and listing FSR 4.1 by name – the first time the company has publicly confirmed support for the latest...

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Windows 10's free security updates now extend to October 2027

Daniel Sims — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:55 -0500

Microsoft's support page explaining how to continue receiving security updates on Windows 10 now states that the company will continue providing patches through October 12, 2027 – a change made without a formal announcement. The update gives Windows 10 users exactly one additional year to decide whether to upgrade to...

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Game designer Sandy Petersen recalls how Quake's development "broke" id Software

Alfonso Maruccia — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 13:14 -0500

id Software and GT Interactive released Quake in 1996, marking a significant evolution in the first-person shooter genre just three years after Doom. Sandy Petersen, one of the studio's original designers from the Doom era, said that developing the first "true" 3D FPS took a heavy toll on the team.

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Anthropic accuses China's Alibaba of stealing Claude's AI capabilities

Kishalaya Kundu — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:31 -0500

In a letter sent to Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren on June 10, Anthropic accused the Chinese tech giant of carrying out what it described as the largest recorded corporate espionage campaign against the company. It alleged that Alibaba sought to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities in order to train...

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Micron CEO expects memory shortages to stretch beyond 2027 as AI spending surges

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:49 -0500

"We expect tight conditions to persist beyond calendar 2027 as a result of AI-driven demand across all segments coupled with structural supply constraints," CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in the report.

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Qualcomm unveils sweeping AI infrastructure strategy to take on Nvidia in the data center

Bob O'Donnell — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:23 -0500

Given the incredible explosion of interest in AI infrastructure and the chips that power them, it's no surprise that virtually every semiconductor company has been talking about how their offerings are an important part of the overall AI computing story.

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France's video game union is striking all summer as more than 1,000 workers lose their jobs

Alfonso Maruccia — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:42 -0500

The French video game industry is in a critical state, and the STJV has called on workers to join a strike against studio executives and what it describes as irresponsible management practices. The union recently announced a new national strike on June 25, 2026, one month after a previous action....

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All MacBooks and iPads just got $200 or more expensive – iPhones are the last holdout

Rob Thubron — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:05 -0500

Following last week's announcement from Cook that Apple wasn't totally immune to the AI-driven memory crisis driving up costs, Apple has now revealed new prices for many products.

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The creators of Tetris and the Rubik's Cube just unveiled a puzzle that combines both

Daniel Sims — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:23 -0500

Tetris creator Alexei Pajitnov and Rubik's Cube inventor Erno Rubik had never met before December 2025. In a recently shared video from Japanese toymaker MegaHouse, the two legendary designers discuss their creations and examine the first collaboration between the Tetris and Rubik's Cube brands.

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White House warms to Anthropic after replacing "weirdo" Dario Amodei in talks

Rob Thubron — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:41 -0500

Anthropic's negotiations with the Trump administration over the sudden Fable 5 and Mythos 5 ban are reportedly improving after CEO Dario Amodei stopped taking part directly.

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OpenAI debuts Jalapeño, its first custom AI chip to cut ChatGPT costs and reduce Nvidia dependency

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:06 -0500

By designing a chip around how tokens move through transformer architectures, OpenAI is trying to shift away from its heavy dependence on Nvidia hardware and toward a stack it controls end-to-end.

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REI pulls AI-generated bike ad after Meta turns it into a two-handlebar monstrosity

Rob Thubron — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 07:38 -0500

As you can see in the post below, REI's promotional ad for the Van Rysel EDR AF bike appears to show too many chains, blurry lettering, and the unique feature of dual front and rear handlebars.

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The Halo remake launches July 28 with new missions, four-player co-op, and Unreal Engine 5 visuals

Daniel Sims — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 06:51 -0500

Microsoft has spent the past few weeks showing off the drastic changes it has made to Halo: Combat Evolved's lighting, characters, environments, textures, and other visual elements. However, instead of creating a remake that lines up perfectly with the original, Halo Studios decided to remix certain gameplay elements and add...

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Nvidia's banned AI servers are selling for $1.1 million on China's black market

Rob Thubron — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 06:06 -0500

The US has restricted the export of Nvidia's most powerful AI chips to China since 2022 over fears that they could be used for military purposes.

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Does the Nvidia App Hurt Performance? We Benchmarked It.

Tim Schiesser — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 05:06 -0500

Does the Nvidia App really hurt gaming performance? We benchmarked its background app, overlay, recording, and filters to see what affects frame rates and whether it is worth keeping installed.

