Technology

• Avalanche Studios' Contraband is seemingly no more
• The game only ever received one public-facing CG trailer
• There has been no news on the game in the four years since its announcement

Xbox Game Studios has canceled Contraband, a game I wouldn't blame you for not remembering, as we only ever saw it once in the form of a CG trailer.

Contraband, being developed by Just Cause and Mad Max's Avalanche Studios, was initially revealed in 2021, accompanied by a trailer that didn't give much away beyond its gritty 1970s setting.

Initially reported by Bloomberg, it seems that Contraband has now been canceled, or has at least had its development halted for the time being. Reporter Jason Schreier states that the project has been canceled "after four years of radio silence."

Avalanche Studios followed up with confirmation on its own website, saying: "Over the past several years, Avalanche Studios Group and Xbox Game Studios Publishing have collaborated on Contraband. Active development has now stopped while we evaluate the project's future. We're thankful for the excitement we've seen from the community since we announced and will give an update on what's next as soon as we can."

A cancellation at this point may not be all that surprising for Contraband, but regardless, it's not a good look for Xbox. The company recently canceled two high-profile games in Rare's Everwild and The Initiative's Perfect Dark reboot. That's in conjunction with another recent round of mass layoffs, where thousands of employees across several studios were let go.

Back in July, Xbox boss Phil Spencer described the actions taken as "tough decisions," claiming Xbox's "platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger" despite the seeming instability of the Xbox Game Studios umbrella.

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• Google pledges $1 billion in funding for AI education and training across the US
• Eligible students also get 12 months' Google AI Pro, with Gemini 2.5 Pro and more
• The news comes just weeks after Microsoft announced a similar scheme, but at 4x the value

Google has confirmed a commitment to spend $1 billion over the next three years to support AI education and training across the US, targeting colleges, universities and nonprofits.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai explained in a blog post more than 100 colleges and universities have already signed up to its AI for Education Accelerator program, which hopes to make AI and career training free for every college student in America.

Google's training efforts add to its already extensive involvement within education – the company already runs schemes to get Chromebooks into the hands of students in multiple countries and regions.

Google wants to train America's students in AI

In the post, Pichai explained his own personal motivation for the project: "Having regular access to computers in grad school changed my life, and led me on the path to Google. It’s my hope that bringing the best AI tools to college students will open up new worlds for them, too."

The latest announcement sees eligible students across the US, as well as Japan, Indonesia, Korea and Brazil, able to sign up for a year's free Google AI Pro plan with Gemini 2.5 Pro access, Deep Research via Gemini 2.5 Pro, Veo 3, higher limits for Jules, NotebookLM and 2TB of storage.

Boasting about its presence across the education sector, and offering a small dig at Microsoft which previously dominated the area, Pichai noted that more than four in five of the top 100 US universities now use Google Workspace for Education.

However, Google isn't the only company investing in upskilling the current generation of students and our future workforce.

Microsoft President Brad Smith recently shared details of a $4 billion investment in AI and cloud technology for K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, and nonprofits. Other companies in this space, including Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic and Amazon have all pledged their own support, too.

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• Available for Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro
• Requires Android 16 and One UI 8
• One UI is still a beta for some Galaxy phones

As promised, Samsung has begun the rollout of Gemini support to its Galaxy Buds 3 earbuds. It's a free update, and it's easy enough to get and install. But there's one caveat: you might need to install beta software on your phone.

Gemini doesn't run on the earbuds themselves – it's far too demanding to run natively – so it needs your phone or tablet to act as a messenger between your mouth and Gemini's ears.

As 9to5Google reports, at the moment the updates appear to be exclusively for phones running the One UI 8 atop Android 16. That's factory-fitted on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and on the Galaxy Z Flip 7, but for the Samsung Galaxy S25 series One UI 8 is still a beta – ie. a pre-release version of the operating system, that while available (to a select group of users) is meant for testing.

(Image credit: Samsung)How to get Gemini on the Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro

If you have a Galaxy S25 Series or older, the stable version of the One UI 8 software isn't due until late September 2025. However, there is a beta version and from next week it will be available for more devices including the Galaxy S24 Series, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Galaxy Z Flip 6. The beta will expand further next month to include the S23, Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5 and several A-series models.

