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Nvidia’s codenamed Blackwell family of graphics processors will contain five different GPUs and will lack a direct successor to Nvidia’s highly-successful AD104 chip, according to leaks by Chiphell and kopite7kimi (via VideoCardz). The information is unofficial and may be inaccurate, but if true, Nvidia will have to address market segments currently addressed by AD104 with two different GPUs.

Apparently, Nvidia’s Blackwell family of graphics processors contains five chips codenamed GB202, GB203, GB205, GB206, and GB207. Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace family released to date also contains five processors (AD102, AD103, AD104, AD106, AD107), just like the company’s Ampere lineup of GPUs (GA102, GA103, GA104, GA106, GA107) that still powers some of the best graphics cards. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s Turing family comprised of three members, whereas the Pascal lineup contained five GPUs. 

It is unclear why Nvidia’s Blackwell family is said to feature GB200-series GPUs, but not GB100-series graphics processors. Typically, 200-series represents re-spinned GPUs.

Historically, Nvidia’s XXX04 served performance-mainstream segment of the market and contained 50% – 66% transistors of the top-of-the-range part. The gap between the high-end and the performance mainstream part was quite noticeable. To fill the gap between its GA102 and GA104 GPUs in the Ampere era, Nvidia introduced GA103 part and did the same with the Ada Lovelace family: there is the AD103 sitting between the AD102 and AD104.  

While the now Nvidia’s lineup no longer has wide gaps, a cut-down AD103 would overlap with the full AD104, which means that Nvidia has to either throw away AD103 GPUs that have one or more defective streaming multiprocessors or even CUDA cores so as not to compete against AD104, or keep them and then use them quietly to substitute AD104, which means cutting them down substantially and not using the whole potential of AD103.

Apparently, the company wants to avoid such a situation in the future. As a result, its GB202 will keep addressing the highest-end of the market (e.g., GeForce RTX 5090, GeForce RTX 5090 Ti), its GB203 will address high-end and performance-mainstream segments (e.g., GeForce RTX 5080, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, and GeForce RTX 5070), while GB105 will address mainstream part of the market (GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, GeForce RTX 5060). This will enable Nvidia to use all GB203 silicon that it has even with some defective SMs. Of course, we are speculating here.

Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell GPUs are expected to hit the market in late 2024 or early 2025, so the company’s plans may change a lot between now and then. Therefore, take this information with a grain of salt for now.

Right now at Amazon, you can find the WD_Black SN850X 1TB SSD for its lowest price ever. This high-speed SSD has been going for $75 lately but a coupon at Amazon will take the price down to $54.

We reviewed the WD_Black SN850X when it debuted and recognized it as having some seriously high performance. One of our biggest drawbacks was that the drive was quite pricey at the time. However, today’s discount makes for a much more appealing offer. 

The WD_Black SN850X comes in a few capacities including 1TB, 2TB and 4TB but this discount applies only to the 1TB version. All of the drives in this line have an M.2 2280 form factor and connect using a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. They use WD proprietary controllers and 112-Layer BiCS5 TLC flash memory. The 1TB SSD is capable of reaching read/write speeds as high as 7300/6300 Mbps.

The WD_Black SN850X is supported by a 5-year warranty that voids if the 1TB edition reaches 600TBW. You can also take advantage of Amazon’s 30-day return policy. It’s also worth nothing this offer applies to the edition without a heatsink.

Visit the WD_Black SN850X 1TB SSD product page at Amazon for purchase options. Don’t forget to use the coupon box before adding it to your cart to redeem the offer.

The Raspberry Pi is obviously one of the most deliciously named boards of our time, but this Raspberry Pi project might be the tastiest use case we’ve ever seen. It was created by a maker and developer known as Simon over at Hackster. Using our favorite SBC, he’s developed a system that scans his refrigerator for food and recommends recipes based on what’s inside.

According to Simon, he trained his project using YOLOv5 to recognize potential ingredients from the contents of his fridge. The food is scanned using a simple camera module and processed using image recognition. The Pi is programmed to organize the information and research for possible recipes and cooking videos related to its findings.

The recipes are selected using ChatGPT with Open AI. A script sends a list of detected food with a prompt to suggest recipes using the ingredients. Once a list of possible recipes is put together, the Pi then notifies the user using Telegram. These messages include recipes and tutorial videos related to the recipes it’s gathered—saving you tons of time spent manually researching for a possible dinner menu.

There are actually two Raspberry Pis used in this project. A Raspberry Pi 4B is the main board handling most of the processing but a WIZnet W5100S-EVB-Pico is thrown into the mix, as well, connecting to the Pi 4 via UART. Simon is using a Raspberry Pi Camera Module but any camera should work fine in its stead.

The software for this project involves a few layers of software, all of which is detailed in the project page at Hackster for anyone who wants to check it out for themselves. OpenAI handles the ChatGPT portion while some Python helps integrate the Telegram API. MicroPython is used to program the WIZnet W5100S-EVB-Pico board.

Visit the Raspberry Pi fridge scanner project page at Hackster to get a closer look at how this Raspberry Pi project goes together and be sure to follow Simon for future updates.

Some of the most advanced Roomba robot vacuums are on sale right now. Wellbots has the poop-detecting iRobot Roomba j7+ for an all-time low price of $549. Or, you can opt for our favorite vacuum / mop hybrid, the upgraded Roomba j7+ Combo, for $799. In both cases, you can enter the coupon code ENGROOMBA200 to receive the $200 discount exclusively for Cunghoctin readers.

The Roomba j7+ includes a bundled cleaning station and iRobot’s poop detection tech. The company says the vacuum’s advanced sensors will avoid pet feces — and its “Pet Owner Official Promise” (P.O.O.P.) policy assures you it will replace the device for free if it runs over pet waste within its first year. The self-emptying vacuum also includes an intelligent mapping feature that lets you choose which rooms it covers, and you can schedule multiple cleanings per day in advance. The Roomba j7+ is usually $800, so its $549 discounted price (with code ENGROOMBA200) is worth noting if you’ve been on the lookout for a cleaning machine.

Wellbots’ coupon also applies to that model’s upgraded sibling, one of Cunghoctin’s picks for the best robot vacuums. The Roomba j7+ Combo takes the j7+’s base features (including self-emptying tech and poop detection) and adds wet mopping, letting you transition seamlessly between carpet and floor cleaning. (It can do both simultaneously on hard floors.) It also includes a feature that can help keep your rugs dry by lifting the mop out of reach when it detects it’s on a carpet. The j7+ Combo typically costs $1,100.

