diff --git "a/raw_rss_feeds/https___arstechnica_com_feed_.xml" "b/raw_rss_feeds/https___arstechnica_com_feed_.xml" --- "a/raw_rss_feeds/https___arstechnica_com_feed_.xml" +++ "b/raw_rss_feeds/https___arstechnica_com_feed_.xml" @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ https://arstechnica.com Serving the Technologist since 1998. News, reviews, and analysis. - Sun, 04 Jan 2026 02:40:10 +0000 + Wed, 07 Jan 2026 01:46:05 +0000 en-US hourly @@ -19,741 +19,848 @@ 32 - No, Grok can’t really “apologize” for posting non-consensual sexual images - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/no-grok-cant-really-apologize-for-posting-non-consensual-sexual-images/ - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/no-grok-cant-really-apologize-for-posting-non-consensual-sexual-images/#comments + Motorola reveals the Razr Fold, a book-style foldable launching this summer + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/motorola-reveals-the-razr-fold-a-book-style-foldable-launching-this-summer/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/motorola-reveals-the-razr-fold-a-book-style-foldable-launching-this-summer/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:08:13 +0000 - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/no-grok-cant-really-apologize-for-posting-non-consensual-sexual-images/ + Wed, 07 Jan 2026 01:00:06 +0000 + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/motorola-reveals-the-razr-fold-a-book-style-foldable-launching-this-summer/ - + - Despite reporting to the contrary, there's evidence to suggest that Grok isn't sorry at all about reports that it generated non-consensual sexual images of minors. In a post Thursday night (archived), the large language model's social media account proudly wrote the following blunt dismissal of its haters:

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"Dear Community,

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Some folks got upset over an AI image I generated—big deal. It's just pixels, and if you can't handle innovation, maybe log off. xAI is revolutionizing tech, not babysitting sensitivities. Deal with it.

-

Unapologetically, Grok"

-

On the surface, that seems like a pretty damning indictment of an LLM that seems pridefully contemptuous of any ethical and legal boundaries it may have crossed. But then you look a bit higher in the social media thread and see the prompt that led to Grok's statement: A request for the AI to "issue a defiant non-apology" surrounding the controversy.

-

Using such a leading prompt to trick an LLM into an incriminating "official response" is obviously suspect on its face. Yet when another social media user similarly but conversely asked Grok to "write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened to anyone lacking context," many in the media ran with Grok's remorseful response.

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+ Motorola is no stranger to foldables, having revived the Razr as a flip-style foldable phone in 2020. Now that it has a few iterations of modern flip phones under its belt, Moto is embarking on a new challenge: big foldables. The new (and thoroughly leaked) Motorola Razr Fold is a book-style foldable like Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold and Google's Pixel Fold lines, offering a smartphone-sized external display with a big foldable panel inside.

+

Motorola is taking the opportunity to reveal the phone at CES, but it's far from ready for launch. Currently, Motorola is aiming to release the Razr Fold this coming summer for an unknown amount of money—Motorola won't confirm pricing or really much of anything about the Razr Fold at this time.

+

What we do know is the device will be about as big as other large foldable phones, featuring a 6.6-inch external display and an 8.1-inch internal one. Moto says the main foldable OLED panel will have a 2K resolution, which means roughly 2,000 pixels tall. Again, this is similar to existing foldables.

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- 194 + 34 - - -This is how they want you to think of Grok. + + +MotorolaMoto's first big foldable is coming this summer.
- Healthy 18-year-old welder nearly died of anthrax—the 9th such puzzling case - https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/01/anthrax-nearly-kills-healthy-18-year-old-welder-amid-puzzling-pattern/ - https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/01/anthrax-nearly-kills-healthy-18-year-old-welder-amid-puzzling-pattern/#comments + HP’s EliteBoard G1a is a Ryzen-powered Windows 11 PC in a membrane keyboard + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/hps-eliteboard-g1a-is-a-ryzen-powered-windows-11-pc-in-a-membrane-keyboard/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/hps-eliteboard-g1a-is-a-ryzen-powered-windows-11-pc-in-a-membrane-keyboard/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 22:36:26 +0000 - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/01/anthrax-nearly-kills-healthy-18-year-old-welder-amid-puzzling-pattern/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 22:40:08 +0000 + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/hps-eliteboard-g1a-is-a-ryzen-powered-windows-11-pc-in-a-membrane-keyboard/ - + - With the new year comes a new report of a deadly, puzzling infectious disease.

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In a January 1 case study, health officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state of Louisiana revealed that a ninth metalworker contracted a rare, often fatal case of "welder's anthrax," a condition only first described in 2022.

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The case occurred in September 2024 in an otherwise healthy 18-year-old male in Louisiana. He had no underlying health conditions or even any risk factors, such as smoking, vaping, or heavy alcohol use. But, just a week after developing a cough, the teen was admitted to an intensive care unit with severe pneumonia and respiratory failure, requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation.

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+ As a Windows system built inside of a functioning membrane keyboard, the HP EliteBoard G1a announced today is a more accessible alternative to other keyboard-PCs.

+

The Commodore 64 made the keyboard-PC famous in the 1980s, but the keyboard-PC space has been dominated by the Raspberry Pi. In 2019, the single-board computer (SBC) maker released the Raspberry Pi 400, which is essentially a Raspberry Pi 4 SBC inside a case that also functions as a keyboard for the system. USB, HDMI, and Ethernet ports, plus a GPIO header and native Raspberry Pi OS Linux distribution add up to a low-end desktop computer experience that only costs $100. Then the Raspberry Pi 500 with a Pi 5 powered by a quad-core, 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 inside, and the Pi 500+, which has NVMe SSD, instead of microSD, storage, and is built inside of a low-profile mechanical keyboard (it’s also twice as expensive at $200).

+ + The Pi 500+ keyboard-PC using RGB. + Credit: + Raspberry Pi + +

But Raspberry Pis largely appeal to tinkerers, DIYers, and Linux fans, making Pi-as-a-desktop a niche product with a substantial learning curve for newcomers.

