Technology

Choosing between the Apple Watch Series 10 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes down to more than just price alone. Here's everything you need to know about the screen differences, battery performance, and health tracking.

Samsung's $650 Galaxy S24 FE is a solid entry level phone for getting Galaxy AI features like Sketch to Image and Google's Circle to Search.

This small town in upstate New York is home to nature-filled attractions like the Mohonk Preserve. Here are CNET's picks for home internet in New Paltz.

Need internet in Auburn? Start your search with AT&T Fiber, then look to cable internet from Spectrum and WOW or 5G home internet from T-Mobile.

Your smart TV is a "privacy nightmare", a new report claims, suggesting that the streaming industry has created a sinister surveillance system that's undermining our privacy and our consumer protection too. That's according to a damning 48-page report by the Center For Digital Democracy (CDD), which has been passed to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

According to the report, the price of streaming isn't just in its ever-increasing subscription fees. It's in its "connected television media and marketing system with unprecendented capabilities for surveillance and manipulation." And thanks to AI, it's about to get even worse.

What's so sinister about streaming?

You can read the full PDF report here, but here are some of the key points. What the report calls "connected TV" is now the dominant way for US consumers to watch TV, and it says that the manufacturers and streamers have collectively turned connected TVs into "a sophisticated monitoring, tracking and targeting device."

In the report's introduction it uses Tubi as an example. "Tubi's fundamental business model is based on harvesting rich and detailed information from its viewers" using advertising tech, and that tech can then be used to change what content is recommended to you and even what products are featured in your shows. And Tubi is far from alone in this: the report goes into a lot of detail about technologies it says are used by Disney+, Amazon, Netflix and many more of the best streaming services.

The CDD report says that the streaming industry "has deliberately incorporated many of the data-surveillance marketing practices that have long undermined privacy and consumer protection in the 'older' world of social media, search engines, mobile phones and video services… millions of Americans are being forced to accept unfair terms in order to access video programming, which threatens their privacy and may also narrow what information they access – including the quality of the content itself."

The report paints a bleak picture, and the CDD wants the US Government to take action. In particular it wants:

• Robust privacy protection
• Digital marketing safeguards covering politics, health and children
• Regulation of anti-competitive and monopolistic behaviors

The CDD has written to the FTC, FCC, the California attorney general, and the CPPA demanding an investigation into the US connected TV industry. If you're feeling cynical, the size of the companies involved and the size of their political donations may make such an investigation unlikely – and the result of the Presidential election may make the likelihood of an investigation is even slimmer. However, it's clear that to have such a massive and influential industry effectively self-regulating may not be the best way to protect our privacy or save us from corporate misbehavior. You need only look at the many lawsuits facing the likes of Google to see that.

Should this put you off buying the best TVs today, which are all smart and connected? Well, you don't have a ton of options – unless you want to use a basic PC monitor to watch TV, everything is setup for the new world of data collection. You could switch to one of the best projectors and best 4K Blu-ray players to keep things more offline, though they won't be for everyone due to their size – and you can't get them for the same cheap price as today's TVs.

As is often the case, we don't have quite the range of choice in the market that you might think, considering just how many TVs are available.

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Voting for the 42nd Golden Joystick Awards is now open.

The longest-running annual award show will return on November 21, 2024, and can be watched live here, but ahead of the event fans have the opportunity to vote for their favorite games of 2024 in a total of 19 categories.

Included in those categories are Console Game of the Year, PC Game of the Year, and Best Storytelling, but it's worth noting that the nominees for the Ultimate Game of the Year shortlist will not be announced until November 4, with voting in that category opening the same day.

Among the games nominated in the Console Game of the Year are the critically acclaimed Astro Bot for PS5 which was released last month, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Dragon's Dogma 2, Helldivers 2, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and the latest game in The Legend of Zelda franchise, Echoes of Wisdom.