Both devices work with the iRobot mobile app. It lets you manage the devices’ smart mapping capabilities, remote startup and scheduling. We find the app to be simple, intuitive and a significant selling point for Roomba robot cleaners.

Follow @CunghoctinDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Cunghoctin Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Taiwanese component company Lian Li is well known for its premium PC cases and fans, but the company also offers power supplies and AIO coolers. Today we’re looking at Lian Li’s latest 360mm AIO, the Galahad II Trinity Performance. It features upgraded designs for virtually every part of the cooler, from the radiator to the fans to the liquid pump.

Over the past two years, the market for liquid cooling has grown more intense as manufacturers have released upgraded liquid coolers to more effectively dissipate heat to keep up with the demands of today’s hottest CPUs. Are the changes made by Lian Li for the Galahad II Performance enough to earn the top spot on our best AIO Coolers list? We’ll have to install and test the cooler to find out, but first let’s take a look at the cooler’s specifications and features.

Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance Specifications

Packing and Included Contents 

Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity arrives in a box similar in size to other coolers in its class. 

The inner contents are protected with plastic coverings, foam, and molded cardboard. 

Included with the package are the following:

• 360mm Radiator with pre-installed 120mm fans
• Thermal Paste & Spreader Tools
• Leather Cable Management Strap
• Mounting for Intel and AMD Platforms
• Alternative CPU block covers
• Manual

Installation on LGA1700

Installing Lian Li’s GA II Trinity Performance on a LGA 1700 system is surprisingly simple, arguably the easiest installation I’ve ever encountered. 

1. The fans are pre-installed to the radiator for simplicity of installation, so the first thing you’ll want to do is to secure the radiator to your computer case. 

2. Apply the backplate to the back of the motherboard.

3. Attach the mounting standoffs.

3. Mount the CPU block on top of the standoffs after applying thermal paste and secure it with a screwdriver.

4. Next you’ll want to decide what cords to attach to the CPU block. You can choose to control the device’s PWM speeds and lighting traditionally by connecting them to your motherboard’s ARGB & PWM headers, or you can connect the fans to the CPU block and let Lian Li’s software control pump and fan speeds and RGB lighting options.

Features of Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance

Every aspect of the Galahad II Trinity performance – including the fans, the radiator, the pump, the tubing, and more –  have been upgraded to provide a premium cooling experience. The combined improvements made to the Galahad II are not minor compared to previous products. This cooler looks, feels, and (as we’ll soon see in testing) performs much betterthan many competing coolers.

⋇ 3x 120mm high performance LCP fans 

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink or radiator. The bundled fans have a significant impact on cooling and noise levels and the unit’s aesthetic. These fans were designed specifically for liquid cooling with an impressively strong 7mm H20 maximum rated static pressure and up to 108 CFM of airflow. 

Like the fans included on the previously reviewed EKWB CR360, Lian Li’s fans feature unique connections which simplify cable management by converting PWM and ARGB connections into a single header connected by micro-fit 8-pin connectors that have a similar form factor as CPU power connections. This results in a more secure connection with less cable management to worry about, even if th connectors feel a bit bulkier than necessary. 

By default, these fans are solid black with no ARGB. However, those who prefer an ARGB can upgrade the fans with a Lian Li side ARGB strip. 

⋇  Full Performance/Low Noise Toggle

Included with the AIO is a toggle switch that lets you quickly switching between full performance and low-noise modes. In full performance mode, the fans will spin at up to 3000RPM; with low noise mode this is reduced to 2300RPM. 

Most users will not notice any performance loss with the low noise mode. I did not observe any meaningful differences when paired with Intel’s i7-13700K. You’ll need a very thermally demanding CPU to gain performance from the full performance mode. But for those chasing top overclock speeds, it’s nice to know it’s there when you need it.

⋇  CPU block improvements 

⋇  Designed to be mounted in all directions 

The 45 degree fittings connecting the liquid tubing to the liquid pump are rotatable, making it easy to use in any installation direction. Some AIOs lose performance when installed in a side mount. Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity Performance is designed for full performance whether top mounted, front mounted, or side mounted.    

⋇ Three lighting configurations

The decorative top of the CPU block can be customized one of three ways. The default style is an infinity mirror. The second style available offers diffused RGB lighting. The third option is a combination of the two, with a diffused RGB outside and a mirror on the inside.

⋇  Large copper contact plate

The Galahad II Trinity Performance features a large CPU contact plate, made of copper with significant revisions compared to the previous-generation product. The skived fins have increased spacing to prevent buildup of debris, and the height and thicknesses of the fins have been improved. Additionally, a trench down the middle of the skived fins has been implemented for better heat dissipation of the coolant over the copper plate. 

The seal for the copper cold plate has also been improved, with straighter pathways for reduced turbulence and increased airflow.

⋇ Fine Sleeved Tubing with increased width

The inner diameter of the water tubes has been increased from 5.8mm to 7mm, upping the total volume of liquid by roughly 20%, which allows for better heat absorption.

The rubber tubes of the unit are reinforced and protected with fine sleeving, which also makes the unit look and feel more premium. Lian Li also includes a leather cable management tie to keep the tubes tidy.

⋇  Complete RAM compatibility

As the compact CPU block of the AIO does not overhang or interfere with RAM in any way, all sizes of DDR4 and DDR5 DIMMs are supported.

⋇  32mm-thick radiator 

The Galahad II Trinity Performance sports an extra thick 32mm radiator, featuring a double-wave fin design for premium heat dissipation.  

⋇  (Optional) Software Control 

Manufacturers of AIO cooling systems tend to fall into one of two extremes when it comes to cooler control: Either they force you to use bloated, often buggy software to control the device, or they don’t include any software and rely only on motherboard PWM and ARGB controls. 

With Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity Performance, you have a choice. You can use the default motherboard controls if you prefer, but the company also offers an optional download of the L-Connect3 3 software for a more customized experience. This software offers in-depth lighting and pump/fan speed customization options, with the ability to control other compatible ARGB devices as well. Interestingly, you can also return control of these options to the motherboard with “MB Sync” option. 

Cooling Considerations

Modern high-end CPUs, whether Intel or AMD, are difficult to cool in intensive workloads. In the past, reaching 95C+ on a desktop CPU might have been a cause for concern. But with today’s processors, it is considered normal operation. Similar behavior has been present in laptops for years due to cooling limitations in tight spaces. 

Despite assurances from the CPU manufacturers that there is no concern in running the CPU at or near its maximum temperature, many enthusiasts still prefer to have their CPUs run at lower temperatures. Most coolers won’t be capable of achieving this in the strongest and most power-hungry of workloads, but the strongest of 360mm AIOs are able to handle the heat with Intel’s i7-13700K.