Once you've got One UI 8 up and running, the next stage is to check for software updates for your earbuds… and then pray. I'm being dramatic there, but only slightly: the Gemini upgrade is reportedly "wonky" and results may differ from device to device.

If you've got the update, you should now see a new "Set up Google digital assistant" option at the top of the Voice Controls section in Samsung's app. This enables you to set up the Gemini integration with your smartphone or tablet.

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• Unidentified hackers access Air France and KLM through a third-party service provider
• The attackers stole names, contact details, and more
• Passport data was not compromised

Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines have confirmed recently suffering cyberattacks in which both airlines lost sensitive customer data.

The companies, both owned by the same airline holding firm, sent out data breach notification letters to affected customers, and in a statement shared with Tweakers, KLM said the incident happened when threat actors broke into a third-party service provider.

“Unusual activity was detected on a third-party platform used by our contact centres, which led our IT security team, together with the third-party system involved, to swiftly implement corrective measures to put an end to the incident,” the company also told Cybernews.

Was it Scattered Spider?

We don’t know exactly how many people were affected by the breach, but the airlines transport more than 80 million people every year.

The information stolen in this attack include people’s full names, contact details, Flying Blue numbers and tier levels, and subject lines of service request emails.

Luckily, passport numbers, payment card details, passwords, or Flying Blue Miles (the airline’s loyalty program) balances were not stolen.

There was no word on the attackers, and no one claimed responsibility for the attack.

However, in late June 2025, the FBI warned Scattered Spider hackers were now increasing targeting airlines.

Scattered Spider works by impersonating company staff, and convincing support employees from the IT department that they lost access to their corporate accounts.

After gaining initial access, they map out the company, identify high-level individuals, and then repeat the process until they gain access to accounts through which they can steal data.

The hacking group struck Qantas in early July 2025, and Hawaiian Airlines in late June, and Russian Aeroflot, American GlobalX, and Canadian WestJet have all suffered similar incidents in recent months.

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• A video of an iPhone 17 Pro dummy unit in orange has leaked
• This shade is far more eye-catching than most Pro iPhone colors
• Viewers are very mixed on whether it's a good color or not

Leaks suggest that – along with understated black, white, and dark blue shades – the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max might be sold in orange, and now a video has given us our best look yet at a dummy unit in that color.

Shared by leaker Majin Bu, you can see that this is quite a striking shade, and far more colorful than Apple’s Pro models tend to be. Whether it’s a good color is more debatable – Bu says it “looks so good”, but many of the replies to their post are a lot more negative.

@AnxiousHolly, for example, said “this looks hideous”, while @black0nder said “the worst color in iPhone history”. But @YSL_Laurentttt said “Let that be official and I’m getting the 17 Pro”, and @vernons said “if it really looks like that, it could be the winner in this year's upgrade.” So, this really does seem to be a love-it-or-hate-it shade.

iPhone 17 Pro orange looks so good pic.twitter.com/N9ehzP6ldnAugust 7, 2025

A good move

Whatever you think of this specific color choice, though, we’d say it’s a positive sign that Apple might offer such a shade, as it could mean the company is getting more comfortable with the idea that its Pro phones don’t always have to be sold in smart, understated shades.

We’ve long been calling for more colorful premium phones, so perhaps Apple is finally listening. But whether we’ll see more might depend on how well this orange shade sells.

And that’s assuming Apple really does launch an iPhone 17 Pro in this color. For now, we’d take this rumor with a pinch of salt, but we should find out soon, as the iPhone 17 series is likely to land in early September, with one leak pointing to September 9.

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Enterprise cloud demands have evolved beyond the early drivers of adoption. Now, more than ever, businesses must be prepared to scale at a moment’s notice. Meeting unexpected user demand while maintaining service levels is an ongoing challenge. At the same time, cloud computing workloads are becoming increasingly specialized, requiring optimized solutions across CPUs, DPUs, and AI accelerators to fully harness cloud-native architectures and frameworks.