This year's event will also introduce a few brand-new categories, including Best Soundtrack and Best Audio Design, which will replace the Best Audio award, and the Still Playing Award has also been split into two, with separate ‘Mobile’ and ‘Console & PC’ categories.

A new Best Indie Game - Self Published award has also been created to sit alongside the long-standing Best Indie Game category.

You can vote in the currently available categories here. Voting closes on November 1 at 4pm PDT / 7pm EDT / 11pm BST.

"2023 was one of video gaming’s best years ever, with Baldur’s Gate 3 and Larian Studios claiming a record seven trophies at last year’s Golden Joystick Awards," said Daniel Dawkins, content director for games, video, and digital events.

"2024 has been a challenging year for the games industry in so many ways, but the variety and diversity of releases over the last 12 months has made this one of the most difficult - and exciting - Golden Joystick Awards nominees list we’ve ever compiled."

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Nvidia is deploying its GH200 chips in European supercomputers, and as HPCwire reports researchers are already releasing the first performance benchmarks from these systems with impressive results.

In a paper titled Understanding Data Movement in Tightly Coupled Heterogeneous Systems: A Case Study with the Grace Hopper Superchip, published on the arXiv pre-print server, researchers tested the GH200, which integrates both a CPU and GPU, to demonstrate its speed and benefits for AI and scientific applications.

The Alps system at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center, which is still in the process of being upgraded, was one of the testbeds for these benchmarks. Researchers found the GH200 showed strong performance in AI tasks, especially in leveraging unified memory pools for large memory footprint applications. Each quad GH200 node in the test setup had 288 CPU cores, four Hopper GPUs, and a total of 896GB of memory, comprising 96GB of HBM3 and 128GB of LPDDR5 per superchip.

Climate change modeling

In terms of raw power, the GH200 achieved 612 teraflops using HBM3 memory in certain AI tasks, vastly outperforming DDR memory, which managed 59.2 teraflops. When tested for inference tasks on Llama-2, the GH200 was up to four times faster with HBM3 memory than with DDR.

Another paper spotted by HPCwire on the arXiv server, Boosting Earth System Model Outputs and Saving PetaBytes in their Storage Using Exascale Climate Emulators, compared GH200 clusters with AMD’s MI250X and Nvidia’s A100 and V100 chips in supercomputers like Frontier, Leonardo, and Summit. The GH200 showed impressive results for climate simulations, a notoriously data-heavy workload, with the Alps system topping out at 384.2 million petaflops.

The research highlights the GH200’s ability to handle mixed workloads - combining AI and scientific simulations - while outperforming older chips. These first studies point to Nvidia's GH200 as a crucial step in advancing performance in high-performance computing environments and it will be interesting to see how this new technology evolves as more systems integrate Nvidia's superchips and additional benchmarks emerge.

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The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are both fantastic handsets, but when it comes to their colors, they’re arguably a little dull, with just four shades to choose from, none of which are particularly bright. However, Apple could inject a little more life into the iPhone 17 Pro’s colors, at least going by the latest leak.

According to leaker Majin Bu, writing on their own website (via NotebookCheck), they’ve learned that Apple is considering releasing the iPhone 17 Pro (and presumably also the iPhone 17 Pro Max) in either a Teal Titanium, Green Titanium, or Dark Green Titanium shade.

You can see how all of these might look in the image below, with Dark Green Titanium on the left, Teal Titanium in the middle, and Green Titanium on the right, and apparently only one of these shades will be used, if any are. Bu adds that they predict the Teal Titanium option is the most likely one to be used, since Apple already offers the iPhone 16 in teal.

(Image credit: Majin Bu)

If any of these shades are used then you should have a slightly brighter and more eye-catching option than any of the iPhone 16 Pro shades, which include Desert Titanium, Natural Titanium, White Titanium, and Black Titanium.

That would be great news, as Apple’s insistence on only offering understated shades on its Pro line is a constant source of disappointment.

