Microsoft appears to be falling behind in the AI race. According to new figures from analytics company SimilarWeb (spotted by Windows Latest), Copilot accounts for only 1.1 percent of the market share on the web. The market is unsurprisingly dominated by ChatGPT, which has 64.5 percent, while Google’s Gemini has grown significantly to 21.5 percent. A year ago, the situation was very different. Back then, ChatGPT had 86.7 percent of the market with Gemini at 5.7 percent. During this same period, Copilot has fallen from 1.5 percent (back then) to 1.1 percent (now). Even smaller players in the AI space have climbed ahead of Microsoft’s ailing AI assistant, including Elon Musk’s Grok with 3.4 percent and both Claude and Perplexity with 2 percent each. Note, however, that these figures by SimilarWeb only apply to web traffic. It’s unclear how popular Copilot is on Windows 11, as Microsoft doesn’t publish any user figures. However, if user sentiment is a reliable measure, it can’t be doing that much better. Read...

TL;DR: Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for $99.97 (MSRP $249.99) is a one-and-done upgrade to the productivity tools you’ll actually use every day. Microsoft Office has remained the benchmark for productivity software because it works reliably, consistently, and across nearly every professional use case. Office 2024 Home & Business continues that tradition while removing one of the biggest frustrations of modern software: recurring subscription fees. With a single $99.97 payment (typically $249.99), you receive the latest desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, installed directly on one Mac or PC. The software runs locally, meaning documents, spreadsheets, and presentations remain accessible even when internet access isn’t available. Office 2024 introduces meaningful improvements across the suite. Excel handles larger datasets more efficiently and now includes AI-powered insights and dynamic arrays that simplify complex analysis. PowerPoint offers built-in recording tools with video, audio, and captions, making it easier to create presentations for remote meetings or online classes. Word adds Focus Mode and smarter writing tools designed to reduce distractions and speed up content creation. The refreshed interface follows Microsoft’s Fluent Design system, creating a consistent experience across all apps. Collaboration tools such as real-time co-authoring, comments, version history, and Microsoft Teams integration help teams stay aligned without juggling multiple platforms. Get Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for $99.97 (MSRP $249.99) while you can. Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for Mac or PC Lifetime LicenseSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is always a big deal for consumer and gaming monitors, and 2026 was no exception. The highlights this year included a new type of Samsung QD-OLED panel with improved text clarity, which has found its way into several new monitors. That same panel technology will also bring a wave of new 34-inch ultrawide OLED monitors with a 360Hz refresh rate. That’s not all from Samsung. The company also introduced the world’s first 1,000Hz monitor (actually up to 1,040Hz). Though it’s regrettably not an OLED display, and can only achieve that at 720p resolution, it’s a sign of where monitors are going. Refresh rates are up across the board, and 120Hz is starting to look like the new 60Hz. LG also went hard, though it put an emphasis on resolution with several new 5K2K ultrawide monitors. Dell also had several huge displays, including a gigantic 52-inch Ultrasharp display with support for Thunderbolt and Ethernet. I got to see it all on the show floor and there were some clear winners among them. Here are the best monitors at CES 2026. Acer ProDesigner PE320QX: 6K resolution at a reasonable price Matt Smith / Foundry Acer came to CES 2026 with the ProDesigner PE320QX, a 31.5-inch 6K display for creative professionals and prosumers who want superb pixel density. It packs an IPS-LCD panel with 6016×3384 resolution. That works out to almost 220 pixels per inch, which is a massive upgrade over the roughly 140ppi of a 32-inch 4K display. The monitor also has excellent connectivity thanks to a USB4 port with 100 watts of power delivery. That connects to downstream USB4 with 15 watts of power delivery. Other features include dual 5-watt speakers and a proximity sensor that can dim or turn off the monitor when you step away. It’s also VESA DisplayHDR 600 certified. Acer says the monitor will retail for $1,499.99 when it arrives in North America, though it won’t hit stores until Q2 2026. Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCWM: Tandem OLED at 4K and 240Hz Matt Smith / Foundry The Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCWM is the company’s new flagship tandem OLED gaming monitor. It has a 26.5-inch tandem OLED panel with 3840×2160 resolution. It’s also a dual-mode display with support for a refresh rate up to 240Hz at 4K, or up to 480Hz at 1080p. If you’re thinking “Wait, didn’t Asus just release a tandem OLED monitor?”, you’d be right. PCWorld’s review of the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W went up right before CES 2026. That monitor sticks to 1440p resolution, however, and offers a higher refresh rate up to 540Hz at 1440p, or 720Hz at 720p. The new PG27UCWM targets lower refresh rates but offers the crystal clarity of 4K. The new PG27UCWM also offers a USB-C port with up to 90 watts of power delivery, a feature that wasn’t often found on Asus’ ROG monitors in 2025. Other features include a Neo Proximity Sensor (which can dim or turn off the display when you’re away to prevent OLED burn-in) and DisplayPort 2.1a video input. While most of the monitors on this list are wider or larger, the humble 27-inch monitor is the practical choice for many gamers. And if that’s the size of monitor you want, the PG27UCWM will be hard to beat. Pricing and availability remains to be announced. Asus ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN: A new ultrawide with all the tricks Matt Smith / Foundry If you want a wider monitor than 27 inches, Asus has you covered with the new ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN. It has a 34-inch ultrawide OLED panel with 3440×1440 resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 360Hz. That’s a nice bump from prior generation OLED ultrawides, which often topped out around 240Hz. That’s not all. The PG34WCDN has Samsung’s new 5th-gen QD-OLED panel with RGB Stripe. This changes the QD-OLED subpixel arrangement from its prior triangular shape to a more traditional striped arrangement (with the red, green, and blue subpixels in a row) to improve clarity of some objects and fine text—a struggle for past QD-OLED monitors. I saw the monitor first-hand and, to my eyes, it was a noticeable improvement. I didn’t see obvious color fringing around text, and while small text still wasn’t crystal-clear, that appeared to be due to the limits of 1440p resolution rather than any issue inherent to the QD-OLED panel. Like its 27-inch cousin, the PG34WCDN will have a USB-C port with 90 watts of power delivery, DisplayPort 2.1, and a Neo Proximity Sensor. This monitor’s pricing and availability remains to be announced. Dell Ultrasharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor (U5226KW): The ultimate command center Michael Crider / Foundry Dell’s Ultrasharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor is a command center for multitaskers who have nearly as many devices on their desk as tabs open in their web browser. My colleague Michael Crider even thinks it might replace his triple-monitor setup altogether. To that end, it includes an impressive Thunderbolt 4 hub. Connectivity spans a Thunderbolt 4 port with 140 watts of power delivery, as well as two more USB-C ports with 27 watts each. The hub also includes USB-A ports, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, and a KVM switch for up to four PCs. The monitor also has an IPS Black panel with 6K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Other features include an ambient light sensor. Interestingly, the monitor lists support for not only Windows and macOS but also Linux Ubuntu and ThinOS. Dell’s Ultrasharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor will be available on January 6th, 2026 and will retail for $2,899.99 with an adjustable VESA stand, or $2,799.99 without the stand. Dell Ultrasharp 32 4K QD-OLED (U3226Q): An OLED for creative professionals Matt Smith / Foundry The majority of QD-OLED monitors target gamers, but an increasing number now also target professionals and prosumers. The Dell Ultrasharp 32 4K QD-OLED (U3226Q) joins these ranks. It has a 31.5-inch 16:9 QD-OLED panel with 4K resolution and a refresh rate up to 120Hz. Because it’s meant for professional creative work, the monitor includes an integrated colorimeter, customizable “direct keys,” and Dell’s color management software, among other features. It’s also a Thunderbolt 4 hub. It has a single Thunderbolt 4 port with 140 watts of power delivery, as well as a 27-watt USB-C port and 10-watt USB-A port. 2.5Gbps Ethernet is available, too. The monitor is compatible with Windows and macOS. It’ll launch globally on February 24th, 2026 for $2,599.99. LG UltraGear EVO 52G930B: It’s even bigger than you think Matt Smith / Foundry Did you ever look at a 49-inch super-ultrawide gaming monitor and think “Hmm, that’s too small”? The LG UltraGear EVO 52G930B is for you. This is a 52-inch monitor with a 21:9 aspect ratio—a stark contrast to the 32:9 aspect ratio used by typical 49-inch super-ultrawides like the Philips Envia 8000. Three extra inches might sound trivial but, due to the difference in aspect ratio, it’s