As a result, cloud spending has become a critical operational priority. According to Flexera, nearly half of all workloads and data are now in the public cloud. In fact, 72% of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) are prioritizing cloud optimization as a key organizational initiative to drive cost savings.

These trends highlight the importance of right-sizing cloud solutions. Enterprises must ensure that their infrastructure is optimized for their specific business needs and workload requirements. The right cloud strategy delivers flexibility, security, performance, and cost efficiency, all of which are fundamental to maintaining a competitive edge.

Why the Time is Now

Cloud computing has long been the backbone of modern digital infrastructure, primarily built around general-purpose computing. However, the era of one-size-fits-all cloud solutions is rapidly fading in a business environment increasingly dominated by AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Legacy cloud solutions struggle to meet the computational intensity of deep learning models, preventing organizations from fully realizing the benefits of their investments.

At the same time, cloud-native architectures have become the standard, as businesses face mounting pressure to innovate, reduce time-to-market, and optimize costs. Without a cloud-optimized IT infrastructure, organizations risk losing key operational advantages—such as maximizing performance efficiency and minimizing security risks in a multi-cloud environment—ultimately negating the benefits of cloud-native adoption.

Moreover, running AI workloads at scale without an optimized cloud infrastructure leads to unnecessary energy consumption, increasing both operational costs and environmental impact. This inefficiency strains financial resources and undermines corporate sustainability goals, which are now under greater scrutiny from stakeholders who prioritize green initiatives.

Beyond performance gains, security is yet another critical consideration when selecting cloud-optimized hardware that often goes underappreciated. Cloud-optimized hardware often provide a strong suite of advanced security features, such as confidential computing. These technologies ensure that sensitive data remains encrypted while in use, reducing the risk of physical DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Module) attacks or virtual threats in hyperconverged infrastructure environments.

As the risks of data breaches continue to escalate – both in financial and reputational terms – organizations must recognize that leaving cloud environments unprotected is no longer an option. The rise of sophisticated cyber threats, from rogue hackers to nation-state-sponsored actors, makes enhanced cloud security a non-negotiable priority.

Your 2025 cloud optimization playbook

Furthermore, as industries push forward with the adoption and deployment of AI tools, IT leaders must ensure that their cloud infrastructure can support compute-intensive workloads while balancing cost, security, and efficiency considerations. While each organization's computing needs are unique, IT teams embarking on hardware modernization should consider the following:

Performance: Are your cloud instances equipped for the level of compute performance your business requires? Cloud infrastructure must support a range of workloads, from web front-end applications to in-memory analytics and heavy transactional processing.

Cost and efficiency: Can you reduce your cloud footprint by running the same workloads on fewer servers? Prioritizing instances with high compute density allows businesses to run more VMs or containers per server, achieving significant cost and energy efficiency benefits.

Security: Does your cloud instance provide the level of data protection you require? Confidential computing helps mitigate security risks by protecting data in use, reducing vulnerabilities in virtualized environments.

Ecosystem: Opting for processors powered by industry-standard x86 architecture simplifies cloud environments, making it easier to develop, maintain, and migrate applications with minimal disruption.

Unseen optimization, tangible impact

For IT decision-makers, understanding the cost implications of each 'unit of work' is crucial when selecting cloud instances. Traditional infrastructure forces enterprises to choose between overprovisioning resources – leading to unnecessary expenses – or under provisioning, which can cause performance bottlenecks. Cloud-optimized hardware changes this equation by enabling businesses to achieve more with fewer resources while maintaining high levels of performance, security, and efficiency.

As cloud technologies continue to evolve, enterprises that prioritize modernization will reap the benefits of seamless scalability, improved sustainability, and a resilient digital foundation for future innovation. In a world where agility is critical, cloud optimization is no longer a luxury—it is a business imperative for staying competitive in 2025 and beyond.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

‘Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should’. While this famous line from Jurassic Park is a poignant reminder of the dangers of unchecked ambition, it can also be applied to today’s rapidly evolving and fragmented AI landscape.