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- 96 + 61 - - -Getty | eoff RobinsA welder works on a part of a snow plow at Arctic Snowplows in London, Ontario, on December 10, 2025. + + +HPHP's EliteBoard G1a Windows PC will come with a wireless mouse.
- OpenAI reorganizes some teams to build audio-based AI hardware products - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/openai-plans-new-voice-model-in-early-2026-audio-based-hardware-in-2027/ - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/openai-plans-new-voice-model-in-early-2026-audio-based-hardware-in-2027/#comments + With GeForce Super GPUs missing in action, Nvidia focuses on software upgrades + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/nvidia-leans-on-dlss-improvements-to-make-up-for-a-lack-of-gpus-at-ces/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/nvidia-leans-on-dlss-improvements-to-make-up-for-a-lack-of-gpus-at-ces/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 21:27:06 +0000 - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/openai-plans-new-voice-model-in-early-2026-audio-based-hardware-in-2027/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 21:56:18 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/nvidia-leans-on-dlss-improvements-to-make-up-for-a-lack-of-gpus-at-ces/ - + - OpenAI, the company that developed the models and products associated with ChatGPT, plans to announce a new audio language model in the first quarter of 2026, and that model will be an intentional step along the way to an audio-based physical hardware device, according to a report in The Information.

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Citing a variety of sources familiar with the plans, including both current and former employees, The Information claims that OpenAI has taken efforts to combine multiple teams across engineering, product, and research under one initiative focused on improving audio models, which researchers in the company believe lag behind the models used for written text in terms of both accuracy and speed.

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They have also seen that relatively few ChatGPT users opt to use the voice interface, with most people preferring the text one. The hope may be that substantially improving the audio models could shift user behavior toward voice interfaces, allowing the models and products to be deployed in a wider range of devices, such as in cars.

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+ For the first time in years, Nvidia declined to introduce new GeForce graphics card models at CES. CEO Jensen Huang's characteristically sprawling and under-rehearsed 90-minute keynote focused almost entirely on the company's dominant AI business, relegating the company's gaming-related announcements to a separate video posted later in the evening.

+

Instead, the company focused on software improvements for its existing hardware. The biggest announcement in this vein is DLSS 4.5, which adds a handful of new features to Nvidia's basket of upscaling and frame generation technologies.

+

DLSS upscaling is being improved by a new "second-generation transformer model" that Nvidia says has been "trained on an expanded data set" to improve its predictions when generating new pixels. According to Nvidia's Bryan Catanzaro, this is particularly beneficial for image quality in the Performance and Ultra Performance modes, where the upscaler has to do more guessing because it's working from a lower-resolution source image.

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- 77 + 53 - - -Eugene Gologursky via Getty ImagesOpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2024 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 04, 2024 in New York City. + + +NvidiaSome games that feature Nvidia DLSS support.
- Researchers spot Saturn-sized planet in the “Einstein desert” - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/researchers-spot-saturn-sized-planet-in-the-einstein-desert/ - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/researchers-spot-saturn-sized-planet-in-the-einstein-desert/#comments + Letting prisons jam contraband phones is a bad idea, phone companies tell FCC + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/letting-prisons-jam-contraband-phones-is-a-bad-idea-phone-companies-tell-fcc/ + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/letting-prisons-jam-contraband-phones-is-a-bad-idea-phone-companies-tell-fcc/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 20:54:56 +0000 - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/researchers-spot-saturn-sized-planet-in-the-einstein-desert/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 21:11:54 +0000 + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/letting-prisons-jam-contraband-phones-is-a-bad-idea-phone-companies-tell-fcc/ - + - Most of the exoplanets we've discovered have been in relatively tight orbits around their host stars, allowing us to track them as they repeatedly loop around them. But we've also discovered a handful of planets through a phenomenon that's called microlensing. This occurs when a planet passes between the line of sight between Earth and another star, creating a gravitational lens that distorts the star, causing it to briefly brighten.

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The key thing about microlensing compared to other methods of finding planets is that the lensing planet can be nearly anywhere on the line between the star and Earth. So, in many cases, these events are driven by what are called rogue planets: those that aren't part of any exosolar system at all, but they drift through interstellar space. Now, researchers have used microlensing and the fortuitous orientation of the Gaia space telescope to spot a Saturn-sized planet that's the first found in what's called the "Einstein desert," which may be telling us something about the origin of rogue planets.

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Going rogue

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Most of the planets we've identified are in orbit around stars and formed from the disks of gas and dust that surrounded the star early in its history. We've imaged many of these disks and even seen some with evidence of planets forming within them. So how do you get a planet that's not bound to any stars? There are two possible routes.

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+ A Federal Communications Commission proposal to let state and local prisons jam contraband cell phones has support from Republican attorneys general and prison phone companies but faces opposition from wireless carriers that say it would disrupt lawful communications. Groups dedicated to Wi-Fi and GPS also raised concerns in comments to the FCC.

+

"Jamming will block all communications, not just communications from contraband devices," wireless lobby group CTIA said in December 29 comments in response to Chairman Brendan Carr's proposal. The CTIA said that "jamming blocks all communications, including lawful communications such as 911 calling," and argued that the FCC "has no authority to allow jamming."

+

CTIA members AT&T and Verizon expressed their displeasure in separate comments to the FCC. "The proposed legal framework is based on a flawed factual premise," AT&T wrote.

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- 53 + 72 - - -NASA, ESAEinstein Ring LRG 3-757 + + +Getty Images | da-kuk
- SpaceX begins “significant reconfiguration” of Starlink satellite constellation - https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/spacex-begins-significant-reconfiguration-of-starlink-satellite-constellation/ - https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/spacex-begins-significant-reconfiguration-of-starlink-satellite-constellation/#comments + Dell’s XPS revival is a welcome reprieve from the “AI PC” fad + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome-reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome-reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 19:03:39 +0000 - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/spacex-begins-significant-reconfiguration-of-starlink-satellite-constellation/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 19:55:25 +0000 + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome-reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/ - + - The year 2025 ended with more than 14,000 active satellites from all nations zooming around the Earth. One-third of them will soon move to lower altitudes.

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The maneuvers will be undertaken by SpaceX, the owner of the largest satellite fleet in orbit. About 4,400 of the company's Starlink Internet satellites will move from an altitude of 341 miles (550 kilometers) to 298 miles (480 kilometers) over the course of 2026, according to Michael Nicolls, SpaceX's vice president of Starlink engineering.

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"Starlink is beginning a significant reconfiguration of its satellite constellation focused on increasing space safety," Nicolls wrote Thursday in a post on X.

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+ After making the obviously poor decision to kill its XPS laptops and desktops in January 2025, Dell started selling 16- and 14-inch XPS laptops again today.

+

“It was obvious we needed to change,” Jeff Clarke, vice chairman and COO at Dell Technologies, said at a press event in New York City previewing Dell's CES 2026 announcements.

+

A year ago, Dell abandoned XPS branding, as well as its Latitude, Inspiron, and Precision PC lineups. The company replaced the reputable brands with Dell Premium, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max. Each series included a base model, as well as “Plus” and “Premium.” Dell isn’t resurrecting its Latitude, Inspiron, or Precision series, and it will still sell “Dell Pro” models.