actually a huge deal. The UltraGear EVO 52G930B offers a roughly 56 percent gain in display area. Most of that is vertical display space, as the 52G930B is about 7 inches taller than a 49-inch super-ultrawide. That’s good news if you want a big, immersive display for simulation and first-person games. Size aside, the EVO 52G930B uses a vertical alignment (VA) LCD panel with a maximum resolution of 5120×2160 (which works out to about 106 pixels per inch) and a refresh rate up to 240Hz. It’s definitely not as attractive as an OLED monitor, but it provides decent color performance and better contrast than most IPS-LCD monitors. LG has yet to announce price or availability. LG UltraGear EVO AI 39GX950B: A 5K2K ultrawide for gaming Matt Smith / Foundry The UltraGear EVO AI 39GX950B is LG’s new flagship gaming monitor and, if you ask me, the best gaming monitor at CES 2026. It has a 39-inch curved ultrawide tandem OLED panel. The monitor can reach a pixel-packed 5120×2160 resolution at a refresh rate up to 165Hz, or a more modest 2560×1080 resolution at up to 330Hz. The 5K resolution mode crams about 142 pixels into every inch, a huge upgrade over the roughly 110ppi of a typical 34-inch 1440p ultrawide. LG has thrown a few AI features into the mix. The monitor can upscale lower-resolution content to 5K for improved sharpness, and LG claims the process doesn’t introduce additional latency. The monitor also has built-in speakers with an AI sound enhancement for enhanced clarity. Really, though, this monitor is all about the pixel-dense ultrawide OLED panel. You’ll need a beefy GPU to handle 5K2K resolution, but if you’ve got it, I think you’re in for a treat. Pricing and availability not yet announced. MSI MPG 341CQR X36 QD-OLED: MSI’s new ultrawide flagship Matt Smith / Foundry The MSI MPG 341CQR X36 has a 34-inch ultrawide panel with 3440×1440 resolution and a refresh rate of up to 360Hz. Like the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDN, the MSI MPG 341CQR X36 has Samsung’s new 5th-generation OLED with V-Stripe, which improves text clarity. It also has a new type of glossy finish (called DarkArmor) that reduces glare and should make the display surface more scratch-resistant. MSI emphasized HDR performance. The MPG 341CQR X36 quotes up to 1,300 nits of HDR brightness, and MSI also provides extensive HDR control features which can be used to adjust the HDR curve to a customized setting (or to one of several preset HDR modes). I suspect this could prove rather useful because HDR content on the PC is often far less optimized than HDR content on an HDTV. The monitor also has a USB-C port with up to 98 watts of power delivery and an AI Care Sensor that can automatically dim, adjust, or darken the display when you turn away or walk away to prevent OLED burn-in. MSI says the MPG 341CQR X36 will be available for $1,099. MSI MAG 272QRF X36: Bringing Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar to the masses Matt Smith / Foundry The MSI MAG 272QRF X36 is a 27-inch widescreen gaming monitor with 2560×1440 resolution and a 360Hz refresh rate. Its real claim to fame, though, is support for Nvidia’s G-Sync Pulsar. Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar is a backlight strobing technology. Backlight strobing is a popular technique used to improve motion clarity, but it’s not usually compatible with variable frame rates. Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar solves this, allowing use of backlight strobing (which MSI calls MPRT) with G-Sync engaged. MSI claims a 4x improvement in motion clarity. MSI’s MAG 272QRF X36 wasn’t the only G-Sync Pulsar display at the show, but earned its place on this list with a second feature: an ambient light sensor. MSI says the sensor can be used to automatically adjust screen brightness and color temperature in both SDR and HDR—a rather handy feature on any display, but often absent on gaming monitors. The MAG 272QRF X36 will hit stores at $649. Samsung Odyssey G6 (G60H): Gaming at 1,040Hz Samsung If you told me 5 years ago that we’d have a legit 1,000Hz monitor in 2026, I wouldn’t have believed you. But Samsung’s latest Odyssey G6 (G60H) is one of several new monitors that make it a reality. There’s a catch, though. The Odyssey G6 is a dual-mode display and it can only achieve 1,040Hz at 720p resolution. That’s definitely going to limit its appeal, but the monitor can still hit up to 600Hz at 2560×1440 resolution, which is nothing to laugh at. Refresh rate aside, the monitor’s specifications are typical for a mid-range gaming monitor. It has a 27-inch IPS-LCD panel and offers support for both AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and Nvidia G-Sync. The monitor also supports HDR, HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 2.1. The price was not announced but, given the monitor’s cutting-edge refresh rate, I don’t think it will be cheap. Read...