The mainstream availability of AI has compounded issues with shadow IT, as employees increasingly sidestep governance to deploy powerful, self-service AI tools. In this environment, many businesses are faced with how to manage the element of control when unmanaged AI systems start making critical business decisions based on fragmented, unverified data.

Like John Hammond’s ambitious yet doomed theme park, some organizations are now creating something powerful without fully understanding the risks or having proper containment measures in place.

It’s become a business imperative to find ways to ensure AI-ready data is trusted, compliant, and seamlessly connected. Here we explore the unintended consequences of AI-driven shadow IT and why businesses need a structured approach to data management to avoid costly mistakes.

The rise of AI-powered shadow IT

Shadow IT is not a new challenge, but AI takes it to a new level. With so many generative tools now readily available, employees can solve problems, generate content, or make recommendations at speed. This happens often without needing any technical expertise or approval.

This speed is both a blessing and a risk. In their enthusiasm to experiment and move fast, teams often pull data from disparate sources, bypassing enterprise-grade controls in favor of quick, isolated fixes. Over time, these short-term solutions accumulate, and organizations are left with a patchwork of systems, models and insights that don’t speak the same language.

The risk isn’t just that teams are duplicating efforts or misinterpreting data. Business-critical decisions affecting customers, supply chains, product development and strategic direction are increasingly being made based on unverified siloed information. When AI systems operating on flawed data foundations make recommendations that influence growth strategies, the potential for bias or error multiplies exponentially.

Unify and trust your data

The antidote to this growing risk is not to clamp down on experimentation. It’s to build the right data foundation, one that supports innovation while maintaining context and integrity.

This means giving employees access to high-quality, AI-ready data from across the business. It’s essential to build one harmonized layer that connects all business AI applications and ensures that everyone from developers to decision-makers can rely on a single source of truth.

This foundation keeps context intact, so the entire business can see where, how, when and why data was produced, building trust and accurately informing decisions. When data is unified, it also supports regulatory demands and keeps the business agile to future compliance requirements.

The cost of siloed data and duplicated spend

There’s a significant cost benefit to this too. When growth is the unanimous business goal, organizations cannot afford to hemorrhage spend on an inefficient IT landscape.

It’s estimated that organizations today spend up to 50% of their IT budgets on data and analytics, with a significant portion of that going on attempts to harmonize disconnected data sources. Yet, despite these efforts, many businesses still lack a continuous, unified data layer that brings these sources together in a coherent, usable way.

That’s not just inefficient, it’s a missed opportunity. In the age of AI, the power of data lies not just in how much you have, but in how well it’s connected. Without a shared foundation, AI models risk drawing the wrong conclusions or being trained on outdated information.

This in turn leads to additional budgetary pressures. Businesses need to confidently scale AI across functions, knowing insights are accurate, secure and compliant.

From raw data to business outcomes

To move from raw data to real business outcomes, organizations need more than just infrastructure. They need a strategic approach to data and analytics that supports decision-making at every level.

This means combining new technologies with existing business processes to create enriched, curated data products that deliver meaningful value. It means equipping users with advanced analytics, benchmarking tools and AI-powered insights applications that can both interpret the data and recommend actions.

This strategic approach helps limit the spread of shadow IT by reducing the need for employees to seek out unapproved tools or shortcuts. By aligning data initiatives with established governance frameworks and cultural values, organizations can ensure consistency, compliance and trust in the data being used. At the same time, it creates space for innovation and agility, enabling teams to move quickly and confidently within a well-defined structure.

When done right, the benefits are clear: smarter decisions, faster responses and better outcomes across the board.

Creating a culture of AI confidence

Ultimately, the question businesses need to ask is not whether they’re prepared to use AI, but whether they’re ready to do it responsibly and reliably.

Readiness starts with a strong data foundation, ensuring that information is accurate, accessible and well-governed. It means empowering teams with tools and guidance to innovate responsibly, creating a culture where experimentation with the right tools is encouraged.