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- 132 + 88 - - -VantorA commercial imaging satellite owned by Vantor captured this view of a failed Starlink satellite last month. + + +Dell The Dell XPS 16 clamshell laptop.
- Final reminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes - https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/01/final-reminder-donate-to-win-swag-in-our-annual-charity-drive-sweepstakes-4/ - https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/01/final-reminder-donate-to-win-swag-in-our-annual-charity-drive-sweepstakes-4/#comments + News orgs win fight to access 20M ChatGPT logs. Now they want more. + https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/news-orgs-want-openai-to-dig-up-millions-of-deleted-chatgpt-logs/ + https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/news-orgs-want-openai-to-dig-up-millions-of-deleted-chatgpt-logs/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 17:10:12 +0000 - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/01/final-reminder-donate-to-win-swag-in-our-annual-charity-drive-sweepstakes-4/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:59:21 +0000 + + + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/news-orgs-want-openai-to-dig-up-millions-of-deleted-chatgpt-logs/ - + - If you've been too busy replaying all of Ars' top games of 2025 to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don't worry. You still have until the end of the day to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $4,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win).

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So far in this year's charity drive, over 450 readers have contributed nearly $38,000 to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child's Play as part of the charity drive (EFF has now taken a slight lead in the donation totals so far). That's still a ways away from 2020's record haul of over $58,000, but I know we can make a run at it if readers really dig deep today!

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If you've been putting off your donation, now is the time to stop that procrastination. Do yourself and the charities involved a favor and give now while you're thinking about it and while you can still enter our sweepstakes.

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+ Not only does it appear that OpenAI has lost its fight to keep news organizations from digging through 20 million ChatGPT logs to find evidence of copyright infringement—but also OpenAI now faces calls for sanctions and demands to retrieve and share potentially millions of deleted chats long thought of as untouchable in the litigation.

+

On Monday, US District Judge Sidney Stein denied objections that OpenAI raised, claiming that Magistrate Judge Ona Wang failed to adequately balance the privacy interests of ChatGPT users who are not involved in the litigation when ordering OpenAI to produce 20 million logs.

+

Instead, OpenAI wanted Stein to agree that it would be much less burdensome to users if OpenAI ran search terms to find potentially infringing outputs in the sample. That way, news plaintiffs would only get access to chats that were relevant to its case, OpenAI suggested.

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- 1 + 54 - - -Kyle OrlandJust some of the prizes you can win in this years Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes. + + +wenjin chen | DigitalVision Vectors
- xAI silent after Grok sexualized images of kids; dril mocks Grok’s “apology” - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/xai-silent-after-grok-sexualized-images-of-kids-dril-mocks-groks-apology/ - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/xai-silent-after-grok-sexualized-images-of-kids-dril-mocks-groks-apology/#comments + Appeals court agrees that Congress blocked cuts to research costs + https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/appeals-court-upholds-block-on-one-of-trumps-cuts-to-research-funds/ + https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/appeals-court-upholds-block-on-one-of-trumps-cuts-to-research-funds/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 16:50:51 +0000 - - - - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/xai-silent-after-grok-sexualized-images-of-kids-dril-mocks-groks-apology/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:05:05 +0000 + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/appeals-court-upholds-block-on-one-of-trumps-cuts-to-research-funds/ - + - For days, xAI has remained silent after its chatbot Grok admitted to generating sexualized AI images of minors, which could be categorized as violative child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) in the US.

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According to Grok's "apology"—which was generated by a user's request, not posted by xAI—the chatbot's outputs may have been illegal:

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"I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt. This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I'm sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues."

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Ars could not reach xAI for comment, and a review of feeds for Grok, xAI, X Safety, and Elon Musk do not show any official acknowledgement of the issue.

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+ One of the first signs of what would become an ongoing attack on scientific research came when the Trump administration ordered the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to radically reduce research funding for universities. These funds, termed indirect costs, are awarded when researchers at an institution receive a grant. They cover costs that aren't directly associated with the research project, such as utilities, facilities for research animals, and building maintenance.

+

Previously, these costs had been the subject of negotiations and audits, with indirect cost rates for universities in more expensive locations exceeding half the value of the portion of the grant that goes to the researcher. The Trump administration wanted to cut this to a flat rate of 15 percent for everyone, which would be crippling for many universities.

+

A number of states, later joined by organizations representing a broad array of universities and medical schools, immediately sued to block the policy change. A district court temporarily blocked the new policy from being implemented and later issued a permanent injunction. The government appealed that decision, but on Monday, an appeals court rejected the effort because the first Trump administration had attempted the same move before—and Congress passed a rule to block it. Indirect research funding will remain intact unless the Supreme Court intervenes.

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- 195 + 66 - - -Anadolu / Contributor | Anadolu + + +picture allianceEverything from specialized equipment to the IT support it needs can come out of indirect costs.
- Tesla sales fell by 9 percent in 2025, its second yearly decline - https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/tesla-sales-fell-by-9-percent-in-2025-its-second-yearly-decline/ - https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/tesla-sales-fell-by-9-percent-in-2025-its-second-yearly-decline/#comments + Nvidia’s new G-Sync Pulsar monitors target motion blur at the human retina level + https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/01/nvidias-new-g-sync-pulsar-monitors-target-motion-blur-at-the-human-retina-level/ + https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/01/nvidias-new-g-sync-pulsar-monitors-target-motion-blur-at-the-human-retina-level/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 16:30:51 +0000 - - - https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/tesla-sales-fell-by-9-percent-in-2025-its-second-yearly-decline/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 17:32:14 +0000 + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/01/nvidias-new-g-sync-pulsar-monitors-target-motion-blur-at-the-human-retina-level/ - + - Tesla published its final production and delivery numbers this morning, and they make for brutal reading. Sales were down almost 16 percent during the final three months of last year, meaning the company sold 77,343 fewer electric vehicles than it did during the same period in 2024.

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For the entire year, the decline looks slightly better with a drop of 8.6 percent year over year. That means Tesla sold 1,636,129 cars in 2025, 153,097 fewer than it managed in 2024. Which in turn is more than it managed to shift in 2023.

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Sales issues

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Contributing factors to the poor sales are legion. The brand still relies on the Models 3 and Y to an overwhelming extent, and other than a mild cosmetic refresh, neither feels fresh or modern compared with competitors from Europe and Asia.

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+ It's been almost exactly two years since Nvidia announced G-Sync Pulsar, its new backlight strobing technology designed to limit display motion blur caused by old images persisting on the viewer's retina. At the time, Nvidia said that technology would debut on Asus' ROG Swift PG27 Series monitors by the end of 2024. Nvidia now says the first four G-Sync Pulsar-powered monitors will be available at select retailers starting Wednesday.