LGA1700 Socket Bending

There are many factors other than the CPU cooler that can influence your cooling performance, including the case you use and the fans installed in it. A system’s motherboard can also influence this, especially if it suffers from bending, which results in poor cooler contact with the CPU. 

In order to prevent bending from impacting our cooling results, we’ve installed Thermalright’s LGA 1700 contact frame into our testing rig. If your motherboard is affected by bending, your thermal results will be worse than those shown below. Not all motherboards are affected equally by this issue. I tested Raptor Lake CPUs in two motherboards. And while one of them showed significant thermal improvements after installing Thermalright’s LGA1700 contact frame, the other motherboard showed no difference in temperatures whatsoever! Check out our review of the contact frame for more information. 

Testing Methodology

All testing is performed at a 23 degrees Celsius ambient room temperature. Multiple thermal tests are run on each CPU to test the cooler in a variety of conditions, and acoustic measurements are taken with each result. These tests include: 

1. Noise-normalized testing at low noise levels

2. “Out-of-the-box”/default configuration thermal & acoustics testing.

     a.)  This means no power limits on Intel’s i7-13700K.

      b.) Because CPUs normally hit Tjmax in this scenario, the best way to compare cooling strength is by recording the total CPU package power consumption.

3. Thermal & acoustics testing in power-limited scenarios.

      a.)  I’ve tested with limits of 175W and 125W enforced.

The thermal results included are 10-minute testing runs. To be sure that was sufficiently long to tax the cooler, we tested both Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE and DeepCool’s LT720 with a 30-minute Cinebench test with Intel’s i9-13900K for both 10 minutes and 30 minutes. The results didn’t change much at all with the longer test: The average clock speeds maintained dropped by 29 MHz on DeepCool’s LT720 and 31 MHz on Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE. That’s an incredibly small 0.6% difference in clock speeds maintained, a margin of error difference that tells us that the 10-minute tests are indeed long enough to properly test the coolers.  

Testing Configuration – Intel LGA1700 Platform

This review will focus specifically on how Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity Performance compares against the strongest AIOs on the market : DeepCool’s LT720, EKWB’s CR360, MSI’s MEG S360, and Cooler Master’s 360L Core. If the cooler isn’t included here and I’ve reviewed it previously, that means it failed my unlimited power Cinebench tests and, as such, is not included.

The Compute Express Link technology allows for building various devices to address a vast array of workloads, from expanding memory subsystem capacity and performance to offering ultra-fast persistent storage. Being one of the world’s leading makers of NAND memory, Kioxia can address the latter. Recently, it demonstrated its 3D NAND and XL-Flash-based CXL solutions at the Flash Memory Summit 2023, as reported by ServeTheHome. 

Kioxia revealed plans to offer two lineups of its CXL products: CXL + XL-Flash-based devices for performance and reliability-centric applications such as in-memory databases and AI inference workloads, as well as CXL + BiCS 3D NAND-powered devices for capacity-hungry applications like Big Data and AI training. In both cases, storage devices use a special controller and CXL.mem protocol for reading and CXL.io protocol for writing to minimize respective latencies.

Regarding demonstrations, Kioxia showed a sample of a 1.3 TB CXL 1.1/CXL 2.0 BiCS 3D NAND-based device in an E1.S form-factor that can be installed into an E3.S chassis for higher performance/thermal capacity. The device uses a PCIe x4 interface (PCIe Gen5, we presume), though Kioxia does not disclose its performance characteristics, perhaps because the development has not finished.

While usage of a low-latency 3D (TLC) NAND-powered device over a PCIe interface with the CXL protocol on top seems like a very plausible idea, usage of an XL-Flash-based storage device promises to be even more fruitful due to the higher performance of XL-Flash compared to commodity 3D NAND.

Kioxia’s proprietary 1st Generation XL-Flash is essentially single-level cell (SLC) NAND spread over 16 planes, whereas 2nd Generation XL-Flash is multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory spread over a higher number of planes, which by definition offers lower latency and higher parallelism for read/write operations, thus guaranteeing massively higher performance compares to mainstream 3D TLC NAND. 

Last year Kioxia said that its CXL storage devices would use its 2nd Generation XL-Flash, which promises to outperform the 1st Generation XL-Flash while being more cost-effective and thus enabling higher capacities. 

For now, Kioxia remains tight-lipped when it plans to ship its CXL devices featuring commodity 3D NAND and proprietary storage-class XL-Flash memory. Still, based on the fact that it is displaying some of the former products and does not showcase the latter (at least openly), we can assume that 3D NAND-based devices will be available a bit earlier.

AI and climate change represent two ways humans may ravage life as we know it on Earth, but the former can also help with the consequences of the latter. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) revealed a new program today that uses AI to detect wildfires. Created in partnership with the University of California San Diego, the Alert California AI program takes feeds from 1,032 360-degree rotating cameras and uses AI to “identify abnormalities within the camera feeds.” It then notifies emergency services and other authorities to check if a potential blaze warrants a response.

The program, launched in July, has already quelled at least one potential wildfire, according to Reuters. A camera reportedly recorded a fledgling fire burning at 3 am in the remote Cleveland National Forest east of San Diego. The AI spotted the inferno and alerted a fire captain “who called in about 60 firefighters including seven engines, two bulldozers, two water tankers and two hand crews.” Cal Fire says the flames were extinguished within 45 minutes.

Cal Fire / University of California San Diego

The Alert California technology website says it uses LiDAR scans taken from airplanes and drones to create “equally precise, three-dimensional information about scanned surfaces.” It combines this with the physical traits of tree species to learn more about California’s forest biomass and carbon content. Cal Fire says the ML model leverages petabytes of data from the cameras to differentiate between smoke and other airborne particles.

The system was developed by UCSD engineers using AI from the California-based company DigitalPath. Cal Fire has invested over $20 million in the program over the past four years and promises an additional $3,516,000 in the near future.

“We’re in extreme climate right now. So we give them the data, because this problem is bigger than all of us,” Neal Driscoll, geology and geophysics professor at UCSD who serves as the program’s principal investigator, told Reuters. “We need to use technology to help move the needle, even if it’s a little bit.” However, Driscoll adds that the current sample size is too small to determine the program’s overall effectiveness.

You can check out Alert California’s “camera quilt” on your computer or mobile device. The website displays a grid of the remotely operated live camera views from across the region.