As the FCC looks to accelerate ATSC 3.0 adoption for over-the-air TV, broadcasters are eager to show off options that don’t involve replacing your TV or giving up DVR. Ahead of this week’s CES trade show, the broadcaster consortium Pearl TV announced a certification program for no-frills converter boxes that will plug into the HDMI port on any TV. Anne Schelle, Pearl TV’s managing director, said in an interview that the goal is to have converter boxes available this fall that will be priced at less than $60. Also at CES this week, broadcasters are touting advancements in ATSC 3.0 “gateway” boxes that offer live TV and DVR on multiple TVs throughout the home. Both Zapperbox and ADTH are developing whole-home DVR solutions that work with encrypted ATSC 3.0 channels, clearing some longstanding hurdles with digital rights management. All of this suggests a new level of urgency as broadcasters push to wind down the current ATSC 1.0 standard. If they want the FCC’s approval for a full transition to ATSC 3.0, they’ll need to show that they’re not leaving people behind. Sub-$60 converter boxes (maybe) ATSC 3.0 allows for new features, such as 4K HDR video, dialog enhancement, interactive programming, and potentially better reception, but the standard is not compatible with the ATSC 1.0 tuners built into most televisions. Viewers who want to access these features must either buy a TV with an ATSC 3.0 tuner or connect an external tuner box. Today, the least-expensive tuner box from ADTH costs $90, and Zinwell’s NextGen TV box is even pricier at $129. Pearl TV aims to bring prices down with a new class of converter boxes that shave away features such as DVR and possibly some interactive features. It also plans to negotiate IP (intellectual property) and component costs on behalf of certified device makers while also helping to secure retail distribution. The idea is that Pearl TV will have more bargaining power than any individual device maker. “What we’re asking for, for this box, is to act as if the market’s there already, and [suppliers should] give us what that discount would have been at millions, instead of tens of thousands [of units],” Schelle said. Just don’t expect the government to help pay for the hardware. Unlike with the analog-to-digital transition, Pearl TV is operating under the assumption that congressionally mandated federal dollars won’t be available to subsidize ATSC 3.0 converter box purchases. Pearl isn’t guaranteeing the $60 price point, either. With uncertainty over tariffs and and DRAM shortages inflating the price of all sorts of consumer electronics, these converter boxes could end up being pricier, Schelle said. DVR progress Jared Newman / Foundry Meanwhile, broadcasters want to show that tech enthusiasts can still have full-featured DVRs in the ATSC 3.0 era, even as broadcasters encrypt their-over-the-air channels. A3SA, the broadcast group that serves as the security authority for ATSC 3.0, this week pointed to a couple of whole-home DVR gateway solutions, from ZapperBox and ADTH respectively. While both companies actually revealed their plans late last year, A3SA is using CES to draw new attention to them. ZapperBox, which offers an array of ATSC 3.0 tuner boxes with DVR support, now sells a tuner-free ZapperBox Mini that extends the DVR to additional televisions, with full support for encrypted channels and recordings. Apps for streaming devices are coming later this year. allowing access a single DVR across multiple televisions without extra hardware. ADTH is also working on a whole-home DVR for its $90 tuner. A forthcoming firmware update will let users access live and recorded TV via ADTH’s Fire TV and Android TV apps, although the company hasn’t set a release date. And while SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun networked tuner remains unable to access encrypted ATSC 3.0 channels, there are signs of progress on that front, too. SiliconDust announced in November 2025 that it had become an ATSC 3.0 Certificate Authority for NextGen TV, and the company had a demo stall at the modest ATSC booth at CES for the first time. Pearl TV has previously said that HDHomeRun was ineligible for DRM certification because it uses a chip from a subsidiary of Huawei, which the FCC has deemed a security threat. In an interview at CES, SiliconDust CTO and founder Nick Kelsey said the chip isn’t relevant to handling encrypted channels, and that HDHomeRun doesn’t even do the decryption itself. (Instead, it passes the video along to streaming devices, such as a Fire TV or Android TV, to handle the decryption.) Kelsey said the allegations were “weird,” as the company had a great working relationship with Pearl previously, but added that those relations have since gone back to normal. He’s now hoping that HDHomeRun devices will support encrypted ATSC 3.0 channels this year without any additional hardware. “It’s not something that’s going to drag on further, and that’s not just us. Everyone in the industry is of a similar opinion,” he said. These developments won’t allay every concern about ATSC 3.0. Gateway devices still require an internet connection for DRM, and out-of-home viewing won’t be possible. It also remains unclear if tuners will be able to work with third-party DVR software, such as Plex and Channels. For those reasons, ATSC 3.0 might remain toxic among tech enthusiasts even as the DVR options improve. The FCC is watching The impetus for all this activity is, of course, the FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking on accelerating ATSC 3.0 adoption. It calls for an end to the requirement that broadcasters simulcast their ATSC 3.0 channels in ATSC 1.0, but it also asks some pointed questions about DRM and the lack of affordable ways to keep accessing free over-the-air TV. The FCC still needs to vote on its proposals, which could happen in the fall, Schelle said. So far, however, the FCC’s proposed rules don’t include a cutoff date for ATSC 1.0, nor does it mandate ATSC 3.0 tuners in televisions. The National Association of Broadcasters is hoping to be rid of ATSC 1.0 by 2028 in the 55 largest U.S. markets, and everywhere by 2030. Now the broadcast industry is trying to show that it will actually be ready for that. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming and over-the-air TV advice. Read...