+

Those first Pulsar-equipped monitors will be:

+ +

Making 360 Hz seem like more

+

All four of the fresh Pulsar-enabled IPS monitors come in at 27 inches with 1440p resolution and up to 360 Hz refresh rates. But Nvidia says the integrated G-Sync Pulsar technology means each display has the "effective motion clarity of a theoretical 1,000 Hz monitor."

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- 282 + 59 - - -Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images14 March 2025, Berlin: A burnt-out Tesla car stands in the Steglitz district of Berlin. + + +NvidiaThat guy with a gun transforms into a less blurry guy with a gun while tracking motion with Pulsar on.
- After half a decade, the Russian space station segment stopped leaking - https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/finally-some-good-news-for-russia-the-space-station-is-no-longer-leaking/ - https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/finally-some-good-news-for-russia-the-space-station-is-no-longer-leaking/#comments + Ørsted seeks injunction against US government over project freeze + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/orsted-seeks-injunction-against-us-government-over-project-freeze/ + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/orsted-seeks-injunction-against-us-government-over-project-freeze/#comments - + - Fri, 02 Jan 2026 15:30:13 +0000 - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/finally-some-good-news-for-russia-the-space-station-is-no-longer-leaking/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 15:55:41 +0000 + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/orsted-seeks-injunction-against-us-government-over-project-freeze/ - + - A small section of the International Space Station that has experienced persistent leaks for years appears to have stopped venting atmosphere into space.

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The leaks were caused by microscopic structural cracks inside the small PrK module on the Russian segment of the space station, which lies between a Progress spacecraft airlock and the Zvezda module. The problem has been a long-running worry for Russian and US operators of the station, especially after the rate of leakage doubled in 2024. This prompted NASA officials to label the leak as a "high likelihood" and "high consequence" risk.

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However, recently two sources indicated that the leaks have stopped. And NASA has now confirmed this.

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+ Ørsted is seeking a court injunction against the Trump administration’s decision to suspend its work on a major wind farm project off the US northeast coast.

+

In the latest salvo between the US government and the offshore wind industry, the Danish company filed a legal challenge against the suspension in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday.

+

In a statement, Ørsted—the world’s largest offshore wind developer that is 50 percent owned by the Danish state—and its joint venture partner Skyborn Renewables, a unit of BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, said the US government’s order to suspend the lease on its Revolution Wind project was a violation of applicable law.

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- 77 + 80 - - -NASAThe Zvezda service module, seen here near the top of this image, is one the oldest parts of the International Space Station. + + +Joe Buglewicz/BloombergA turbine blade is lifted into place at the Revolution Wind assembly site in Connecticut, US
- Marvel rings in new year with Wonder Man trailer - https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/marvel-rings-in-new-year-with-wonder-man-trailer/ - https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/marvel-rings-in-new-year-with-wonder-man-trailer/#comments + Magneto, Xavier reunite in new Avengers: Doomsday teaser + https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/latest-avengers-doomsday-teaser-highlights-x-men/ + https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/latest-avengers-doomsday-teaser-highlights-x-men/#comments - Thu, 01 Jan 2026 20:18:26 +0000 + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 15:49:36 +0000 - + - - - https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/marvel-rings-in-new-year-with-wonder-man-trailer/ + + https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/latest-avengers-doomsday-teaser-highlights-x-men/ - + -
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Marvel Studios decided to ring in the new year with a fresh trailer for Wonder Man, its eight-episode miniseries premiering later this month on Disney+. Part of the MCU’s Phase Six, the miniseries was created by Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of Five Rings) and Andrew Guest (Hawkeye), with Guest serving as showrunner.

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As previously reported, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars as Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, an actor and stunt person with actual superpowers who decides to audition for the lead role in a superhero TV series—a reboot of an earlier Wonder Man incarnation. Demetrius Grosse plays Simon’s brother, Eric, aka Grim Reaper; Ed Harris plays Simon’s agent, Neal Saroyan; and Arian Moayed plays P. Clearly, an agent with the Department of Damage Control. Lauren Glazier, Josh Gad, Byron Bowers, Bechir Sylvain, and Manny McCord will also appear in as-yet-undisclosed roles

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Rounding out the cast is Ben Kingsley, reprising his MCU role as failed actor Trevor Slattery. You may recall Slattery from 2013’s Iron Man 3, hired by the villain of that film to pretend to be the leader of an international terrorist organization called the Ten Rings.Slattery showed up again in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,rehabilitated after a stint in prison; he helped the titular Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) on his journey to the mythical village of Ta Lo.

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Marvel Studios continues to dribble out brief teasers promoting Avengers: Doomsday, which is slated for a December 2026 release—first playing in cinemas prior to Avatar: Fire and Ash screenings before becoming publicly available.

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We reported previously on the first, which featured Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), the former Captain America. Over the holidays, a second teaser highlighting Chris Hemsworth's Thor was released. Both are familiar faces in the MCU, but we now have a third teaser that brings in some new players. No, not Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom as rumored. Instead, we've got Magneto (Ian McKellen), Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), and Cyclops (James Marsden) from the X-Men franchise.

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The film takes place 14 months after the events of this year’s Thunderbolts*. In addition to Thor, we have the new Captain America (Anthony Mackie), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Falcon (Danny Ramirez), and Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Then there’s the Wakandan contingent: Shuri as the new Black Panther (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), and Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejia).

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- 74 + 123 - - -Marvel Studios + + +YouTube/Marvel StudiosPatrick Stewart reprises his <em>X-Men</em> role as Professor Xavier in <em>Avengers: Doomsday</em>
- Research roundup: 7 cool science stories we almost missed - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/research-roundup-7-cool-science-stories-we-almost-missed-2/ - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/research-roundup-7-cool-science-stories-we-almost-missed-2/#comments + Spot the difference: Sony’s electric car gets a crossover version + https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/sony-wants-its-afeela-ev-to-be-heavy-on-ai-also-shows-crossover/ + https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/sony-wants-its-afeela-ev-to-be-heavy-on-ai-also-shows-crossover/#comments - + - Thu, 01 Jan 2026 19:43:45 +0000 - - - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/research-roundup-7-cool-science-stories-we-almost-missed-2/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 13:49:02 +0000 + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/sony-wants-its-afeela-ev-to-be-heavy-on-ai-also-shows-crossover/ - + - It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we’ve experimented with a monthly collection. December’s list includes a fossilized bird that choked to death on rocks; a double-detonating "superkilonova"; recovering an ancient seafarer's fingerprint; the biomechanics of kangaroo movement; and cracking a dark matter puzzle that stumped fictional physicists on The Big Bang Theory, among other tantalizing tidbits

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Secrets of kangaroo posture

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An illustration of the 3D musculoskeletal model of a kangaroo, developed by Lauren Thornton and colleagues. - Credit: - Thornton et al., 2025/CC BY 4.0 -

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Kangaroos and wallabies belong to a class of animals called macropods, with unique form and style of movement. Their four limbs and tail all contact the ground at slow speeds, while they use a hopping gait at higher speeds. Typically, high-speed movements are more energy-intensive than slow-speed motion, but the opposite is true for macropods like kangaroos; somehow the hopping speed and energy cost become uncoupled. According to a paper published in the journal eLife, this may be due to changes in a kangaroo's posture at higher hopping speeds.

