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Many Shark robot vacuums and related products have been deeply discounted as part of the Amazon Spring Sale. This includes the well-regarded Shark AI Ultra robovac, which is now $300 instead of $438. That's a pretty serious deal.
The Shark AI Ultra not only made our list of the best robot vacuums, but it was our very favorite. This is a fantastic machine. The suction is strong, particularly for a robot vacuum, and the mobile app is easy to us
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In case you need further evidence that companies involved in AI chip manufacturing are looking to give themselves whatever edge they can, SoftBank is adding to its institutional expertise by buying former Intel president Renee James' Ampere Computing. The conglomerate is paying $6.5 billion in cash for the chip design business.
Ampere, which James founded in 2018, focused on cloud-native computing at first. No prizes for guessing which area the company has moved into since then: "sustainable AI compute," according to a press release.
SoftBank is betting that Ampere will bolster Arm's research and development. It was reported last month that Arm, which SoftBank also owns, is working on an in-house chip.
"As SoftBank Group broadens its AI infrastructure investments in ventures such as Cristal intelligence and Stargate, the acquisition will help enhance SoftBank Group's capabilities in key areas and accelerate its growth initiatives," the company said in a statement. Ampere is set to keep its name and run as a wholly owned subsidiary after the deal closes, which is expected to happen later this year pending regulatory approval and other closing conditions.
"With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies," James, who is CEO of Ampere, said in a statement. "This is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne roadmap for high performance Arm processors and AI."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/softbank-is-buying-ex-intel-president-renee-james-chip-design-company-for-65-billion-141
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Security firm LayerX Labs has identified a sophisticated phishing campaign that recently began targeting Mac users after new browser protections rendered its Windows attacks less effective.
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Don't everybody rush to San Jose at once. The impossible-to-find cards will only be sold to GTC attendees—apparently alongside merch shirts and puffy vests—who are already paying more than a thousand dollars for the cheapest ticket to see the newest industrial hardware from Nvidia and its partners. And no, those passes don't get you any discounts on the cards, some of which are from AIB partners and not the Founder's Edition GPUs that are going for nearly mythical retail prices.
Even Nvidia only has a couple thousand cards on hand—1,000 each for the RTX 5080 and 5090, according to Tom's Hardware. They're being sold in small batches at random times. One Twitter/X post from yesterday says that the store will sell 90 of them for the next 30 minutes.
GTC continues today and tomorrow, showing off mostly AI and industrial products, including some new Nvidia-branded desktops and mini PCs. The people who actually buy these cards will be mostly developers or otherwise poised to use them for something other than PC gaming. That said, it wouldn't be all that surprising if
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Microsoft has now provided an emergency update that addresses the Copilot app problem, reports Windows Latest.
Copilot chaos under control again
On the official support page for the update, Microsoft has confirmed that the bug that caused the Copilot app to be uninstalled and unpinned from certain PCs has been fixed. The note reads:
As a result, Copilot is being automatically installed and pinned to the taskbar via a server update if it was deleted by the March 2025 update. For users who still don't see the Copilot app, Microsoft recommends reinstalling the app
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New Nvidia-designed Arm desktops
After a couple of months of graphics card launches that have been frustrating at best and a complete retail disaster at worst, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took to the stage at the company's self-branded GPU Technology Conference. Now, to set the proper tone for a bit of admittedly entitled whinging, Nvidia has rebranded the initial portion of this yearly event as an "AI conference," so it's hardly surprising that AI computing is the lion's share of the two-hour keynote talk.
Even so, I can't help but feel a little miffed that Huang fawned over new Nvidia-branded desktop computers it'll be selling directly to the AI industry and individuals. The DGX Spark mini-PC and DGX Station desktop are based on the new Grace Blackwell AI-focused GPUs. This sort of setup was previously available only in datacenter hardware. The specs for the larger DGX Station aren't available yet, but the Blackwell GPU in the smaller Spark (previously revealed as
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Apple is reportedly shaking up its executive ranks, shortly after it delayed the personalized Siri features that it previewed at WWDC last year.
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Any music fan will know how time-consuming it can be to keep tabs on which artists are playing nearby soon. To make that a bit easier — and help make sure you don't miss shows by musicians you like — Spotify is debuting its latest personalized playlist.
Concerts Near You will update every Wednesday with 30 songs from artists that align with your interests and are playing close to you. Tapping on a track will reveal details about the relevant show as well as links to buy tickets. You'll be able to share this personalized playlist and any event info with friends to see if any shows catch their interest.
Spotify
The playlist is something that makes sense for all involved. You may be able to stay better in the loop about upcoming concerts, and it should help artists sell more tickets. Perhaps Spotify will get a cut of any sales it facilitates too.