Nvidia may not have announced any new graphics cards at CES 2026, but it did reveal two stunning technology upgrades: Upgraded G-Sync Pulsar monitors and DLSS 4.5. The problem is it’s damned near impossible to see the advantages each provides in pictures and video — the visual quality differences don’t translate well when captured through a camera lens. The Nvidia promo videos below give good oversight into the new technologies, for example, but you don’t get the full experience secondhand, kind of like VR. Well, friends, I spent two full hours in Nvidia’s booth getting deep-dive, hands-on demonstrations of both G-Sync Pulsar and DLSS 4.5, and let me assure you: They’re amazing. I’m going to try to get my grubby gamer paws on a G-Sync Pulsar monitor after CES to do a deeper analysis, but the upshot? These puppies use technical tricks mixed with complex science to all but solve motion blur. Everything stays crystal clear while you’re panning around without ugly motion blur — the difference is so stark I picked up on it immediately. Gamers who love complex strategy or tactics games (like Civilation or Anno) or esports games like DOTA 2 and LoL should strongly consider picking up one of these 1440P, 360Hz displays over an OLED monitor. Sacrilege, I know, but Pulsar’s IPS display felt that damned good. I also got the chance to poke around with DLSS 4.5, and my demos had a handy toggle that let you switch between DLSS 4 and 4.5 on the fly so you can see the changes instantly. Once again, side by side, the upgrade is clear as day. DLSS 4.5’s new second-gen transformer AI model delivers tangible improvements in some key areas. It damn near solves ghosting, an issue that’s plagued upscaling since infancy, and makes temporal stability — the shimmering effect you might see in small, detailed areas like a ball of yarn or wavering tree leaves — so much better than before. Sharper anti-aliasing also makes imagery more crisp, which was especially noticeable in Outer Worlds 2‘s space scenes and the ornate armor of Black Myth Wukong‘s warrior. Flipping between DLSS 4 and 4.5, the improved visual fidelity was immediately obvious. DLSS 4.5’s new 6x and Dynamic Multi-Frame Gen capabilities make maxing out your monitor’s capabilities seamless, too. Dynamic MFG automatically manages how many AI-generated frames are inserted between traditionally rendered frames, to scale to match your monitor’s refresh rate. I tried it on several systems. In an RTX 5070 desktop attached to a 4K 240Hz display, Dynamic MFG usually ran at 5x or 6x, to be able to match the refresh rate. On a similar system attached to a 4K 165Hz display, it stayed relatively stable at 3x, since you don’t need to create anywhere near as many frames to keep that lower refresh rate fed. Nvidia’s DLSS 4.5 demos had a custom frame rate counter at the top that showed frame rate, latency, as well as the level of Dynamic Multi-Frame Generation. You could also toggle between DLSS 4 and 4.5 with a switch to immediately see and compare differences.Brad Chacos/Foundry Better yet, I felt zero judder or jankiness when Dynamic MFG shifted up or down to the next level. That was a worry of mine when the technology was announced; would you feel it when it suddenly changed from 6x to 4x while transitioning environments? Nope. Bonus: Dynamic MFG is smart enough to shut off AI frames completely when sections of a game don’t need brute force, such as pre-generated cutscenes running at a locked 60fps. I’ll be able to dive much deeper into both G-Sync Pulsar and DLSS 4.5 when I’m back at home with my gaming rig — it’s kind of hard to test gaming fidelity when you’re traveling with a work-issued laptop. But I wanted to get this information out there ASAP since DLSS 4.5’s transformer upgrade and the first G-Sync Pulsar monitors are already being sold online.Don’t be scared. Even if you can’t see the advantages of DLSS 4.5 and Pulsar monitors in a web video, they are there — and they look amazing. (Seriously, Civ and League of Legends fanatics should take a long, deep look at investing in a Pulsar display.) Read...

New year, new computer, right? It just makes sense to get a mini PC this year instead of investing in a big desktop PC or getting a laptop that’ll cost a pretty penny. The Bosgame P6 mini PC is down to $450 right now on Amazon, a decent $80 in savings off its original price. View this Amazon deal This price is fantastic for a tiny PC with this configuration. The system is powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX processor paired with 32GB of fast DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD—a fantastic combo that’s not only good for everyday tasks (e.g., Windows 11, web browsing, email, spreadsheets, juggling numerous apps and tabs) but also for some more demanding stuff (e.g., some gaming, photo and video editing, etc.). This amount of power just makes for a smooth and responsive experience. While there’s no dedicated graphics card in this machine, you do get an integrated Radeon 680M that can handle modest gaming and visual tasks—not bad given you’re spending less than $500 on this thing. Plus, that provides graphical power to handle up to three 4K/60Hz displays simultaneously via the HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C video ports, resulting in a magnificent setup for productive multitaskers. You get further connectivity with four USB-A, two LAN, and 3.5mm audio, plus wireless support via Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Snag the Bosgame P6 mini PC for just $450 while it’s still on sale! That’s one of the best prices we’ve seen in a while. This Ryzen mini PC with 32GB RAM is good for gaming and productivityBuy now at Amazon Read...