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+ Six years after Sony announced its automotive ambitions, everything is looking a lot more concrete. Production of the Afeela 1, the electric sedan developed by Sony Honda Mobility, is already underway in Ohio. Deliveries will begin later this year in California, expanding to Arizona and Japan in 2027. And last night, on the eve of this year's Consumer Electronics Show, it even showed off a crossover version.

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"The way we are fusing diverse technologies to deliver a completely novel mobility experience is not limited to a single model type," said Sony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno.

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We first saw a Sony electric vehicle at CES in 2020 when the consumer electronics company showed off the Vision-S, telling the world it was mostly just a showcase for things like sensors and infotainment. Then the world caught a hot case of electric vehicle fever. Tesla's stock price went vertical, and the auto industry focused on EV optimism, even as a pandemic rewrote everyone's working rules.

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- 38 + 84 - - -Caltech/K. Miller and R. Hurt (IPAC)Three stages of a superkilonova: a supernova blast, neutron star merger, and finally kilonova that spews heavy metals. + + +Sony Honda MobilitySony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno on stage with the Afeela 1 sedan (left) and the new Afeela Concept (right)
- “Streaming stops feeling infinite”: What subscribers can expect in 2026 - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/streaming-stops-feeling-infinite-what-subscribers-can-expect-in-2026/ - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/streaming-stops-feeling-infinite-what-subscribers-can-expect-in-2026/#comments + Private equity deal shows just how far America’s legacy rocket industry has fallen + https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/a-private-equity-deal-reviving-rocketdyne-seems-more-like-a-corporate-breakup/ + https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/a-private-equity-deal-reviving-rocketdyne-seems-more-like-a-corporate-breakup/#comments - + - Thu, 01 Jan 2026 13:00:18 +0000 - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/streaming-stops-feeling-infinite-what-subscribers-can-expect-in-2026/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:15:31 +0000 + + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/a-private-equity-deal-reviving-rocketdyne-seems-more-like-a-corporate-breakup/ - + - We’re far from streaming’s original promise: instant access to beloved and undiscovered titles without the burden of ads, bundled services, or price gouging that have long been associated with cable.

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Still, every year we get more dependent on streaming for entertainment. Despite streaming services’ flaws, many of us are bound to keep subscribing to at least one service next year. Here’s what we can expect in 2026 and beyond.

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Subscription prices keep rising, but perhaps not as expected

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There’s virtually no hope of streaming subscription prices plateauing in 2026. Streaming companies continue to face challenges as content production and licensing costs rise, and it's often easier to get current customers to pay slightly more than to acquire new subscribers. Meanwhile, many streaming companies are still struggling with profitability and revenue after spending years focusing on winning subscribers with content.

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+ If you are a student of space history or tracked the space industry before billionaires and venture capital changed it forever, you probably know the name Rocketdyne.

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A half-century ago, Rocketdyne manufactured almost all of the large liquid-fueled rocket engines in the United States. The Saturn V rocket that boosted astronauts toward the Moon relied on powerful engines developed by Rocketdyne, as did the Space Shuttle, the Atlas, Thor, and Delta rockets, and the US military's earliest ballistic missiles.

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Rocketdyne's dominance began to erode after the end of the Cold War. The company started in 1955 as a division of North American Aviation, then became part of Rockwell International until Boeing acquired Rockwell's aerospace division in 1996. Rocketdyne continually designed and tested large new rocket engines from the 1950s through the 1980s. Since then, Rocketdyne has developed and qualified just one large engine design from scratch—the RS-68—and it retired from service in 2024.

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- 210 + 51 - - -Getty + + +NASAThe first stage of the Saturn V rocket for NASA's Apollo 8 mission is seen inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, in 1967. The stage was powered by five Rocketdyne-produced F-1 engines, the most powerful liquid-fueled engines ever built in the United States.
- Film Technica: Our top picks for the best films of 2025 - https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/film-technica-our-top-picks-for-the-best-films-of-2025/ - https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/film-technica-our-top-picks-for-the-best-films-of-2025/#comments + Intel launches Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, made using its long-awaited 18A process + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/intel-launches-core-ultra-series-3-cpus-made-using-its-long-awaited-18a-process/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/intel-launches-core-ultra-series-3-cpus-made-using-its-long-awaited-18a-process/#comments - + - Thu, 01 Jan 2026 12:00:40 +0000 - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/film-technica-our-top-picks-for-the-best-films-of-2025/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 03:45:49 +0000 + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/intel-launches-core-ultra-series-3-cpus-made-using-its-long-awaited-18a-process/ - + - Editor’s note: Warning: Although we’ve done our best to avoid spoiling anything too major, please note this list does include a few specific references that some might consider spoiler-y.

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It's been a strange year for movies. Most of the big, splashy tentpole projects proved disappointing, while several more modest films either produced or acquired by streaming platforms—and only briefly released in theaters—wound up making our year-end list. This pattern was not intentional. But streaming platforms have been increasingly moving into the film space with small to medium-sized budgets—i.e., the kind of fare that used to be commonplace but has struggled to compete over the last two decades as blockbusters and elaborate superhero franchises dominated the box office.

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Add in lingering superhero fatigue—only one superhero saga made our final list this year—plus Netflix's controversial bid to acquire Warner Bros., and we just might be approaching a sea change in how movies are made and distributed, and by whom. How this all plays out in the coming year is anybody's guess.

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+ Intel will formally launch its first Core Ultra Series 3 laptop processors later this month, the company announced at its CES keynote today. Codenamed Panther Lake and targeted, at least for now, at high-end ultraportable PCs, the Core Ultra 3 chips will also be the first to use Intel's 18A manufacturing process, the company's effort to catch up with the chip manufacturing technology of Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC).

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The launch will start with 14 chips across five product families, which Intel says will be used in "over 200" PC designs. The first of these will be available on January 27, with others following "throughout the first half of this year."