For Concerts Near You to work properly, Spotify says you should make sure the location that's set in the Live Events section of the app is correct. All it
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The three primary reasons for subscribing to a live TV streaming service are sports, news and local channels. For a long time, cable and broadcast signals were the only way to access that programming, but these days TVs don't even have built-in digital antennas — and despite decades of consumer irritation, cable still requires impossible-to-cancel contracts. When live TV streaming arrived about a decade ago, it was hailed as a low-cost, contract-free alternative for cord-cutters.
Unfortunately, every major streaming service — YouTube TV, Hulu Live TV, Sling, Philo,
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Meta's Threads is finally allowing users to change their default feed in the app, in a move that addresses what has long been one of the most frustrating parts of the service. With the update, users will be able to make the "following" feed or a custom feed the default view in the app rather than Threads' sometimes chaotic "for you" feed.
Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta would test the feature way back in November, but the company has said little about it since. Now that it's official, the change could help address criticism that Threads isn't as useful for following real-time events because it pushes users to the "for you" algorithmic feed, which often surfaces older posts with many replies rather than newer posts from followed accounts.
It could also help Meta as it tries to lure more users from X and Bluesky, which saw a surge of new users last year. Threads currently has 320 million monthly active users, according to a Meta spokesperson, while Bluesky has about 33 million.
The long overdue change arrives alongside several other upgrades to the service. The app is also finally getting a setting that allows users to limit quotes and replies to followers only. That should address complaints about reply guys and unnecessary dunking (previously, the app's quote controls had options for "profiles you follow" and mentioned accounts only).
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No need to learn to use a new AI. This all-in-one platform includes everything from ChatGPT (GPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo, GPT-3.5) to image creation models like DALL-E, and even Google's Gemini Pro. You can generate text and images, conduct SEO research, or even transcribe audio.
1min doesn't stop at creating new content. You can also edit existing text, images, and video. Want to edit videos or improve images? It's all here, with advanced tools like background removers and image upscaling.
Plus, you'll get regular updates, keeping your AI toolkit fresh and ready for whatever comes next.
March 30 at 11:59 p.m. PT is the cutoff to get a 1min.AI lifetime subscription for $79.97.
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Arm ASR was initially developed for mobile GPUs, not for PCs. But Arm showed off Arm ASR in a demonstration for Unreal 5, running its desktop renderer on a mobile platform. All told, Arm ASR sped up the rendering engine by 30 percent, suggesting that Arm's customers—including Qualcomm with its Snapdragon PCs—could use the technology to eventually speed up PC graphics as well.
Arm ASR, which was first announced a year ago, is being released today as an Unreal Engine plugin. A Unity plugin will be available later this year. Arm said that it plans to expand Arm ASR to other platforms, without specifying exactly which ones or when.
Arm ASR is built upon AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2), the older and simpler version that takes lower-resolution images and upscales them, boosting frame rates via faster processing. (AMD's later iterations, including FSR 3 and FSR 4, also include frame generation.) Arm ASR uses temporal upscaling, however, said to be an improved version.
Arm showed off Arm ASR in its new demonstration video:
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iOS 18.4 includes a new Safari feature that puts your searches front and center, showing your recent search history whenever you open up a new Safari tab and tap into the search field.
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Project Sigil, which has been in the works for years, has purportedly seen active development ended after 30 employees were laid off.
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Media platform Plex today announced that it is raising prices for the Plex Pass subscription service, marking the first price increase that Plex has introduced in a decade.
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It looks like Meta's campaign to bury a dishy, tell-all memoir from a former employee isn't exactly working. In fact, it seems that the company's legal maneuvers to block the book have had the exact opposite intended effect.
Careless People has debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It's also spent much of the week in the number three position on Amazon's bestseller list. That's despite the fact that Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former policy director at Facebook, has been barred from promoting or publicly discussing the book following legal action by Meta.
The memoir details much of the inner workings of Facebook during the nearly seven years Wynn-Williams worked there. It reveals new details about the company's relentless ambition to bring the social network to China, as well as numerous shocking stories about how Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and other executives behaved behind closed doors. (In addition to her revelations in Careless People, Wynn-Williams has als
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Aiper's new Scuba X1 Pro Max is the most advanced cordless robotic pool cleaner you can get right now. Even better, it's also incredibly user-friendly, so you won't have any issues figuring out how to set it up.
There are 40 sensors in this robot and nine different motors that will help it map the pool to perfection and navigate the area with precision. The Scuba X1 Pro Max also delivers the world's strongest suction at 8500 GPH thanks to all those motors, efficiently capturing everything in its path. There's also a MicroMesh ultra-fine filter in place so none of the bugs, leaves, and debris in the water can escape.
View Aiper Scuba X1 Pro Max
One of the best things about the Scuba X1 Pro Max is that it will clean your entire pool, leaving nothing behind. While some pool cleaning robots will only tackle the walls, floor and waterline, this one handles the water surface, too. The extremely high suction power isn't just good at gathering up leaves, but it will also help the robot stay on the pool floor and adhere to walls to scrub algae and oil stains.
This Aiper robotic pool cleaner has a
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