It’s easy to feel a little scared about how AI is developing. Even if you don’t believe in the end-of-the-world dystopias, there are many scary questions: What happens to jobs when AI takes over? How will energy-hungry data servers affect the environment? Can democracy survive the flood of disinformation? This is not really something we, as individuals, can influence, but there are things you and I can do to reduce the risks of AI. Here are my top tips: 1. Choose the right service Not all AI services handle your data the same exact way. Some are based in regions with strong privacy regulations, and others may use your information to improve their systems. Understanding who owns the service and where it’s based can help you make informed choices. If privacy is important to you, look for platforms that prioritize data protection. 2. Check the source Checking the source is always important on the internet, and it’s vital when it comes to AI services. When you ask a question, AI uses many different web pages to formulate its answer and while it often gets it right, there are no guarantees. Fortunately, all AI services are now quite good at providing the source of their claims. If in doubt, always click on the original source to assess its credibility! If there is no source citation, you can ask the follow-up question “What are your sources?” to display it. 3. Take responsibility When you write and speak in public, you are responsible for the accuracy of the information you share. Mistakes happen, sure, but it’s up to you to verify the facts. For example, Kd leader Ebba Busch referred to AI when she cited an incorrect quote in her Almedals speech. So, what’s the lesson here? Relying on AI is never an excuse. Always double-check your sources. 4. Search privately By default, your searches and conversations are saved and may be used to train the AI services. If you don’t want that, ChatGPT offers a feature called Temporary Chat. It works like a browser’s incognito mode and lets you search and interact without saving your history. 5. Clearing the history The more you use an AI service, the more it learns about you. If you feel uncomfortable, you can go to the settings menu and look for the delete history feature. In ChatGPT, this found under Data Controls. 6. Protecting private information No matter how you use AI, it’s important to remember that what you write and upload is shared with someone else. That’s why you need to be careful with sensitive information like passwords and bank details. Assume that everything can be read by someone else no matter what the services say. 7. Talk to your boss Are you using AI at work or in an organization? Check with your manager or chairperson on what the rules are. There are often guidelines on how to use AI, and many companies and organizations pay for professional versions with greater security. Read...

Smart appliances that can be controlled with voice commands are nothing new, but IAI Smart is showing a new line of Emerson Smart appliances at CES that respond directly to voice commands. They don’t need a smart speaker in the middle, and they don’t rely on a broadband connection, an app, or anything other infrastructure—everything is processed locally. If you’re leery of the privacy and security vulnerabilities of IoT devices, this could be the answer. Emerson Smart devices—tower fans, space heaters, air fryers, and smart plugs, to start—use IAI Smart’s proprietary SmartVoice technology, which embeds natural-language voice processing directly into the appliance. Each device has an integrated microphone, so you can speak a wake word relevant to the appliance you want to use: “Hey Fan,” “Hey Heater,” or “Hey Air Fryer,” for example. Most also include an onboard speaker to provide audible confirmation of your command without relying on an intermediary device or an internet connection. There’s nothing new about smart plugs, except that this Emerson Smart model can be controlled with voice commands without depending on Wi-Fi.IAI Smart Emerson Smart is not marketing its technology as a replacement for Alexa- or Google-powered smart homes, but SmartVoice’s disconnected nature will be a compelling feature to many. Since all processing occurs on the device itself, recordings of your voice—and your usage data—will never leave your home. And if you have slow or limited broadband service—or an onerous data upload cap—they eliminate the need for persistent connectivity to the internet. The Emerson Smart SmartVoice Air Fryers (one is pictured up top) are the most ambitious products in the new lineup. Available in 5.3-quart ($129.99) and 10-quart ($169.99) sizes, the cookers support more than 1,000 voice commands and have more than 100 cooking presets. Users can issue commands such as “Cook salmon,” “Reheat pizza,” or “Increase temperature,” allowing basic meal prep without ever touching the controls. The company is also showing three SmartVoice tower fans: 29-inch ($89.99), 40-inch $99.99), and 42-inch models ($119.99). The fans have 15-hour sleep timers, wide-angle oscillation, and LED touch controls. The 42-inch model also features an integrated aroma diffuser. SmartVoice Fan-Heaters will be available in two sizes: 25-inch ($129.99) and 32-inch ($169.99). Both provide up to 1,500 watts of heating power, with oscillation options and multiple heat modes. Safety features include tip-over protection and automatic shutoff timers. There will also be Emerson Smart tower fans and fan-powered space heaters with local voice processing.IAI Smart To control lamps or dumb appliances, there will be SmartVoice Electrical Plugs in two configurations: A single-outlet ($24.99) model and a dual-outlet ($29.99) SKU that includes USB charging ports ($34.99). Using the wake phrase “Hey Emerson,” users will be able to issue more than 30 preset voice commands to turn devices on or off, set timers, schedule routines, or group multiple plugs–all without a Wi-Fi connection. Emerson Smart has started with the basics (aside from the air fryer), possibly to find out if there’s a market for its offline approach. If there’s a sizable contingent of buyers who want all the features with none of the connectivity, can refrigerators, washers and dryers be far behind? As novel as these appliances sound, they aren’t the first household products we’ve seen that have local voice-command processing. Simple Human introduced a pricey garbage can that responds to simple voice commands (“open can,” “close can,” “stay open”) way back in 2020. If you’re attending CES in person, Emerson Smart appliances are on display at the Venetian Expo Center, booth #52808. Read...