Jabra is preparing some earbud refreshes with high-tech features, according to The Jabra Elite 8 Active earbuds look to be a refresh that combines elements from the Elite 7 Active and the The company also seems to be skipping an entire iteration, as it’s also reportedly prepping the Jabra Elite 10 earbuds, just like how Apple skipped over the iPhone 9 in favor

The Elite 8 Active true-wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds will offer voice assistant support and adaptive hybrid Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) which is a pricier and premium alternative to more traditional ANC methods. The earbuds will reportedly have an IP58 rating for both water and dust-resistance, with the charging case offering an IP54 rating.

The earbuds boast Jabra’s proprietary secure in-ear ShakeGrip technology, which is basically a liquid silicone rubber exterior that stays put when placed in the ear. Reports indicate that these buds will also allow for fast pairing, Spotify tap playback and more.

MySmartPrice

Not as much is known about the Jabra Elite 10 line, though it looks like the earbuds will offer ANC, fast pairing, Dolby Atmos support, voice assistant support, Spotify tap playback and the same water and dust-resistance ratings as the Elite 8 Active earbuds. They’ll also be available in gold and beige, with a possibility for more color options.

Some major specs, like battery life, are still being kept under wraps, as these earbuds have yet to be officially announced. It’s worth noting that the Jabra Elite 7 earbuds got around 30 hours per charge. There’s no pricing or availability information yet for either of these products. We’ll keep you updated. 

Earlier this year at CES, Samsung pulled the wraps off a stunning 57-inch gaming monitor. The new Odyssey Neo G9 is a towering beast, even eclipsing the stunning, rotating 55-inch Odyssey Ark.

At the time of its announcement, Samsung didn’t reveal pricing or availability for the Odyssey Neo G9. However, the company is now at least giving us the lowdown on when it will hit stores: August 23. The company has revealed the launch date in a teaser video posted to YouTube, but remains mum about pricing.

For some perspective, the Odyssey Ark features a 55-inch Mini-LED panel and a $2,999 MSRP direct from Samsung, but Amazon currently offers it for $2,500. Given its slightly larger size and even loftier specs, we could see the 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 crossing well over the $3,000 threshold.

According to Samsung, the 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 uses a Mini-LED panel (with a native contrast of 1,000,000:1) featuring a Dual UHD resolution (7680 x 2160) and VESA Display HDR 1000 certification. In other words, that’s like having two 4K monitors sitting side-by-side, giving you an effective aspect ratio of 32:9. Given how expansive this monitor is, it’s not surprising that Samsung went with a tight 1000R curve to help wrap the display for a more immersive viewing experience.

As you might expect, given its Dual UHD resolution and a fast 240Hz refresh rate, the monitor supports HDMI 2.1 and is the first monitor on the market to adopt DisplayPort 2.1.

When it announced the 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 in January, Samsung also noted that the screen would adopt its Smart Hub, which provides access to streaming media apps like Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube. This is hardly surprising, given how massive this monitor is — we expect many will want it to pull double duty as a television. It will also support the Samsung Gaming Hub, with native access to Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now game streaming services.

With the official release of the 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 less than two weeks away, the only thing left to ponder is how many mortgage payments it will cost.

What do you think would happen if I tried this? I stroll into a bank and see a wad of cash within arm’s reach behind an unoccupied teller window. I grab the dough and start walking out the door with it when a police officer, very rudely, stops me. “I’m entitled to take this money,” I say. “Because nobody at the bank told me not to.”

If you think my defense is implausible, then you don’t work for Google. This week, the search giant said that it wants to change copyright laws so that it can grab any content it wants from the Internet, use it as training data for its AI products, and argue “fair use” if anyone objects to the plagiarism stew Google’s cooking up. Google’s figleaf to copyright holders: they’ll find a way to let you opt-out.

In a recent statement to the Australian government, which is considering new AI laws, Google wrote that it wants “copyright systems that enable appropriate and fair use of copyrighted content to enable the training of AI models in Australia on a broad and diverse range of data while supporting workable opt-outs for entities that prefer their data not to be trained in using AI systems.”

Google obviously wants the same thing in the U.S., UK, and Europe that it does in Australia: the right to scrape and ingest copyrighted content with impunity. But the company may not need to have any new legislation passed. Some argue that existing “fair use” doctrines already allow for this type of machine learning, making AI providers immune from copyright infringement claims right now. However, that question is still very much up in the air – with billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake.

Is Machine Learning a Form of Fair Use Currently?

At present, there are several lawsuits filed against Google and OpenAI from publishers and authors who think the practice of scraping copyrighted content for training is illegal and want damages. In June, novelists Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad sued OpenAI after they found that ChatGPT had likely ingested their books. A few weeks later, Comedian Sarah Silverman sued OpenAI and Meta claiming that it took content from her book. Another group filed a class action lawsuit in California against Google for taking data for its Bard AI without permission.

Fair use, which is called Fair dealing in Australia and the UK, is a doctrine that allows limited use of copyrighted materials without permission for the purpose of criticism, commentary, news reporting, or research. Fair use is not an absolute right, but an affirmative defense for someone who is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit. The U.S. Copyright Office lists four criteria American courts use to determine whether a use is fair:

1. Purpose of the work: Is the goal of the use research, reporting, or commentary? Is the use “transformative,” in that it adds something new or changes the character of the work?
2. Nature of the original work: Forms of creative expression – novels, songs, movies – have more protection than those based on facts. Facts are not protected but the expression of them is.
3. Amount of the work reproduced: Did you use more of the original content than you needed to?
4. Effect upon the market for the original work: Does your material compete with the original or make it less likely that people will purchase it? If so, that’s a strike against fair use.

There’s a lot of room for debate about whether using copyrighted material as training data is “fair use” as a matter of law. The answer to the question may vary based on whether the work Google takes is creative or factual. Journalistic publications such as Tom’s Hardware deal primarily in facts, so we likely have less protection than someone who wrote a novel. 

“Training generative AI on copyrighted works is usually fair use because it falls into the category of non-expressive use,” Emory Professor of Law and Artificial Intelligence Matthew Sag said in testimony to a U.S. Senate subcommittee in July. “Courts addressing technologies such as reverse-engineering search engines and plagiarism-detection software have held that these non-expressive uses are fair use. These cases reflect copyright’s fundamental distinction between protectable original expression and unprotectable facts, ideas, and abstractions,”

When I interviewed Sag a couple of weeks before his testimony, he told me that fair use really depends on how closely the AI bot’s output resembles the works it used for training. “If the output of an LLM doesn’t bear too close a resemblance, then generally it’s going to be fair use,” he said.

