Author: News Room
In the face of widespread backlash to the AI data center buildout throughout the US, Google is touting its efforts to minimize the environmental impact by actually increasing water for local communities.The company laid out five commitments around water use in a new blog post published Wednesday, including a goal to replenish more water than it uses at its data centers by 2030. Google also said it will invest in local water infrastructure, identify alternative water sources to power its facilities, and be transparent about its water use overall.“We’re just one of dozens of players in the space,” Google’s global…
Apple’s gamble on a cheaper MacBook appears to be paying off in a big way. New figures suggest that the budget MacBook Neo – one of the best laptops we’ve reviewed this year – has already become the company’s best-selling Mac, despite only being available for part of its debut quarter while battling supply issues. According to figures from IDC (via MacRumors), Apple shipped around 1.1 million MacBook Neo units during the first quarter of the year. That’s enough to put it ahead of every other Mac model, including the M5 MacBook Air, which reportedly shipped more than 900,000 units,…
Apple’s long-rumoured folding iPhone Ultra may have cleared another major hurdle on its journey to launch. According to a new leak, prototype units have reportedly been sent to mobile carriers around the world for testing, while Apple has apparently settled on a liquid metal hinge design intended to improve durability. The latest claims come from Weibo leaker Fixed Focus Digital, who says that development of the device is now progressing rapidly. While the source doesn’t have the track record of analysts such as Ming-Chi Kuo or journalists like Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, parts of the report do line up with previous…
The all-new XPS 13 feels like a laptop that shouldn’t exist in 2026. While the rest of the tech industry bleakly hikes prices into the face of RAMageddon, Dell has revealed an impressively affordable ultraportable. One that doesn’t just act as a Windows-based rival to Apple’s Macbook Neo, but which also delivers the sort of build quality you’d normally only find from the class above. That Dell can sell this in the US for $699 – or an even more tempting $599 if you’re a student – almost makes every other sensibly-priced rival redundant. I got to sample one for…
Microsoft only just announced a new Surface Laptop Ultra at the weekend, and it’s now revealing a miniature Surface PC aimed at developers. The new Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is powered by Nvidia’s new Arm-based RTX Spark chips, just like the Surface Laptop Ultra, and is optimized for sustained workloads and local AI tasks.The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box looks a little like the top of an Xbox Series X console, with an aluminum chassis that also doubles as a heatsink. It has a 100-watt thermal envelope, slightly more than the 45-watt-to-80-watt thermal envelopes for Nvidia’s RTX Spark laptops.…
Microsoft just announced “Project Solara,” a new OS designed for gadgets that run AI agents, at Build 2026. The company is calling it “a new platform built from the ground up to power agent-driven experiences.” It’s built on Android, not Windows.Microsoft demonstrated two concept Project Solara devices at Build today: Desk concept and badge concept. The desk concept is an Amazon Echo Show-like device that unlocks with facial recognition and provides access to AI agents.The badge concept is a wearable, the type of badge you’d typically use to access a work building. It has a camera and a fingerprint scanner,…
A glass screen protector is one of a few essential accessories that I strongly recommend to every Switch 2 owner. In fact, it should be a priority to stick one onto the console’s screen as soon as possible to avoid accidental scratches.To test the candidates below, I installed and removed Switch 2 screen protectors on my console at an alarming rate, more than any sane person should, and here are the most important takeaways:Of the options below, it’s easiest to recommend amFilm’s three-pack of glossy screen protectors. Not only is the pack affordable ($9.99 from Amazon), but the tray also…
Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme gaming handheld chip was one of the biggest stars of this year’s Computex show, with a bunch of brands jostling to show off their upcoming models – but it was the MSI Claw 8 EX AI that impressed me the most. Just as Intel has made a huge leap forward on performance and efficiency in a single generation, MSI has seemingly sorted every issue that made its early handheld efforts also-rans in one fell swoop. The Void Purple finish is arguably more of a head-turner than Asus’ translucent Xbox ROG Ally X20, and really shows…
Much like Google, Microsoft is launching its own version of OpenClaw. Microsoft Scout is an always-on assistant that integrates into Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams, allowing businesses to assign a virtual assistant to employees to help with organizing calendars, expense reporting, email drafts, and much more.Unlike Copilot that lives inside Microsoft 365 apps, Microsoft Scout can see and do a lot more. “This is a personal assistant, it’s the first real personal assistant we’ve offered customers,” explains Omar Shahine, corporate vice president of Microsoft Scout, in an interview with The Verge. “I think it’s important for…
Google is launching a new feature for its Phone app that aims to protect you from AI impersonation scams. Now, when you receive a call from a scammer that appears to be coming from the same number as one of your contacts, Phone by Google will flag the call as suspicious so you can hang up.In a post explaining the Phone app update, Google describes impersonation scams as a growing threat, with the FBI reporting that Americans lost over $893 million to scams using AI in 2025. To carry out the attack, scammers spoof one of your contacts’ phone numbers…
Google is expanding its Quick Share feature, which allows Android users to quickly and easily exchange files with iPhone users via AirDrop, is expanding to more Android devices. In its most recent Android Drop announced today, Google revealed it is expanding the feature to more devices beyond lots of Samsung and Pixel phones. There’s a series of OnePlus, Honor, Oppo, and Huawei phones in the mix with a new trio coming soon. They include the new 2026 Motorola Razr Fold. “It’s easier than ever to share files between select Android phones and iPhone devices. Quick Share now works with AirDrop…
Microsoft claimed last year that it had made a key breakthrough in quantum computing with Majorana 1, the company’s first quantum processor. While physicists were immediately skeptical of Microsoft’s claims, the software giant is announcing Majorana 2 today, the next generation of its topological quantum chip.Majorana 2 contains qubits, a unit of information in quantum computing much like the binary bits that computers use today, that are 1,000 times more reliable, according to Microsoft. It’s a milestone that helps make quantum computing more reliable, thanks to the use of a new material stack and some help from Microsoft Discovery’s agentic…