A day after AMD announced the Ryzen AI 400 (Gorgon Point) processor for laptops, PCWorld and a handful of other reporters sat down with Rahul Tikoo, senior vice president and general manager of the client business at AMD, to ask about AMD’s client processors: its mobile Ryzen processors, the Ryzen AI Max, desktop processors, and more. Below are excerpts of the interview, edited for space and clarity. Client played a very minimal role in Lisa Su’s keynote last night. What does that mean? Tikoo: It was supposed to be about a 75-minute keynote, and client was about 15 of the 75 minutes, right? So if that gives you a clue, it’s roughly 25% to 30% of the time, and client business is roughly 30% of our revenue right now, right? I mean, so it’s an important part of our revenue profile, and it’s very, very important to us. This is just my characterization, but it appears that the Ryzen AI 400 is a modest upgrade to the Ryzen AI 300, which was a very good chip. How do you see it? I mean Qualcomm, kudos to them for continuing to fight the good fight. But you know, Arm is a big challenge in this marketplace, just because of the application compatibility, I feel really good about our [Gorgon Point] portfolio. Of course, we haven’t had a chance to get our hands on the competitive products yet, but everything that we heard yesterday did not surprise us, because, you know, we have our own market intelligence and what’s happening and what the competitive landscape look like, and so we didn’t see any surprises there. Based on that, what I would say is we have a pretty good head [of steam]. You had a certain number of design wins heading into the Ryzen AI 300, and a number of wins with the Ryzen AI 400. If you can’t give us specifics, which are larger? It’s about the same. What we’re going to see is about between the Ryzen AI 300 and 400 product, and the Ryzen Halo product, we have roughly a little over 250 designs that will be in the market. That’s all three chips. All three chips, yeah, roughly a little over 250 designs, give or take, that will be in the marketplace by the middle of this year, right? Because we just have notebooks that are coming out this month. Desktops will come out in early Q2. [The additional] Strix Halo is also coming out this month. Pro is March. So let’s just call it, the first three-to-four months of the year are going to be busy for us launching the portfolio. You mentioned the AI 400 desktop. It’s going to be a socketed AM5 part? Yeah. It’s a socketed AM5 part. I think the interesting thing about the desktop Gorgon part is that it’s going to be the first Copilot+ part, so the first part with a 60 TOPS NPU. We’ve been working with Microsoft and our partners on optimizing for desktop, because you can imagine desktop has a different set of challenges, right? I think we have a lot of opportunity in that space, and we weren’t there two years ago. We weren’t playing as heavily. We didn’t have enough of a portfolio last year, we had a really reasonable portfolio. This year, we’re going to have even better portfolio. What we’re seeing is a lot of interest in mobile on desktop, even small desktops and even in large desktops, they’re actually putting mobile on because the socket infrastructure is cheaper on mobile. Even traditional desktops? Okay, yeah, even traditional desktops, we’re seeing mobile on desktop now. It’s more relevant in the smaller form factors, like, you know, you have the one liter boxes, the eight liter boxes, the small form factor. So that’s where it’s more relevant, right? But we’ve seen all kinds of desktops use mobile parts. There was a time a few years back where mobile shifted into two categories, high performance and thin-and-light, right? And it’s sort of the same inflection that you see in desktops. Let’s talk about what the prices of RAM and storage are doing, and the effects they’ll have. What are your customers telling you about how they’re going to configure their systems? Are they going to continue on pushing upwards to 2TB SSDs or 16GB of RAM? It depends on the market segment. If you think about creators, they want all the capabilities they can get. Let’s talk about a car company. They’re designing a car. They’re running wind tunnel simulations on a car. Are they going to sweat a 20% or 30% increase in price and say, well, you know, my seven-year research on the car is going to have to be slower? No, they’re going to invest. Now, consumers, on the other hand, you and I, you know, when we sit at home and we’re using the laptop for basic internet, web browsing, or email, we’re going to have to make a choice, right? Do we really need the highest end components in the laptop, or not? Now, we do know there’s a floor. A floor has been set where people like 1TB SSDs are the norm. Nobody buys anything smaller, you know? I mean, even phones, nobody tends to buy anything smaller than a certain capacity, right? So, I think consumers