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The US government wants a working quantum computer by 2028 and quantum-resistant encryption by 2031

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:44 -0500

One order directs federal agencies to work with private companies and universities to deliver a quantum computer capable of supporting scientific research by 2028. The Department of Energy has been tasked with identifying the technical benchmarks that will define the system.

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What is the most commonly used password?

TechSpot Trivia — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:27 -0500

It takes less than a second to crack the world's most popular password. Do you know what it is?

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Europe's digital euro is one step closer, designed to cut out Visa and Mastercard

Kishalaya Kundu — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:14 -0500

The European Parliament said the digital euro can be used to make both online and offline payments to merchants across Europe. Online payments would be processed through an account-based system, while offline payments would function more like cash, with transactions conducted directly via local storage devices such as smartphones.

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Google Home Speaker debuts with Gemini AI and Matter support

Ivan Franco — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:48 -0500

The new Google Home Speaker brings Gemini and expanded smart home capabilities, and Matter hub support. Reviews highlight its more natural voice experience, though some note that audio quality doesn't clearly surpass the older Nest Audio.

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China just built the world's most powerful supercomputer – using Huawei chips and no GPUs

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 11:32 -0500

The TOP500 project has unveiled the 67th edition of its biannual ranking of the world's most powerful high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Announced at the ISC 2026 conference in Hamburg, Germany, the new list marks the surprise debut of LineShine, a previously unannounced Chinese machine that enters straight at No. 1,...

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Silicon Valley's longevity drug obsession is facing its first real reality check

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 10:21 -0500

Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur who turned his body into a public experiment, stopped taking Rapamycin in September 2024 after several years of self-testing the drug. The immunosuppressant, which is clinically used to prevent organ rejection, had been a cornerstone of his longevity regimen since 2019. Over the years, he...

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Tech deals on Prime Day 2026: Our picks for PC hardware, laptops, gadgets, and more

Ivan Franco — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 10:07 -0500

Amazon Prime Day is back, running from June 23 through June 26. While this year's event isn't overflowing with must-buy discounts, there are still a handful of genuinely worthwhile deals on laptops, OLED gaming monitors, SSDs, processors, headphones, and other tech we've tested, reviewed, or would happily recommend. We've done...

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SteamOS 3.8.10 is Valve's biggest step yet toward taking on Windows

Julio Franco — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:53 -0500

SteamOS 3.8.10 is one of Valve's most significant OS updates yet, squarely aimed at hardware beyond the Steam Deck. The update adds support for the Steam Machine and third-party handhelds including the Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw. Radeon gaming desktops can already run SteamOS via the recovery image – Nvidia support is still in the works.

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LastPass customer names, emails, and support records stolen in third-party breach, vaults unaffected

Rob Thubron — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:12 -0500

The good news for anyone still using LastPass after its previous security disasters is that this was not a compromise of the company's password manager infrastructure. LastPass says customer vaults remain secure, and its products and services were not affected.

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James Webb Telescope uncovers salt clouds on a strange pink planet 57 light-years away

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:36 -0500

Using Webb's ability to isolate faint planetary light from the glare of a nearby star, a team led by Northwestern University captured direct spectroscopic data from GJ504b for the first time. What had taken countless observation attempts from Earth was accomplished in roughly two hours. More importantly, the data was...

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A legal tech startup is suing the US government for cutting off access to Claude Fable 5

Rob Thubron — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:01 -0500

Legion filed the lawsuit in Washington, D.C., federal court, challenging a June 12 directive from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security.

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Sony's best-selling PlayStation games this year are mostly ones it never brought to PC

Daniel Sims — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 07:37 -0500

According to estimates from Alinea Analytics, games that launched in 2025 or earlier that have not received PC ports have dominated first-party PlayStation game sales so far in 2026. The numbers suggest that keeping these titles exclusive to PlayStation 5 increased their sales on that console, allowing Sony to keep...

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GTA 6 confirmed at $80 for the standard edition and $100 for the Ultimate Edition

Rob Thubron — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 06:48 -0500

Rockstar Games confirmed the prices ahead of preorders starting at midnight tonight. The studio also revealed that the game will be a "single-player experience" at launch, so it seems there won't be any new version of GTA Online when the next installment arrives on November 19.

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Virtuix's full-body VR treadmill just got official Meta Quest support

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 06:15 -0500

The key difference is in how the system handles movement. Rather than relying only on thumbsticks or teleporting, Omni One keeps users on a slick, stationary base and tracks their steps in any direction. That setup ties a player's body movements more closely to what happens on-screen.

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