Google SGE Copies Text Word-for-Word

But, as I talked about in a previous article, Google’s SGE (Search Generative Experience), which is still in beta but is likely to become the default experience soon, often copies text word-for-word from its training data and isn’t even ashamed to show you where it plagiarized from. For example, when I Googled “iPhone 14,” I was presented with a bulleted list of three things to consider when buying an iPhone 14. Each of the things was taken word-for-word from a different web page, in this case: gizchina.com, androidauthority.com and uswitch.com.

I didn’t have to hunt for the original sources as they are exposed by you clicking on the quotation mark button with the text itself highlighted if you click through to the listed website. While Google defenders might say that these quotation marks are citations and valuable backlinks, they are neither. A real word-for-word quotation is in quotes and has direct attribution (ex: “According to Gizchina.com, …”). These are related links that are buried behind an icon and often there are two or three links when the content was only copied from one of the linked sites (you’d have to go through all three to figure out which one the content came from).

To be fair to Google, plagiarism is an academic and moral term, but it’s not part of copyright law. Providing proper and detailed citations isn’t much of a defense against copyright infringement. I can’t tell the police who stop me while I’m leaving the bank “what I’m doing is legal, because I’ll tell everyone that I took this cash from Citibank.”

The real problem, from a fair use perspective, is that Google is using the plagiarized content to directly compete with and stymie the market for the original copyrighted sources (criteria 4 above). The “market” in this case is the open web where readers come looking for helpful information. Google is taking the insights and expressions out of the original articles, using them to publish its own AI-generated content and then putting that content at the top of your screen far more prominently than the actual search results.

No matter what your business does, if you run a website, you need people to visit it in order to succeed. If you rely on ads and ecommerce links for revenue, you need readers to see and click on them. If you expect people to pay subscription fees to view your content, you need them to find your site in the first place before they can subscribe. With 91 to 94 percent of all searches, Google holds a monopoly on search and, with SGE, the company is using that monopoly power to push its own low-quality AI answers over and above the very articles they copy from.

Copying from Creative Works

Google could have bigger problems if its AI bot provides fine details from creative works such as novels, poems, movies or songs. I recently asked the Google Bard chatbot to reproduce the first paragraph of Catcher in the Rye, a copyrighted novel, and it gave me the first several sentences verbatim, but stopped short of providing the whole paragraph. It would be difficult to read a significant portion of a book this way, particularly because when I asked for the fourth sentence, it gave me one it made up. So I’m not sure if this would harm the market for the novel.

On the other hand, Google SGE and Bard are more than willing to write about copyrighted characters and concepts. Bard was more than happy to write a story about Holden Caulfield beating up Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, providing a 588-word tale about Salinger’s protagonist going to Disneyland and getting into a brawl with the two cartoon characters.

Now, I should note that writing stories about copyrighted characters is generally infringement when you are profiting from the work. There are millions of fan fiction stories published online and, provided that the authors don’t charge money for them, they are usually ok. The legal question, should Salinger’s estate or Disney wish to use, would be whether Google is profiting by generating this content for users.

“You’d have to ask, is the AI service that’s providing this infringing on the copyrights when it’s producing these copyrighted outputs at the prompting of a user,”  James Grimmelmann, Tesla Family Professor of Digital and Information Law at Cornell Law School, told me. “The answer is not obvious to me. I think you could possibly make the argument that, hey, if Google is willing to write you a not-safe-for-work story about Star Trek or Mickey Mouse or whatever, that they are making a profit from the use of those characters because you’re using their service and they’re making money off of that.”

Considering that Google makes money from the ads on its pages and the user data it collects from searchers, the lawyers at big creative companies such as Disney and Warner Brothers would seem to have a strong case if they chose to pursue it. Interestingly, Google’s MusicLM tool, which converts text prompts into songs, has refused any prompt where I ask it to make a song that “sounds like” or is “in the style of” a musical artist.

The problem for Google might not even be that it is reproducing characters and storylines but that it is subtly copying the writing style of every book it ingests. In their lawsuit against OpenAI, the lawyers for novelists Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad claim that OpenAI’s entire language models are infringing works even if they aren’t talking directly about the characters and situations in a particular book. The plaintiffs note that text from books is a key ingredient in training the LLMs how to write, because they provide great examples of longform text. That data allows the models to write stories, poems and even detailed factual answers on command.

“Because the OpenAI Language Models cannot function without the expressive information extracted from Plaintiffs’ works (and others) and retained inside them, the OpenAI Language Models are themselves infringing derivative works, made without Plaintiffs’ permission and in violation of their exclusive rights under the Copyright Act,” the complaint states.

Is Scraping Illegal?

If this case or others like it make it to court, one question will be whether using the text from a book to learn about writing in general is “transformative” enough to constitute fair use. But simply scraping copyrighted content from the web and storing it on your server isn’t necessarily infringement.

“Scraping data is technically reproduction under copyright law,” Grimmelmann said. “The courts have pretty consistently held that scraping is allowed, at least where there’s a robots.txt or robots.exclusion protocol file saying you’re allowed to do this. The reasoning of the scraping decision depends upon the fair use of the downstream purpose. And if the downstream uses aren’t all fair use, then the scraping itself is at least a little more questionable.”

In a 2006 case, Field v. Google, one author sued Google for storing 51 of his works in its cache, which is available to readers when they visit the search results page. The court held that Google caching was fair use because it was transformative: keeping the information for archival purposes and allowing readers to track changes in it.

Is storing copyrighted text (or images) on your server for the purpose of using them as training data equivalent to storing them for search indexing and caching? That’s still an open question.

Some argue that machine learning is legally and morally equivalent to human learning and that, if a person had the time to read and summarize every page on the Internet, no one would question it. “Rather than thinking of an LLM as copying the training data like a scribe in a monastery, it makes more sense to think of it as learning from the training data like a student,” Sage said in his Senate testimony.

I’ll leave the question of whether machines have the right to learn like people for a different article. However, we all know that there’s a strong legal distinction between human experience and digital reproduction. I can go to a concert, remember it forever and even write an article about it, but I can’t publish a recording without permission.

“I don’t think there’s a general legal principle that anything I could do personally I’m allowed to do with a computer, “ Grimmelmann said. “There are frictions built into how people learn and remember that make it a reasonable tradeoff. And the copyright system would collapse if we didn’t have those kinds of frictions in the system.”

Opt in vs Opt Out

If you’re unhappy that your content is being used as training data, Google has a reasonable compromise for you – at first blush, anyway. According to its statement, you’ll be able to opt out of having your content used for machine learning. I presume this will probably work the same way that opting out of web search works today, with something like the robots.txt file or an on-page META tag that instructs bots to stay away.