will have to make a choice based on that. But I do expect gamers will continue to invest. Creators will continue to invest. There’s a rumor that AMD was going to launch a Ryzen X3DX2, which didn’t materialize. What’s going on there? X3D dual-cache, right? Stay tuned. Stay tuned. I just came back from Intel, where they planned to invest heavily into the handheld space, which you’ve dominated. They claim that you’re selling “ancient silicon.” What’s your strategy going forward in the handheld space? We’re very committed to the handheld [space]. I mean, we created the space, so it’s a space that we’re very committed to. Here’s the beauty, though, of AMD and why we have a much higher chance of success in that space: because of our console business, or how we develop semi-custom silicon for the console business. You can’t just use mobile silicon and put it in the handheld. You can, but the handheld or the consoles, they care about high graphics. They don’t care about as much compute, and they don’t care about the I/O. So, if you’re putting a notebook chip like Panther Lake in there, and you’re not purpose building it, you have all this baggage that Panther Lake is going to carry around their chiplet architecture. You know, the interconnects of the chiplet architecture, the I/O that they have in there. I mean, it’s a Swiss army knife, and it’s good for certain things. We can do that, too. In fact, we do that in the handheld space in some segments. But when you think about the core of the handheld space, they want purpose-designed, purpose-built chips that have great graphics technology, great software like FSR, integration with game developers on Xbox, PlayStation, etc. We can have high battery life, good fidelity of content, high frame rate, and we do that very well. Intel believes their low-power E-cores give them an advantage, as they extend battery life. Does AMD have a response to that? We haven’t seen any issues there. I’ll tell you this, Intel does play games sometimes, and it’s very interesting. We had a customer. They said the same thing. They’re like, hey, I can get more battery life with Lunar Lake against the 300 series. So, we’re like, okay, let’s do a quick experiment. And we did this in the lab. And actually, Qualcomm did a video on this too, because we didn’t want to go out and do a video and everything. Qualcomm did a video on this: Lunar Lake has great battery life when measured with MobileMark with the power connected. As soon as you go in DC Mode, battery life climbs and performance drops. The Core i7 performs like a Core i3. So, the E-cores are very good for efficiency, very bad for performance. We balance the two, and we’re already making those choices for our customers and saying, hey, you don’t have to worry about it. Can you talk about the desktop X3D processor and the direction that it’s going? It’s a very critical part of our portfolio. I mean, the channel market overall. If you look at IDC, the DIY market is about 30, 35 million units. And give or take, we’re close to 60 points of share in that market, right? We’re pretty high. And then as you look at X3D, which is the top of that market, we have over 80 points of share in that market, and it’s driven by the fact that there’s really nothing else that comes even close in terms of performance. And then with the new X3D part that we just announced, the new part to the stack that, with that boost clock you see on it, it now separates us even more, right? We used to be about 20% better now, or 27% better, when you look at average game performance, and so we’re very committed to that space. That customer base is very demanding, as you can imagine, right? And they’re very vocal. Do you have anything to say about AMD’s ability to supply chips to its customers? We’re using the biggest and the best supplier in the world, TSMC. And our Gorgon portfolio is based on four nanometer technology and is a fully ramped, highly yielding, very proven technology. So, we don’t have the same challenges our competition has where they’re bringing up a new technology. We feel very good about it. No challenges. Threadripper, X3D, and the Ryzen AI Max: these are all innovative though niche products. Does AMD remain committed to all three? We are very committed to those spaces. We’re very, very committed to those spaces. How do you see the Ryzen AI Max going forward? First of all, we will continue to invest in that space. That’s an important space for us. Stay tuned. There will be more announcements in that space over the course of this year. Our focus has been in ramping developers and gamers around that product. You know, thin-and-light gaming is a space where that product has done well. Creative users is another space that product has done well, and now AI. Read...

Azul acquires UK-based Payara to build a unified open-source Java stack and push deeper into enterprise runtimes and application servers. Read...