Unlikely for three reasons

However, we’d take this leak with a pinch of salt for several reasons. First of all, the fact that Apple always uses understated colors means anything brighter seems a bit unlikely – though it’s possible that a slightly darker version of one of these colors could be included.

Secondly, the source of this leak has a mixed track record. They’ve been right before but they’ve also been wrong.

And thirdly, it’s very early for iPhone 17 leaks, and even if Apple really is considering one of these shades, it’s entirely possible the company will decide against it in the end.

So sadly, we wouldn’t count on seeing any of these colors on the iPhone 17 Pro line – especially not as pictured. But we really hope this leak does pan out, as wanting a high-end phone in no way means you don’t want it in a bright, vibrant or showy color.

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If you're looking for a gargantuan TV for less, then getting this one from TCL while it's at its lowest price is a must.

Google has upgraded Gemini’s AI image generator in the latest Android beta, adding tweaking options to help users create the perfect image.

Initially reported by Android Authority, Android beta (v15.40.31.29) adds a precise editing feature that lets you make small tweaks to any image generated by Gemini. In Android Authority’s demo, Gemini generates an image of ‘a cute dog wearing hat and sunglasses’, and the user then asks to ‘change the hat with a birthday hat’ which Gemini does with ease.

This kind of fine tweaking isn’t anything new in the world of the best AI image generators, but it’s cool to see Google add more image-generation tools to Gemini to compete with the likes of ChatGPT’s DALL-E.

With Apple Intelligence’s Image Playground set to arrive before the end of the year, adding more features to image generation in Gemini will help cement Google’s AI as a fantastic alternative for iPhone users who want to generate images with third-party options.

From Android Authority’s demo, we can see that these precise image-editing tools are still very much in beta, and the author who tested these new features wrote that "the edits aren’t always precise and reliable". It’s also worth noting that the video has been edited to remove wait times, so when this feature launches on Android it’s likely not to be as fast as this demo would suggest.

A better AI image generator

It’s impressive to see how far AI image generators have come in such a short space of time. Midjourney, our pick for the best AI image generator, definitely has its work cut out to keep the top spot, with new tools, and updates to existing ones, arriving almost daily. This upcoming update to Google Gemini looks very promising, but we’ll need to wait until it officially releases to properly test out its capabilities.

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It’s not been a good few days for Apple. Last week, photos emerged on X (formerly Twitter) of what was claimed to be the unreleased M4 MacBook Pro, with the poster claiming it was for sale on Facebook. Then over the weekend, Russian YouTuber Wylsacom did a full hands-on unboxing of what they claimed was the same line of MacBook Pro. And now, things have gotten even worse for Apple.

That’s because a second person has claimed to be in possession of the M4 MacBook Pro, and has posted a video as proof. The poster is another Russian citizen, perhaps suggesting a link to the earlier leak. The one-minute video clip shows Russian YouTuber Romancev768 unboxing the laptop and sharing their first impressions of it. Although far less detailed than Wylsacom’s video, the MacBook Pro seen in this latest video shares a lot of similarities with the laptops featured in the previous leaks.

The big question is whether these leaks depict genuine Apple laptops or cleverly disguised fakes – and there are some convincing elements to what's shown in Romancev768’s video. For one thing, the YouTuber shows the About This Mac screen in macOS, which lists the device as being launched in November 2024 – the same time as Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman expects the M4 MacBook Pro to go on sale.

The MacBook Pro in Romancev768’s video has the exact same model number and packaging as in previous leaks, while the device’s specs also seem to be a match. That suggests that all of the leaked laptops could have been taken from the same batch. Whether that's a real batch from an Apple warehouse, or a batch of fake laptops created by a very enterprising fraudster, isn’t clear.

Interestingly, the boxes in both leaks come with a QR code and text reading 'Scan for more information about your MacBook Pro.' Unfortunately, it seems that this QR code is slightly too blurry to successfully scan, but where that code takes you would likely give us an idea as to whether these products are authentic or not.