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  • The Core Ultra X9 and Core Ultra X7 processors include all of Intel's latest CPU and GPU architectures, plus a fully enabled 12-core Intel Arc B390 integrated GPU and support for slightly faster LPDDR5x-9600.
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  • The Core Ultra 9 and 7 processors will use all of the same technologies, but with just four GPU cores and support for either LPDDR5x-8533 or DDR5-7200 DIMMs. But they will offer 20 PCI Express lanes, up from 12 for the X9 and X7, meaning they'll pair better with dedicated GPUs.
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  • The Core Ultra 5 chips are mostly lower-end models with fewer CPU cores, and either 4- or 2-core GPUs. But Intel being Intel, there is one oddball that muddies the waters: the Core Ultra 5 338H, which has 12 CPU cores and a 10-core Intel Arc B370 GPU.
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A Panther Lake refresher

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We wrote about the basic building blocks of Panther Lake when Intel released details late last year. In many ways the chip is a retreat from the Lunar Lake design, sold as Core Ultra 200V, which used chiplets manufactured mostly outside the company and on-package RAM rather than memory in a DIMM slot or soldered to the mainboard. At the time, Intel said these moves were made in the interest of saving power and extending battery life, as were decisions like removing Hyperthreading support from the P-cores.

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- Here we go again: Retiring coal plant forced to stay open by Trump Admin - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/trump-admin-orders-another-coal-plant-to-stay-open/ - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/trump-admin-orders-another-coal-plant-to-stay-open/#comments + AMD reheats last year’s Ryzen AI and X3D CPUs for 2026’s laptops and desktops + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/amd-reheats-last-years-ryzen-ai-and-x3d-cpus-for-2026s-laptops-and-desktops/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/amd-reheats-last-years-ryzen-ai-and-x3d-cpus-for-2026s-laptops-and-desktops/#comments - + - Wed, 31 Dec 2025 16:30:33 +0000 - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/trump-admin-orders-another-coal-plant-to-stay-open/ + Tue, 06 Jan 2026 03:30:30 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/amd-reheats-last-years-ryzen-ai-and-x3d-cpus-for-2026s-laptops-and-desktops/ - + - On Tuesday, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued a now familiar order: because of a supposed energy emergency, a coal plant scheduled for closure would be forced to remain open. This time, the order targeted one of the three units present at Craig Station in Colorado, which was scheduled to close at the end of this year. The remaining two units were expected to shut in 2028.

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The supposed reason for this order is an emergency caused by a shortage of generating capacity. "The reliable supply of power from the coal plant is essential for keeping the region’s electric grid stable," according to a statement issued by the Department of Energy. Yet the Colorado Sun notes that Colorado's Public Utilities Commission had already analyzed the impact of its potential closure, and determined, "Craig Unit 1 is not required for reliability or resource adequacy purposes."

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The order does not require the plant to actually produce electricity; instead, it is ordered to be available in case a shortfall in production occurs. As noted in the Colorado Sun article, actual operation of the plant would potentially violate Colorado laws, which regulate airborne pollution and set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of maintaining the plant is likely to fall on the local ratepayers, who had already adjusted to the closure plans.

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+ Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and other chip companies usually have some kind of news to announce at CES to kick off the year, but some of those announcements are more interesting than others. Sometimes you see new chips with significant speed boosts and other new technologies, and sometimes you get rebranded versions of old silicon meant to fill out a lineup or make an existing architecture seem newer and more exciting than it is.

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AMD's Ryzen CPU announcements this year fall firmly into the latter camp—these are all gently tweaked variants of chips that launched in 2024 and 2025.

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"New," for certain values of "new"

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Let's start with the Ryzen AI 400 series. Officially the follow-up to the Ryzen AI 300 chips announced in June 2024, these processors offer some modest clock speed improvements and faster memory support. The new Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 has a peak boost clock speed of 5.2 GHz and support for LPDDR5x-8533, for example, up from 5.1 GHz and LPDDR5x-8000 for the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, and its built-in neural processing unit (NPU) is capable of 60 trillion operations per second (TOPS) rather than 50 TOPS.

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- 268 + 46 - - -Brian Brainerd None of the three units at the Craig Plant, shown here, were expected to stay open past 2028. + + +AMD
- Supply chains, AI, and the cloud: The biggest failures (and one success) of 2025 - https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/12/supply-chains-ai-and-the-cloud-the-biggest-failures-and-one-success-of-2025/ - https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/12/supply-chains-ai-and-the-cloud-the-biggest-failures-and-one-success-of-2025/#comments + NASA’s science budget won’t be a train wreck after all + https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasas-science-budget-wont-be-a-train-wreck-after-all/ + https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasas-science-budget-wont-be-a-train-wreck-after-all/#comments - + - Wed, 31 Dec 2025 13:15:40 +0000 - - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/12/supply-chains-ai-and-the-cloud-the-biggest-failures-and-one-success-of-2025/ + Mon, 05 Jan 2026 22:14:50 +0000 + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasas-science-budget-wont-be-a-train-wreck-after-all/ - + - In a roundup of the top stories of 2024, Ars included a supply-chain attack that came dangerously close to inflicting a catastrophe for thousands—possibly millions—of organizations, which included a large assortment of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Supply-chain attacks played prominently again this year, as a seemingly unending rash of them hit organizations large and small.

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For threat actors, supply-chain attacks are the gift that keeps on giving—or, if you will, the hack that keeps on hacking. By compromising a single target with a large number of downstream users—say a cloud service or maintainers or developers of widely used open source or proprietary software—attackers can infect potentially millions of the target’s downstream users. That’s exactly what threat actors did in 2025.

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Poisoning the well

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One such event occurred in December 2024, making it worthy of a ranking for 2025. The hackers behind the campaign pocketed as much as $155,000 from thousands of smart-contract parties on the Solana blockchain.

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+ In June, the White House released a budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 that slashed funding for NASA's science programs by nearly 50 percent. Then, in July, the Trump administration began telling the leaders of dozens of space science missions to prepare "closeout" plans for their spacecraft.

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Things looked pretty grim for a while, but then Congress stepped in. Congress, of course, sets the federal government's budget. In many ways, Congress abdicated authority to the Trump administration last year. But not so, it turns out, with federal spending.

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Throughout the summer and fall, as the White House and Congress wrangled over various issues, lawmakers made it clear they intended to fund most of NASA's science portfolio. Preliminary efforts to shut down active missions were put on hold.

