Chrome’s Manifest V3, and its changes for ad blocking, are coming real soon

Chrome’s Manifest V3, and its changes for ad blocking, are coming real soon

Ron Amadeo Google Chrome’s long, long project to implement a new browser extension platform is seemingly going to happen, for real, after six years of cautious movement. One of the first ways people are seeing this is if they use uBlock Origin, a popular ad-blocking extension, as noted by Bleeping Computer. Recently, Chrome users have…

Testing shows “significant durability” problems with edge-lit LCD TVs

Testing shows “significant durability” problems with edge-lit LCD TVs

Enlarge / Samsung’s 2022 The Frame is one of the edge-lit TVs that RTINGs tested. Samsung Thin LCD-LED TVs are appealing because they’re easy to find space for and are aesthetically pleasing. To stay slim, most thin TVs, like Samsung’s The Frame pictured above, use edge-lit backlights. But beyond the image quality limitations of these…

Apple reports record revenues despite stagnant iPhone sales

Apple reports record revenues despite stagnant iPhone sales

Enlarge / Apple CEO Tim Cook. Lionel Hahn/Getty Images Apple reported its earnings results for the third quarter of the 2024 fiscal year, and it satisfied investors’ expectations at the top level with 5 percent growth year over year. The company set a third-quarter record with $85.8 billion in revenue. Despite that growth, a couple…

Now that decent Arm-powered PCs exist, Qualcomm’s CEO wants to make them cheaper

Now that decent Arm-powered PCs exist, Qualcomm’s CEO wants to make them cheaper

Enlarge / Microsoft’s Arm-powered Surface Laptop 7. We’re still waiting for Arm chips to make their way into cheaper PCs. Andrew Cunningham For the first time in the decade-plus that Microsoft has been trying to make Arm-powered Windows PCs happen, we’ve finally got some pretty good ones. The latest Surface Pro and Surface Laptop (and…

Nothing’s new AI widget is trying to make its CFO a news star

Nothing’s new AI widget is trying to make its CFO a news star

Nothing has a new smartphone—the Phone (2a) Plus—nearly identical to the Phone (2a) it released earlier this year, but with slightly beefed-up specs. It costs $399 and is available in the US through the same beta program. But it isn’t the new Android handset we find most interesting, it’s the company’s new widget. The “News…

Microsoft strips ads from Skype in a move toward “user-centric design”

Microsoft strips ads from Skype in a move toward “user-centric design”

Enlarge / A marketing image by Microsoft for the desktop version of Skype. Microsoft If you’ve used Microsoft’s Skype in recent years, you’ve probably noticed that the user experience is less than ideal because of the pervasiveness of ads in the software. Fortunately, that’s going to change in a new update coming to all platforms…

Blocking AI bots from Microsoft, others has been “pain in the a**”: Reddit CEO

Blocking AI bots from Microsoft, others has been “pain in the a**”: Reddit CEO

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is standing by Reddit’s decision to block companies from scraping the site without an AI agreement. Last week, 404 Media noticed that search engines that weren’t Google were no longer listing recent Reddit posts in results. This was because Reddit updated its Robots Exclusion Protocol (txt file) to block bots from…

“AI toothbrushes” are coming for your teeth—and your data

“AI toothbrushes” are coming for your teeth—and your data

Enlarge / Oclean’s X Ultra, released in July, has optional Wi-Fi connectivity. Oclean One of the most unlikely passengers on the AI gadgets hype train is the toothbrush. With claims of using advanced algorithms and companion apps to help you brush your teeth better, toothbrushes have become a tech product for some brands. So-called “AI…

Next-gen Intel Core Ultra chips with boosted GPU and NPU are coming in September

Next-gen Intel Core Ultra chips with boosted GPU and NPU are coming in September

Enlarge / Intel’s Lunar Lake Core Ultra CPUs will be announced in September. Intel Intel announced today that it plans to launch its next-generation Core Ultra laptop chips on September 3, just ahead of this year’s IFA conference in Berlin. This announcement-of-an-announcement offers few specifics on what the next-gen chips will be like beyond promising “breakthrough…