Back in July, Google VP of Trust Danielle Romain published a blog post referring to robots.txt and saying that the web today needs something similar to block machine learning.

“As new technologies emerge, they present opportunities for the web community to evolve standards and protocols that support the web’s future development. One such community-developed web standard, robots.txt, was created nearly 30 years ago and has proven to be a simple and transparent way for web publishers to control how search engines crawl their content,” Romain wrote. “We believe it’s time for the web and AI communities to explore additional machine-readable means for web publisher choice and control for emerging AI and research use cases.”

By putting the onus on copyright holders to protect their work, however, Google is forgetting how copyright laws and most property laws work. If you open my front door and walk into my house uninvited, it’s still breaking and entering, even if I don’t have a lock on my door or a “no trespassing” sign. The end result will be that many websites won’t realize they have the right to opt out or they won’t know how and Google will be able to take advantage.

Some publishers already have the equivalent of a “no trespassing” sign up on their websites, in the form of a terms of service agreement. But Google is, so far, ignoring those. Recently, the New York Times updated its terms of service to prohibit “use [of] the Content for the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system.” Whether that’s enforceable in court remains to be seen.

“Consent is very important,” Matthew Butterick, a lawyer who is involved in several AI-related lawsuits, told me in an interview. “I don’t feel it should be an opt out because it just puts the burden on the artist to basically be in the mode of how are they going to possibly chase around all of these AI models and all of these AI companies. It doesn’t make sense and it’s not actually consistent with copyright. The idea of copyright is ‘I made it. It’s mine for this duration of time; that’s what the law says and if you wanna use it, you’ve gotta come deal with me. That’s the deal. It’s opt in. Opt out, I think, really inverts the whole policy of U.S. copyright law.”

Also, given Google’s monopoly on search and very commercial websites’ dependence on referrals, the disadvantages of opting out are unclear. Will my website appear or rank lower in organic search results? If Google SGE effectively replaces search and it has some external links in it, will I lose the opportunity to be linked there? Is letting Google use my copyrighted work a fair trade for what might be a handful of clicks? Many sites won’t opt out on the theory that even a few clicks from buried links in SGE are better than none.

What Truly Fair Usage Would Look Like

The problem caused by Google, OpenAI and others ingesting content without permission is not a technology problem. It’s an issue of large companies using their market power and resources to exploit the work of writers, artists and publishers without affirmative consent, compensation or even proper credit. These corporations could hire an army of human writers to transcribe text from copyrighted materials into their own articles and have the same effect.

The solution is simple: have AI bots respect intellectual property as much as professional humans have to. Every fact and idea that SGE or Bard outputs should have a direct, inline citation with a deep link in the text. If they are taking a sentence word-for-word, it should be in quotation marks.

Instead of claiming to be all-knowing geniuses that “create” the answers they output, bots should present themselves as humble librarians whose job it is to summarize and direct readers to helpful primary resources. That’s what a truly useful bot would do.

Why Google Would Want New Laws

Though each of the types of content copying above has a possible fair use defense, there’s clearly a risk that Google could lose on any or all of them. Courts could rule that its word-for-word copying of informational text is infringement and award huge damages to publishers.

Lawyers from creative media companies with deep pockets like Disney are probably licking their chops over the damages from misuse of their copyrighted stories and characters. Even if Google eventually prevails, all the litigation and negative publicity is costly and could take years. However, given the controversy around this topic, it seems unlikely that legislators in any country would create new laws that expand the definition of fair use. We’ll almost certainly find out the limits of current fair use laws in court rulings.

Note: As with all of our op-eds, the opinions expressed here belong to the writer alone and not Tom’s Hardware as a team.

Instagram now lets you add music to photo carousels. Unveiled in partnership with pop star Olivia Rodrigo to promote her single “bad idea right?”, the feature allows you to pick licensed music to soundtrack your slideshows. In addition, the company announced that you can create Collabs with up to three co-authors and post audience-response prompts to Reels.

The carousel soundtracking feature adds a missing piece already found in TikTok’s Photo Mode, launched last year. “Whether you’re sharing a collection of summer memories with friends or moments from your camera roll, you can now add music to your photo carousels,” Instagram wrote in a blog post today. “Building off our launch of music for feed photos, anyone can add a song to capture the mood and bring their carousel to life.”

Also announced today, Instagram Collabs adds the ability to invite up to three friends (up from one) to help co-author feed posts, carousels or reels. The platform says each contributor’s audience will see the content (perhaps hinting that it could be a handy way for influencers to benefit from each other’s followings) and will feature on each account’s profile grid. In addition, the company says private profiles can still start posts / reels and invite collaborators as long as they follow the private account.

Instagram

Instagram also updated how the Add Yours sticker works. When a creator adds the new Add Yours prompt to a Reel and followers contribute content as a response, the creator can now highlight their favorite posted replies for all their followers to see. “With the Add Yours sticker, a creator or artist can invite their followers to join in on a fun prompt or challenge they create on Reels, and then hand-pick their favorite submissions to celebrate their fans’ creativity.” It essentially sounds like a way to use the human social desire to connect with high-status figures (especially celebrities like Rodrigo) to build engagement for creators and the platform as a whole.

Finally, Instagram noted that it’s bringing its music library “to more countries over the coming weeks,” although it hasn’t yet announced specific nations or dates. However, it did mention that Instagram is partnering with Spotify in Mexico and Brazil to showcase 50 of the most popular songs on Instagram Reels on the music platform’s Reels Music Chart.

This week marks the official availability of Samsung’s two new foldable phones and our reviews are in. While you wouldn’t expect a deal this early, Amazon is throwing in a gift card if you order either the foldable or flip phone from it site. Other deals include a decent $50 discount on the disc version of the PlayStation 5 from multiple retailers and $100 off Apple’s 5th-gen iPad Air. Google Pixel devices are also on sale, with a $55 discount on the very capable Pixel 7a smartphone and $60 off on both the Pixel Tablet and the Pixel Buds Pro. Music makers might want to check out the summer sale at Arturia and live streamers in may like Amazon’s discount on Razer’s Stream Controller X. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today. 

PlayStation 5

Once upon a time (last year) it was tough to find a PlayStation 5 in stock, and now it’s on sale at multiple retailers for its lowest price yet. Right now the pricier disc-enabled version is $50 off at Amazon, Walmart, Verizon and Best Buy —you can even get the same deal directly from Sony if you prefer. We think the PS5 is the best premium gaming console you can buy. The graphics are stunning and the performance is seamless, thanks to big improvements in power and visual fidelity over the PS4. Plus PlayStation has a deep bench of exclusive titles to play. 