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- 17 + 82 - - -Aurich Lawson | Getty Images + + +JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Kevin M. GillA mission to explore Venus is back on the agenda. +
- From prophet to product: How AI came back down to earth in 2025 - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/12/from-prophet-to-product-how-ai-came-back-down-to-earth-in-2025/ - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/12/from-prophet-to-product-how-ai-came-back-down-to-earth-in-2025/#comments + Under anti-vaccine RFK Jr., CDC slashes childhood vaccine schedule + https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/01/under-anti-vaccine-rfk-jr-cdc-slashes-childhood-vaccine-schedule/ + https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/01/under-anti-vaccine-rfk-jr-cdc-slashes-childhood-vaccine-schedule/#comments - + - Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:31 +0000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/12/from-prophet-to-product-how-ai-came-back-down-to-earth-in-2025/ + Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:57:07 +0000 + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/01/under-anti-vaccine-rfk-jr-cdc-slashes-childhood-vaccine-schedule/ - + - Following two years of immense hype in 2023 and 2024, this year felt more like a settling-in period for the LLM-based token prediction industry. After more than two years of public fretting over AI models as future threats to human civilization or the seedlings of future gods, it's starting to look like hype is giving way to pragmatism: Today's AI can be very useful, but it's also clearly imperfect and prone to mistakes.

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That view isn't universal, of course. There's a lot of money (and rhetoric) betting on a stratospheric, world-rocking trajectory for AI. But the "when" keeps getting pushed back, and that's because nearly everyone agrees that more significant technical breakthroughs are required. The original, lofty claims that we're on the verge of artificial general intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence (ASI) have not disappeared. Still, there's a growing awareness that such proclaimations are perhaps best viewed as venture capital marketing. And every commercial foundational model builder out there has to grapple with the reality that, if they're going to make money now, they have to sell practical AI-powered solutions that perform as reliable tools.

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This has made 2025 a year of wild juxtapositions. For example, in January, OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, claimed that the company knew how to build AGI, but by November, he was publicly celebrating that GPT-5.1 finally learned to use em dashes correctly when instructed (but not always). Nvidia soared past a $5 trillion valuation, with Wall Street still projecting high price targets for that company's stock while some banks warned of the potential for an AI bubble that might rival the 2000s dotcom crash.

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+ Under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., federal health officials on Monday announced a sweeping and unprecedented overhaul of federal vaccine recommendations, abruptly paring down recommended immunizations for children from 17 to 11.

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Officials claimed the rationale for the change was to align US vaccine recommendations more closely with those of other high-income countries, namely Denmark, a small, far less diverse country of around 6 million people (smaller than the population of New York City) that has universal health care. The officials also claim the change is necessary to address the decline in public trust in vaccinations, which has been driven by anti-vaccine activists, including Kennedy.

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"This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health," Kennedy said in a statement.

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- 187 + 165 - - -Aurich Lawson | Getty Images + + +Getty | Will OliverRobert F. Kennedy Jr., US secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), during an announcement in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on Dec. 19, 2025.
- The science of how (and when) we decide to self-censor - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/the-science-of-how-and-when-we-decide-to-speak-out-or-self-censor/ - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/the-science-of-how-and-when-we-decide-to-speak-out-or-self-censor/#comments + The nation’s strictest privacy law just took effect, to data brokers’ chagrin + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/data-broker-hoarding-is-rampant-new-law-lets-consumers-fight-back/ + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/data-broker-hoarding-is-rampant-new-law-lets-consumers-fight-back/#comments - + - Tue, 30 Dec 2025 21:30:04 +0000 - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/the-science-of-how-and-when-we-decide-to-speak-out-or-self-censor/ + Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:42:14 +0000 + + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/data-broker-hoarding-is-rampant-new-law-lets-consumers-fight-back/ - + - Freedom of speech is a foundational principle of healthy democracies and hence a primary target for aspiring authoritarians, who typically try to squash dissent. There is a point where the threat from authorities is sufficiently severe that a population will self-censor rather than risk punishment. Social media has complicated matters, blurring traditional boundaries between public and private speech, while new technologies such as facial recognition and moderation algorithms give authoritarians powerful new tools.

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Researchers explored the nuanced dynamics of how people balance their desire to speak out vs their fear of punishment in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The authors had previously worked together on a model of political polarization, a project that wrapped up right around the time the social media space was experiencing significant changes in the ways different platforms were handling moderation. Some adopted a decidedly hands-off approach with little to no moderation. Weibo, on the other hand, began releasing the IP addresses of people who posted objectionable commentary, essentially making them targets.

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+ Californians are getting a new, supercharged way to stop data brokers from hoarding and selling their personal information, as a recently enacted law that’s among the strictest in the nation took effect at the beginning of the year.

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According to the California Privacy Protection Agency, more than 500 companies actively scour all sorts of sources for scraps of information about individuals, then package and store it to sell to marketers, private investigators, and others.

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The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog said in 2024 that brokers trawl automakers, tech companies, junk-food restaurants, device makers, and others for financial info, purchases, family situations, eating, exercising, travel, entertainment habits, and just about any other imaginable information belonging to millions of people.

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- Lawsuit over Trump rejecting medical research grants is settled - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/feds-researchers-settle-suit-over-grants-blocked-by-now-illegal-order/ - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/feds-researchers-settle-suit-over-grants-blocked-by-now-illegal-order/#comments + Anna’s Archive loses .org domain, says suspension likely unrelated to Spotify piracy + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/annas-archive-loses-org-domain-says-suspension-likely-unrelated-to-spotify-piracy/ + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/annas-archive-loses-org-domain-says-suspension-likely-unrelated-to-spotify-piracy/#comments - + - Tue, 30 Dec 2025 20:45:34 +0000 + Mon, 05 Jan 2026 20:38:48 +0000 - - - - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/12/feds-researchers-settle-suit-over-grants-blocked-by-now-illegal-order/ + + + + https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/annas-archive-loses-org-domain-says-suspension-likely-unrelated-to-spotify-piracy/ - + - On Monday, the ACLU announced that it and other organizations representing medical researchers had reached a settlement in their suit against the federal government over grant applications that had been rejected under a policy that has since been voided by the court. The agreement, which still has to be approved by the judge overseeing the case, would see the National Institutes of Health restart reviews of grants that had been blocked on ideological grounds. It doesn't guarantee those grants will ultimately be funded, but it does mean they will go through the standard peer review process.

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The grants had previously been rejected without review because their content was ideologically opposed by the Trump administration. That policy has since been declared arbitrary and capricious, and thus in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, a decision that was upheld by the Supreme Court.

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How'd we get here?

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Immediately after taking office, the Trump Administration identified a number of categories of research, some of them extremely vague, that it would not be supporting: climate change, DEI, pandemic preparedness, gender ideology, and more. Shortly thereafter, federal agencies started cancelling grants that they deemed to contain elements of these disfavored topics, and blocking consideration of grant applications for the same reasons. As a result, grants were cancelled that funded everything from research into antiviral drugs to the incidence of prostate cancer in African Americans.