The lesson from Jurassic Park was not that innovation is dangerous. It’s that innovation without structure, without guardrails and without consideration of the bigger picture can quickly spiral out of control.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 8

• OpenAI's GPT-5 debut included the reveal of a new integration that allows ChatGPT Pro users to link their Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts directly to the chatbot
• ChatGPT can summarize your day, create a schedule, and flag important emails
• Though an opt-in feature requiring user confirmation, privacy issues are likely to be raised

The spectacle of GPT-5 may have overshadowed some of OpenAI's other news during its livestream on Thursday, but the demonstration of ChatGPT's new ability to directly peruse and analyze a user's Google data caught my eye as a major moment in ChatGPT's development and OpenAI's battle for supremacy among AI chatbots.

The new feature enables ChatGPT users to connect the AI chatbot to their Gmail, Google Contacts, and Google Calendar data. The demo showed ChatGPT responding to a request to see a schedule of the following day by going through the user's calendar and email inbox, then rapidly compiling a complete and complex schedule, including important unread emails to respond to.

This may not sound like a breakthrough to anyone who’s already overwhelmed with their digital list of things to do, but ChatGPT sorting that information and putting it in front of you might actually lower your stress, at least judging by the demo.

It's easy to imagine an AI outline for your day, or a nudge to handle that still-unread message, reducing the mental workload by cutting out the tedious sorting and linking of scheduled events to relevant emails. You might say, “What’s on my plate today?” and see your calendar paired with that flagged email. That would mean no more toggling between Gmail and your calendar, squinting at what's urgent.

Further, the data could help ChatGPT learn more about you and your needs by reading the meeting invites you've sent, deadlines you've barely hit, and RSVPs you sent the second you got the invite. For now, this option is only available to ChatGPT Pro users, though OpenAI promised it would become more widely available soon.

ChatGPT won't sneak a peek at your messages

That said, the idea of handing over Gmail and Calendar data to ChatGPT might raise an eyebrow or two for good reason. Gmail could hold confirmation of doctor appointments and secret romantic rendezvous plans.

Don't worry about inadvertently sharing those details with ChatGPT, though. You'll need to opt in to link your accounts to ChatGPT and confirm actions before they occur, which will prevent any emails from being sent automatically.

Then again, there are plenty of smart scheduling bots and email add-ons that automatically pull event details or remind you about missed invites. But ChatGPT’s integration adds actual conversation to the mix. You don’t forward an email or set up complex rules of how the automated system should respond to certain family members. You just type in regular language, and it will act more like a human secretary.

Assuming you're okay with the concept, you can see how those who use Google and ChatGPT might value linking the two. Especially if you're not a fan of Google Gemini for one reason or another. You might long to have an AI chatbot connected to your Google account, but simply prefer ChatGPT to Gemini. OpenAI wants to give you that option.

If Google doesn't have an exclusive claim to linking your email and calendar to an AI chatbot, then OpenAI can hope to win out in other areas where it may feel it has the advantage, like the power of GPT-5. You just have to be okay with letting ChatGPT see which weddings you'll be attending in the next few months.

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• Hard drives sold as new contained decade-old internals from previously used Seagate and Western Digital units
• SMART data was manipulated to hide prior usage, masking serious mechanical and read error issues
• Attingo analysis revealed leftover user data, proving zeroing only touched the start of storage sectors

A recent case involving UnionSine-branded external hard drives has raised serious questions about the integrity of some products sold through Amazon’s marketplace.

An investigation by data recovery company Attingo uncovered supposedly "new" hard drives contained 2.5" HDDs from major brands like Seagate and Western Digital manufactured over a decade ago.

These findings contradict the product labelling, which lists a manufacturing date from spring 2025.

Used drives masquerading as new

The drives were sold under the identifier HD2510 during Amazon’s Tech Week promotional period, and were assumed by buyers to be new portable HDDs suitable for regular backup and storage use.

Attingo’s teardown of the drives revealed not just their age, but also signs of previous use, with the evidence extending beyond the hardware identifiers.

The company said some of the HDDs still contained fragments of user data, with only the beginning of the data fields zeroed out.

This practice, commonly used to simulate full data erasure, failed to eliminate all traces of prior use.

One recovered XML file even contained a timestamp from May 2024, pointing to very recent activity inconsistent with a supposedly unused device.