The console also comes with an excellent DualSense controller that gives you precise and intense haptic feedback along with triggers that adjust the tension in response to your in-game actions. And speaking of…

PlayStation DualSense controller

Your new PS5 comes with one DualSense controller, but if you need another for couch co-op games or if you want a spare just in case, this is a good time to buy as Amazon has multiple shades of the Sony controller on sale for up to 35 percent off. That brings it down from $75 to $40 or $50, depending on the color. Note that the discount doesn’t apply to the DualSense Edge controller, which is holding strong at $200. That gamepad includes swappable joysticks, additional paddles and easy button remapping, which we liked overall, but did take some issue with a battery life that could be longer. 

Apple iPad Air (5th gen)

Of all available Apple tablets, the 5th generation iPad Air is the one we think will work best for most people and right now it’s down to $500. That’s the same price it went for during Amazon’s Prime Day last month, but now you can also snag the deal from Best Buy or Target. This sale price applies to the 64GB model with WiFi connectivity. The models with more storage and added cellular capabilities are also on sale, for between 13 and 22 percent off. 

The iPad Air arrived in 2022, carrying Apple’s own M1 system-on-a-chip processor. The screen is bright and sharp, which is great for gaming and watching shows. Pair it with a keyboard and other accessories and it becomes a capable productivity machine, handling writing, drawing, moderate photo editing and work-related apps like Airtable, Slack and Zoom. 

Google Pixel 7a

Our favorite mid-range Android smartphone is Google’s Pixel 7a and right now unlocked handsets are down to the lowest price we’ve tracked, selling for just $444 at multiple outlets, including Amazon, Best Buy and directly from Google. The price applies to all colorways, though if you’d like it in coral, you’ll have to get it from Google’s storefront as that hue is exclusively available there. 

We gave the Pixel 7a 90 in our review, calling it a slightly smaller Pixel 7, but cheaper. It’s got the same processor, same 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage as the base base model Pixel 7 and actually contains a bigger battery and higher-res cameras than its pricier sibling.

Other Pixel devices are on sale too, including a 12 percent discount on the new Pixel Tablet, which brings it down to $439 at Amazon, Target, Best Buy or from Google’s shop. You can check out our review of the tablet (and its particularly useful charging speaker dock) here. 

Google Pixel Buds Pro

Our favorite wireless earbuds for Android users are the Google Pixel Buds Pro, which are currently $140 at Amazon, Walmart, Target or from Google’s storefront. That’s a 30 percent discount and close to an all-time low. We like the deep, punchy bass and good noise cancelling capabilities. They have intuitive touch controls and a few extra features for Android and Pixel devices including Google Translate Conversation Mode. If you want something even cheaper, the Google Pixel Buds A-Series are down to $60 from $100 — a 40 percent discount.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 + $200 Amazon Gift Card

Samsung’s new foldables are now available, but Amazon is continuing to offer the $200 gift card bonus it included for pre-orders. Previously the retailer also threw in a free storage upgrade, but that deal looks to be expired. Still, $200 at Amazon is a decent perk — I’m confident most people can find something to buy. 

Cunghoctin’s review of the new Galaxy Z Fold 5 just hit our site yesterday, and in it, Sam Rutherford noted that Samsung seems to be losing momentum after getting a sizable head start in the foldable race. But the new foldable is still faster and sleeker than its predecessor and has a new hinge that makes it thinner overall. It’s just not a major upgrade from what we’ve seen previously. That said, if you’re interested in a powerful foldable with bright and useful screens, this $200 gift card should take some sting out of the still-high price tag. 

Amazon has a similar deal going for the Galaxy Z Flip 5, shipping a $150 gift card when you order the phone. Cunghoctin’s Cherlynn Low reviewed that device and deemed it “the best flip foldable,” partly thanks to the much larger 3.4-inch external display that’s now actually useful.  

Razer Stream Controller X

Razer’s Stream Controller X is back down to an all-time low of $125, or 16 percent off its usual $150 price tag. The brand released the programmable streaming deck earlier this year and now it’s back down to the low it hit over Amazon’s Prime Day in July. The desktop device has 15 programmable shortcut buttons to get you streaming faster and in far more style than operating your apps, lights and effects manually. The button icons are customizable and you even have the option of swapping in different magnetic face plates so you can make your live stream setup your own.  

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

Foldables are generating most of Samsung’s buzz right now, which is possibly why their latest no-fold smartphone is seeing a sizable discount. The Galaxy S23 Ultra is our current pick for the best Android smartphone you can buy and right now it’s cheaper than ever on Amazon, down to $950 after a $250 discount. We gave the S23 Ultra an Cunghoctin review score of 89 and particularly appreciated the brilliant AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, the excellent cameras and substantial battery life that went for 19 hours and 26 minutes in our rundown tests. 

The Galaxy S23+ is also cheaper than ever, currently $800 instead of $1,000. Both that discount and the sale on the Ultra beat the all-time lows we saw back in July, but unfortunately, the base model Galaxy S23 handsets are sold out at Amazon as of this writing.  

13-inch MacBook Air (M2, 2022)

A few different Apple laptops with M2 chips are seeing discounts right now. That may be due to the fact that machines using a newer M3 chip are imminent. The 13-inch MacBook Air from 2022 is down to $949 at B&H Photo and Best Buy, which matches the lowest price we’ve tracked. The discount applies to the configuration with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD, which usually goes for $1,099. 

It’s our top pick for the best overall laptop, and earned a review score of 96 when it first came out. The ultraportable weighs just 2.7 pounds and has a thin, balanced design (the wedge shape of earlier Air laptops is gone). The screen is bright and accurate and the battery should last through 16 and a half hours of use, as it did in our video rundown test. Overall, it’s a dependable computer for everyday entertainment and typical productivity — if you want something for heavy media editing, you may want to go for the Pro model, below. 

If you want a little more screen real estate, you can go for the new 15-inch MacBook Air, which is currently $100 off, though earlier this week it saw a $200 discount at Amazon, a sale that will likely come around again, considering the coming M3 machines. 

14-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 2023)

The M2 Pro and M2 Max chips give the MacBook Pro models a lot of processing power, which is ideal for music producers, video makers and other heavy users. The 14-inch model with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage is down to $1,799 at Amazon, which is a $250 discount off the current MSRP and $50 lower than it went for during Amazon’s Prime Day sale in July. We gave the MacBook Pro a review score of 92 when it came out in January of 2023. We like the sturdy design, plethora of ports and the clarity and lushness of the Liquid Retina XDR display.  

