News Archive

Asus first announced its colorful Zenbook 14 laptop back in June, and it’s now available. The new Zenbook starts at $799.99 with a Snapdragon X1-26-100 chip, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and a 14-inch OLED display. An Intel Panther Lake version is due out before the end of the year, but that’s sure to cost way more.

The company’s got a rep for optics among VR diehards, and it’s just announced the $1400 Crystal Pro. It’s a standalone headset with eye-tracking foveated streaming like the Steam Frame — now with uncompressed video over an optional (and pricy) 60GHz link. Pimax also has gamepad wands that snap together, the headset has a tethered external battery, and it’s launching a powerful mini-PC that looks like a taller Steam Machine clone. FAQ here.

EmbeddingGemma 2 can work with more than just text, featuring capabilities across coding, images, video, and audio. Google says the upgraded model has 740 million parameters and is designed to perform on-device tasks like finding a video clip from a voice memo or searching through audio recordings based on a text prompt.

Though AI studio Fable has not yet announced which distributor will put its animated Gods Don’t Give Gifts feature into theaters, Variety reports that the project is now slated to premiere on December 4th — which would make it eligible for submission for the upcoming Oscars.

The US has been finding ways to stem the tide of imported Chinese gadgets, including decertifying “bad labs” that are “apparently controlled by China.” It’s now pulled credentials from two more: SLG-CPC Test Laboratory, and Shenzhen STS Test Services, “for willfully providing incorrect or false equipment test results in connection with applications for equipment authorization.”

An IPO prospectus viewed by Reuters included Amodei’s compensation, which the outlet says is higher than last year’s pay for Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Anthropic is expected to file for its IPO this fall, potentially valuing the AI company at over $2 trillion.

In a growing thread on the Google Home subreddit many users are reporting an unusual issue today with the platform being unable to change the color of various brands of connected smart lights either through the app, or by using voice commands. Their brightness can still be adjusted, and the lights can be turned on or off, but changing the color only works in each bulb’s respective apps.

At Fate’s End, a new game from the developers of Spiritfarer, blew me away when I tried it earlier this year, but its release date just got pushed from 2026 to 2027. Bummer. Ahead of the official launch, though, you can now check out a demo on Steam and a new gameplay trailer.

It would open the door for shorter handles, like “steviebonifield.bsky” rather than “steviebonifield.bsky.social.” But it might be a long wait before that’s an option — Bluesky CEO Toni Schneider said in a post that the application could take 18 to 24 months to go through.

The acclaimed director, who worked on the first two Transformers films, will focus on “all creative aspects” of the next live-action movie that’s in the works at Paramount, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Michael Bay, who directed the first five movies, is “in talks” to direct this planned eighth film. Shia LaBeouf isn’t expected to return.

Crossy Road Rush puts the cute blocky animals into a runner mobile game. It looks pretty charming. It’s releasing exclusively on Apple Arcade on November 5th.

French AI startup Mistral says its new trillion-parameter model, Mistral Large 4 — also called Le Chonk — is the best open-weight model developed outside of China. It says it’s particularly strong at coding, cybersecurity, and tasks in finance, engineering, and manufacturing. The model is currently available in preview, with weights dropping at the end of October.