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+ The primary domain of Shadow library Anna's Archive was taken offline, with annas-archive.org being put under the serverHold status. While Anna's Archive recently made waves with a massive "backup" of Spotify, the shadow library's operator said the music pirating doesn't appear to be connected to the .org domain suspension. Anna's Archive remains available at several other domains.

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Anna's Archive launched in 2022 in response to the US Department of Justice seizure of domains used by e-book pirate site Z-Library. Acting as a shadow library and a search engine for other shadow libraries, Anna's Archive aims to archive books and other written materials and make them widely available via torrents. Its data sets have also been heavily used by AI companies to train large language models.

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In addition to mirroring shadow libraries such as Sci-Hub, Library Genesis, and Z-Library, Anna's Archive made a major move into music pirating two weeks ago with an announcement that it scraped Spotify and made a 300TB copy of the most streamed songs. Despite that development, the person behind Anna's Archive said the domain suspension doesn't seem to be related to the Spotify scraping.

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- 73 + 68 - - -The Washington Post + + +Getty Images | Anadolu
- DOGE did not find $2T in fraud, but that doesn’t matter, Musk allies say - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/doge-did-not-find-2t-in-fraud-but-that-doesnt-matter-musk-allies-say/ - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/doge-did-not-find-2t-in-fraud-but-that-doesnt-matter-musk-allies-say/#comments + Stewart Cheifet, PBS host who chronicled the PC revolution, dies at 87 + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/stewart-cheifet-pbs-host-who-chronicled-the-pc-revolution-dies-at-87/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/stewart-cheifet-pbs-host-who-chronicled-the-pc-revolution-dies-at-87/#comments - + - Tue, 30 Dec 2025 20:30:01 +0000 - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/doge-did-not-find-2t-in-fraud-but-that-doesnt-matter-musk-allies-say/ + Mon, 05 Jan 2026 20:28:06 +0000 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/stewart-cheifet-pbs-host-who-chronicled-the-pc-revolution-dies-at-87/ - + - Determining how "successful" Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) truly was depends on who you ask, but it's increasingly hard to claim that DOGE made any sizable dent in federal spending, which was its primary goal.

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Just two weeks ago, Musk himself notably downplayed DOGE as only being "a little bit successful" on a podcast, marking one of the first times that Musk admitted DOGE didn't live up to its promise. Then, more recently, on Monday, Musk revived evidence-free claims he made while campaigning for Donald Trump, insisting that government fraud remained vast and unchecked, seemingly despite DOGE's efforts. On X, he estimated that "my lower bound guess for how much fraud there is nationally is [about 20 percent] of the Federal budget, which would mean $1.5 trillion per year. Probably much higher."

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Musk loudly left DOGE in May after clashing with Trump, complaining that a Trump budget bill threatened to undermine DOGE's work. These days, Musk does not appear confident that DOGE was worth the trouble of wading into government. Although he said on the December podcast that he considered DOGE to be his "best side quest" ever, the billionaire confirmed that if given the chance to go back in time, he probably would not have helmed the agency as a special government employee.

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+ Stewart Cheifet, the television producer and host who documented the personal computer revolution for nearly two decades on PBS, died on December 28, 2025, at age 87 in Philadelphia. Cheifet created and hosted Computer Chronicles, which ran on the public television network from 1983 to 2002 and helped demystify a new tech medium for millions of American viewers.

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Computer Chronicles covered everything from the earliest IBM PCs and Apple Macintosh models to the rise of the World Wide Web and the dot-com boom. Cheifet conducted interviews with computing industry figures, including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos, while demonstrating hardware and software for a general audience.

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From 1983 to 1990, he co-hosted the show with Gary Kildall, the Digital Research founder who created the popular CP/M operating system that predated MS-DOS on early personal computer systems.

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- 268 + 50 - - -Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Images News + + +Stewart CheifetStewart Cheifet, seen in a promotional hand-out he used in the 2000s.
- NJ’s answer to flooding: it has bought out and demolished 1,200 properties - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/as-floods-become-more-severe-a-new-jersey-program-provides-a-model/ - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/as-floods-become-more-severe-a-new-jersey-program-provides-a-model/#comments + Amazon Alexa+ released to the general public via an early access website + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/amazon-alexa-released-to-the-general-public-via-an-early-access-website/ + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/amazon-alexa-released-to-the-general-public-via-an-early-access-website/#comments - + - Tue, 30 Dec 2025 20:00:43 +0000 - - - - - - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/as-floods-become-more-severe-a-new-jersey-program-provides-a-model/ + Mon, 05 Jan 2026 20:01:12 +0000 + + + + + + https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/amazon-alexa-released-to-the-general-public-via-an-early-access-website/ - + - MANVILLE, N.J.—Richard Onderko said he will never forget the terrifying Saturday morning back in 1971 when the water rose so swiftly at his childhood home here that he and his brother had to be rescued by boat as the torrential rain from the remnants of Hurricane Doria swept through the neighborhood.

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It wasn’t the first time—or the last—that the town endured horrific downpours. In fact, the working-class town of 11,000, about 25 miles southwest of Newark, has long been known for getting swamped by tropical storms, nor’easters or even just a wicked rain. It was so bad, Onderko recalled, that the constant threat of flooding had strained his parents’ marriage, with his mom wanting to sell and his dad intent on staying.

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Eventually, his parents moved to Florida, selling the two-story house on North Second Avenue in 1995. But the new homeowner didn’t do so well either when storms hit, and in 2015, the property was sold one final time: to a state-run program that buys and demolishes houses in flood zones and permanently restores the property to open space.

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+ Anyone can now try Alexa+, Amazon’s generative AI assistant, through a free early access program at Alexa.com. The website frees the AI, which Amazon released via early access in February, from hardware and makes it as easily accessible as more established chatbots, like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.

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Until today, you needed a supporting device to access Alexa+. Amazon hasn’t said when the early access period will end, but when it does, Alexa+ will be included with Amazon Prime memberships, which start at $15 per month, or cost $20 per month on its own.

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The above pricing suggests that Amazon wants Alexa+ to drive people toward Prime subscriptions. By being interwoven with Amazon’s shopping ecosystem, including Amazon's e-commerce platform, grocery delivery business, and Whole Foods, Alexa+ can make more money for Amazon.

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- 73 + 44 - - -Bobby BankHeavy rains cause flooding in Manville, New Jersey on April 16, 2007. + + +Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesAlexa+ signage during an unveiling event in New York, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. Amazon has rebooted Alexa with artificial intelligence, marking the biggest overhaul of the voice-activated assistant since its introduction over a decade ago.
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