Some of the data traces were linked to TV recording systems, suggesting that the drives had once been in operational environments.

Attingo also noted inconsistencies in SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) data, which is used by operating systems to assess hard drive health.

Although the displayed operating hours suggested zero usage, other key metrics, such as the read error rate, told a different story.

This kind of manipulation has been seen before in fraud cases involving repurposed HDDs, especially those sold through gray market channels.

The presence of numerous read errors and mechanical anomalies conflicted with the SMART status, indicating a fresh drive.

The fact that this issue emerged from a well-known retail platform, rather than a niche marketplace or obscure online store, is of particular concern.

Attingo CEO Markus Häfele expressed alarm at the findings, saying the situation was not only misleading to consumers but also potentially dangerous from a data protection standpoint.

"It's unfortunately well known that used hardware is occasionally declared as new on platforms like eBay or in direct imports from Asian retailers – but the fact that this is happening systematically as part of a widely advertised Amazon campaign is truly scandalous," Häfele said.

Though the incident has sparked renewed concern about the reliability of NAS HDDs and external storage devices offered through third-party sellers online, Amazon has yet to respond to the allegations.

Via Computerbase

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OpenAI’s much‑anticipated livestream reveal of GPT‑5 crammed a lot into about an hour and a half of announcements and demonstrations. CEO Sam Altman didn't show any of the fear he claimed to feel about the new AI model, just a lot of pride at what he and his team had accomplished.

Much of the presentation showed off GPT-5's technical milestones and how they translate into powerful new and upgraded AI features for users. Altman also had some lighter fare to unveil for ChatGPT, offering more customization options and ways for users to link their existing online footprint to ChatGPT.

Here are the five most notable pieces to emerge from GPT-5's debut.

GPT-5 arrives

(Image credit: OpenAI)

GPT-5 is the next iteration of OpenAI's models, bigger and more powerful, but not dissimilar in its basic form. Even so, GPT-5 is big and complex enough to reach a new level in how it seems to reason.

Essentially, you no longer have to spoon-feed it context or restate complex prompts three times, or at least not nearly as often. Multifaceted questions like how changing interest rates might affect Gen Z homeownership trends in mixed markets might take several prompts refined multiple times to provide the answers you seek with earlier ChatGPT models, but GPT‑5 can unpack the whole thing.

Based on the demonstrations, GPT‑5 seems to parse each part separately and stitch it together. And it flags when there's a gap in its knowledge, which is far better than confidently hallucinating. It applies that way of thinking to how it interacts with users, too. While obviously not 'thinking', it does appear to read between the lines well enough to reflect a user's mood and even adjust its response to an expressed emotion.

The model is supposed to be particularly good with math and coding software. Good enough to handle the increasingly popular pursuit of 'vibe coding,' where you simply describe a feeling or a mood of a piece of software, and the AI produces the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to match your design vision.

GPT-5 sizes

(Image credit: OpenAI)

GPT-5 comes in many sizes in addition to the standard version. There's also the smaller gpt-5-mini, and an even leaner gpt-5-nano, which lives solely in the API. The big news is that free ChatGPT users now get access to both GPT-5 and mini, while ChatGPT Plus subscribers enjoy higher usage limits across the board.

If you’re a Pro user paying $200 a month, you’ll now get unlimited GPT-5 access, along with access to the more powerful gpt-5-pro model and gpt-5-thinking. These both take longer to provide answers, but come back with deeper, more thoughtful responses.

There is no need to pick and choose yourself, either, though. ChatGPT now picks the right model automatically based on what you're asking and what plan you’re on.

ChatGPT custom personalities and colors

ChatGPT has a default, pleasantly bland personality, but GPT‑5 is advanced enough to offer more variety in the tone and style of the AI chatbot. If you don't want the usual neutral mode, you can choose “Cynic” for sarcasm with your answer, “Listener” if you’re venting and just need it to echo back understanding, "Nerd" for a side of geeky trivia, and "Robot" for the purely mechanical response.

These personalities don’t undercut the answers you get, but they do flavor the response. Therefore, you might get dry wit with productivity tips from the “Cynic” tone or gentle encouragement in your goals from “Listener.”