Again, Apple is likely to release the M3 chips later this year, but if history is any indicator, they probably won’t release the supercharged M3 Pro or Max chips until many months later. Either way, Apple is likely to keep these laptops in their lineup after the new chips arrive. 

Google Chromecast HD

Google’s HD Chromecast dongle turns a regular TV into a smart one and right now is back down to $20, which matches its lowest price this year (it went for $2 less during last November’s Black Friday sales). This is the HD version of the dongle, which is best for people with 1080p screens (the 4K version isn’t currently on sale). We reviewed the Chromecast with Google TV when it came out last year and appreciated the easy set up, the useful remote and dead-simple streaming interface. If you’ve got a standard TV that could use more smarts, or are heading out on vacation and want to watch your shows on the hotel’s (HDMI-enabled) TVs, this is a great device to have on hand. 

Samsung storage sale

Cunghoctin’s Jeff Dunn named Samsung’s Pro Plus microSD the best option for most people in his latest guide and right now multiple capacities are down to their lowest prices so far. The largest 512GB version is $35 instead of $60 while the 128GB size is just $12. These are the newer versions of the Pro Plus cards, which had the nearly the best sequential write performance and had faster random read/write speeds of all the cards we tested. 

Other Samsung storage devices are on sale too, including the 970 EVO Plus 500GB internal SSD for 23 percent off and the external 1TB T7 Shield portable SSD for 56 percent off. 

Arturia Summer Sale

Musicians looking for some new sounds would do well to check out Arturia’s summer sale, which is running through August 15th. Many of their digital instruments, sound bank packs and effects are 50 percent off. Cunghoctin’s Terrence O’Brien had good things to say about their Pigments synthesizer, which is now $99 instead of its usual $199. The Dist Coldfire plugin, which Terrence says “might be might be the only distortion plugin you need” is now $49 instead of $99. Many more instruments and effects are on sale, so this is a good time to look around. Just note that the sale doesn’t include combo packs or hardware instruments and the sale ends August 15th. 

HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless gaming headset

The top wireless pick in our guide to gaming headsets is the HyperX Cloud Alpha, which is now just $154 at Amazon or Best Buy. Cunghoctin’s Jeff Dunn particularly liked the impressive battery life, which can go for 300 hours on a charge. The set is also comfortable to wear for hours on end so you can test out that capacity for yourself. The sound is a little bass heavy and the mic isn’t as great as others in its field, but the headset is perfectly serviceable. Jeff does point out that HyperX’s companion software has been known to introduce latency, so you’re better off going with third-party or built-in controls for audio EQ adjustments. It’s also not compatible with Xbox and requires the use of its USB dongle. 

Instant Pot Sale

As part of a larger Amazon sale on Instant Pot appliances, the Instant Pot Duo is on sale for $60 instead of the usual $80. The do-nearly-everything cooker is an Cunghoctin favorite, so it’s great to see a few different iterations on sale. The sale also covers the brand’s air friers, including the Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook fryer in the 6-quart size, which is $130 instead of its usual $170. That’s our current pick for the best overall air fryer you can buy. 

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Bose is reportedly preparing to launch some new headphones and earbuds, a refresh in the QuietComfort line,  The Bose QuietComfort Ultra earbuds will be a successor to the and the QuietComfort Ultra headphones look to be a more premium-take on the company’s

One of the highlights of any Bose product, and particularly the QuietComfort II earbuds, is active noise cancellation. The company’s ANC technology is unparalleled and these new products offer it in spades. Both new products offer fully-integrated ANC technology so you can safely ignore the person next to you on your next flight.

Beyond ANC, the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds ship with a variety of soft ear tips, with a similar exterior design to its predecessor. They are available in black or white and should include a built-in microphone, touch controls, Bluetooth v5.3 support, IPX4 water-resistance and more. Bose hasn’t officially announced these yet, so some specs remain under wraps.

MySmartPrice

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones will also be available in black or white, with physical buttons to adjust volume and control music similar to other products in the QuietComfort line. There’s also a USB-C port for both charging and for making wired connections, and a sleek design reminiscent of the

Remember, these are leaks from a reputable third-party, so Bose hasn’t announced pricing or availability. however, suggests that the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds will cost around $380, and the QuietComfort Ultra headphones will cost $550. As for availability, Bose tends to release new product lines in September, so look for a launch around then.

Today at Amazon, users can find the Asus TUF VG279QL1A gaming monitor for one of its best prices to date. If you’ve been looking for a quality gaming monitor that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, this offer is very much worth a closer look. It’s been priced around $219 as of late, but right now is marked down to just $175.

This is the lowest price we’ve seen for the monitor since it was first released and is currently the best price for it across multiple vendors. This 27-inch gaming monitor is AMD FreeSync Premium certified and features Display HDR 400 support.

The Asus TUF VG279QL1A gaming monitor features a 27-inch IPS panel with an FHD resolution (1920 x 1080). The AMD FreeSync Premium certification guarantees things like a high refresh rate (in this case, it caps out at 165Hz) and low framerate compensation. This monitor also has a short response time of just 1 ms.

This gaming monitor supports Display HDR 400 and can reach a maximum brightness of 350 nits. Users have one Display Port to take advantage of and two HDMI ports for video input. A 3.5mm audio jack is available for external audio peripherals, but it also has two integrated 2W speakers for audio output.

Visit the Asus TUF VG279QL1A gaming monitor product page at Amazon for more details and purchase options.

Intel has disclosed a new vulnerability (INTEL-SA-00812) that affects the company’s Arc A770 and Arc A750, two of the best graphics cards. Classified with a medium severity rating, the potential security flaw may permit denial of service or information disclosure.

It certainly hasn’t been a good week for Intel. After a year-long embargo, the chipmaker had finally lifted the curtains Downfall, a vulnerability with costly performance penalties that impacts multiple generations of Intel processors. And now, Intel’s internal team has discovered vulnerabilities with Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards sold between October and December 2022. The advisory seemingly indicates that the flaw isn’t widespread but only affects batches sold during the mentioned timeframe.

The security vulnerability encompasses two issues. CVE-2022-41984 describes a protection mechanism failure in some Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards where a privileged user can enable a denial of service. On the other hand, CVE-2022-38973 talks about improper access control in a scenario where an authenticated user can allow denial of service or information disclosure. In both occasions, the user can exploit the vulnerability through local access.

Intel doesn’t confirm whether it has or will release a firmware update or software fix to mitigate the recently-unearthed vulnerabilities. The chipmaker recommends that consumers who bought an Arc A770 or Arc A750 between October to December 2022 contact Intel product support in their region for help.