Additionally, the chatbot's appearance can now be altered with the new color themes. If you're a paid subscriber, you'll soon be able to adjust the look of ChatGPT instead of switching between the usual black or white.

Voice Mode

(Image credit: Future)

ChatGPT's Voice Mode is getting an audio glow-up of its own. OpenAI is rolling out a much-improved version that not only works with custom GPTs but also adapts its tone and speech style based on your instructions and overall vibe.

You can ask it to be snappier, slower, warmer, or whatever else you want. For ChatGPT Plus users, voice responses are now nearly unlimited. Free users still get access, too, with a few hours a day to chat hands-free.

To streamline things, the old Standard Voice Mode is being phased out entirely within 30 days. After that, everyone will be on the same upgraded experience.

Google connections for ChatGPT

(Image credit: Future)

Next week, ChatGPT Pro users will be able to hook up their Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts directly to ChatGPT. That means no more switching tabs to check if you're free next Tuesday or digging through threads to find that one email you definitely forgot to reply to.

Once connected, ChatGPT will pull in what it needs to help respond to your queries. OpenAI assured users that it will only pull in the minimum needed and only when it’s helpful.

You don’t need to say “check my calendar” or “pull that contact.” The AI will do so based on whether you request something that requires it, like scheduling a meeting. It will pick a time that works for you and write the email on your behalf. Other subscription tiers are scheduled to get access to the connections in the near future, so this won't be limited to Pro forever.

All of these upgrades leveraging GPT-5 point to OpenAI's bigger plans to make its AI models an intimate part of your life, not just a tool you occasionally turn to and feel annoyed about having to carefully parse answers. Smarter reasoning means less cleanup for the user. Vibe coding shifts AI from merely aping code to interpreting your intended use with software. The personalities and colors make the AI feel like it's more unique to you, not just a one-size-fits-all tool, especially with the more realistic voice and access to your email account and calendar

GPT‑5 mimics awareness better than any of its predecessors. That means it could blend into our routines and become as second nature to use as our smartphones. Or at least, that's what OpenAI and its investors likely hope to see happen.

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The AI system has detected and reported 1,200 cases to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children this year.

• AMD Threadripper Pro 9995WX outpaces Intel Xeon W9-3495X significantly in Premiere Pro benchmarks
• Video editing PC workloads benefit from AMD’s higher core density and sustained throughput
• Measured gains in DaVinci Resolve and After Effects highlight Threadripper’s content creation strength

AMD’s Threadripper PRO 9000WX series has delivered a blow that Intel’s Xeon workstation CPUs may not recover from.

Benchmarks from Puget Systems covering real-world content creation applications found the new Threadripper chips outperformed Intel’s Xeon W-3500 series across nearly every category, often by wide margins which left little room for excuses or rebuttal.

At the top of AMD’s stack is the 96-core 9995WX, priced at $11,700, delivering a Cinebench 2024 multi-core score of 7,508, 27% ahead of the previous-gen 7995WX and a staggering 125% faster than Intel’s most powerful Xeon tested.

Threadripper pulls ahead?

Even AMD’s mid-range 9975WX with 32 cores ($4,100) routinely beat Intel’s 60-core w9-3595X in workloads like Blender, DaVinci Resolve, and Unreal Engine compiling.

Intel’s best simply couldn’t keep up, either in raw throughput or clock speed, and often looked inefficient by comparison.

In Photoshop, where high single-core speed matters, AMD's 16-core 9955WX came out on top with an overall score of 11,384 - whereas Intel's Xeon w5-3535X managed only 6,801, barely 60% of AMD’s best showing.

Even the weakest Threadripper 9000 chip tested outperformed every Intel CPU across the board in Adobe’s suite of creative tools, including Premiere Pro and After Effects.

In After Effects 3D workloads, the 9955WX again dominated with a 9% lead over the 9995WX and a 40% advantage over Intel’s top performer.

DaVinci Resolve further emphasized Intel’s problem: the 9975WX scored 180 in Intraframe processing, a 10% improvement over AMD’s previous generation, while Xeons lagged by more than 20%.

AI-related benchmarks using LLaMA.cpp showed consistent scaling on AMD, with the 9995WX processing 16% more tokens per second than its predecessor.

Intel’s Xeon parts trailed even lower-tier Threadripper models here, further underlining their inefficiency in modern workloads.

Workstation tasks like compiling in Visual Studio or shader building in Unreal Engine showed predictable trends.

The 9995WX and 9985WX completed these tasks dramatically faster, with the former finishing Unreal Engine compilation in 68% of the time required by the previous generation.

Intel’s Xeons simply couldn’t compete; even their 60-core chip was outpaced by AMD’s 32-core offering.

While AMD's new processors come with a 10–20% price increase over the 7000WX line, the performance uplift and DDR5-6400 support help justify it.

In nearly every test, AMD’s dominance was clear and systematic, leaving Intel’s Xeon series looking outdated and overpriced.

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• Access to ChatGPT-5 is being given to all ChatGPT users
• You get new features like ChatGPT Voice and better writing
• ChatGPT-5 access is rolling out right now

At today’s ChatGPT-5 launch event, we got to see exactly why OpenAI is so excited about the new version of ChatGPT. It’s faster, more intuitive, less likely to hallucinate, and can integrate with your Gmail in even more useful ways to know more about you.

In fact, at one point, the OpenAI presenters actually got ChatGPT-5 to write a eulogy to the previous ChatGPT-4o model as a demonstration about how much better its writing capabilities had become.

The eulogy was warranted because OpenAI isn’t restricting access to ChatGPT-5 to Plus and Pro subscribers – it is giving it out to free tier users too, so everybody now gets access to a better ChatGPT. That effectively means the end for ChatGPT-4o.

The vast majority of today’s presentation was about how much better ChatGPT-5 was at writing code than previous versions, and also how much better it was at enterprise applications, like law, health care, education, and finance.

Of course, most of us simply use ChatGPT to help us get things done in our daily lives, but there were plenty of improvements that are worth noting for everyday users, too, and they’re mostly available in the free tiers.

Let’s take a look at what you get access to without paying.

1. Writing improvements

As with GPT‑4o, the difference between free and paid access to GPT‑5 is usage volume. At some point on the free tier, your access to GPT-5 will reach the usage limit, and then you’ll be kicked back to GPT-5 mini.

Plus subscribers will get significantly higher usage volume before that happens. That means you’ll get access to the improved writing ability in GPT-5. You’ll find that its prose has a lot more rhythm and beat to it than the prose in GPT-4o did.

2. ChatGPT Voice

(Image credit: Future)

With the free tier, you still only get limited access to ChatGPT-5’s voice mode (along with file uploads, image creation, and data analysis), but you should get more access per day now than you did before.

What used to be called 'Advanced voice mode' is now called 'ChatGPT voice'. OpenAI says that “Standard Voice Mode retires on September 9, 2025, unifying all users on ChatGPT Voice”.

ChatGPT Voice is better than before, with more natural-sounding conversations. Hit the voice button on the mobile app for ChatGPT to give it a go right now.

3. New highlight colors

You’ve always been able to change the theme of ChatGPT from light to dark to System, but now you can add accent colors to your chats in the Settings. These apply to elements in ChatGPT-5 like conversation bubbles and highlighted text.

This is the first time color has been used in the ChatGPT interface, and it takes some getting used to, but I think this is a feature you’ll come to enjoy.

What you don’t get

ChatGPT-5 has better memory, reduces hallucinations, and as a free user, you’ll get all that too. So what don’t you get?

Well, as before, access to the Sora AI video generator is restricted to Plus and Pro users, as is ChatGPT Agent. And in terms of new models, the super-powerful ChatGPT-5 Pro is only available to Pro users.

But I’m still suck on GPT-4o?

If you’re frantically hitting the refresh button on your ChatGPT page waiting for access to GPT-5 then you’re not alone right now, but it is on the way.

A message on the OpenAI website says: “We are gradually rolling out GPT-5 to ensure stability during launch. Some users may not yet see GPT-5 in their account as we increase availability in stages.”

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Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Aug. 8 No. 523.