Benchmarks leak out

(Image credit: Wylsacom)

And it’s not just videos that have supposedly revealed the new MacBook Pro – benchmarks have surfaced too. On Geekbench, a new Mac – labeled Mac16,1 – has appeared, and the scores correspond with tests Wylsacom conducts in his video, with both showing a single-core score of 3864 and a multi-core result of 15288. Compared to the M3 chip with 8-core CPU and 10-GPU that you’ll find in last year’s MacBook Pro, the single-core result is about 26.7% higher, while the multi-core score is 30.6% higher.

The chip featured in these tests is noted as being an Apple M4 with a 10-core CPU comprising four cores in one cluster and six cores in another (this likely corresponds to the division between performance and efficiency cores). The base clock of the chip is 4.41GHz, and it comes with 16GB of memory, which matches the leaked MacBook Pro’s box.

Moreover, benchmarks for Apple’s Metal graphics API have also emerged. These show that the chip’s GPU is roughly on par with the M4 found in the latest iPad Pro, with the newest result hitting a score of 57603. The iPad Pro, meanwhile, scored 53374, giving the MacBook Pro’s M4 an increase of just under 8%. The gap is bigger when compared to the MacBook Pro’s M3 chip, though, which has a Metal score of 47414 – a difference of about 20%.

Benchmarks will vary from machine to machine, so these should just be taken as rough scores. But regardless, they still give a useful indication of the sort of performance we could expect to see in the M4 MacBook Pro.

Potentially the biggest leak in Apple’s history

(Image credit: Romancev768)

All that being said, there are elements that point to these leaked devices being fake. They use exactly the same image on the front of the box as the M3 MacBook Pro, which is something Apple has never done before (the company always adds a new wallpaper to its MacBook packaging). As well as that, the layout of the information sticker on the back of the box – that is, the one that lists the laptop’s specs – is completely different to previous MacBook Pro boxes. That doesn’t prove that it’s fake, but it raises questions. Furthermore, the About This Mac box that Romancev768 demonstrated can be falsified. Again, that doesn’t mean it is bogus in this video, but the possibility remains.

If this is indeed a counterfeit MacBook Pro, the most likely candidate is the current 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro chip and space black color. This matches many of the specs of the allegedly leaked MacBook Pro, including its 512GB of storage and three Thunderbolt ports. However, it would require some software fakery to obscure a few things – this existing MacBook Pro has 18GB of memory and Thunderbolt 3 slots, whereas the leak apparently comes with 16GB of memory and upgraded Thunderbolt 4 ports.

There’s also the question of how exactly the Russian YouTubers got these laptops. The packaging language and model numbers indicate that the MacBooks were intended for the U.S., and Apple products are currently restricted from being sold in Russia. While Russian citizens can get hold of Apple devices through back-channel means, the idea of not one but several Macs being swiped from a highly security-conscious company like Apple and then also finding their way into an embargoed country feels like a stretch.

All that said, if these products are fake, they’ve clearly been produced to a pretty high standard and are quite convincing to the naked eye. Ultimately, we’ll find out if they’re genuine or not when Apple announces the M4 MacBook Pro at an upcoming October launch event. If they do prove to be the real deal, it will almost certainly represent the biggest product leak in Apple’s 50-year history.

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A perfect gift for book lovers and at 25% off for Prime Day.

Amazon is having a massive sale and the WIRED Reviews team is working in shifts to bring you the best deals on products we've tested and tracked.

In an exclusive conversation with CNET, the startup's founders discuss the shift, including refunds for pre-orders and the need to focus on AI.

In 2014, the team at Blizzard began work on a Diablo III follow-up code-named Hades that never saw the light of day. Here’s why.

Christmas has just come early for Virgin River season 6 fans as Netflix has revealed that the new series of the hit romantic drama will be released on December, 19.

This news comes after Virgin River star Alexandra Breckenridge, who confirmed that season 6 would arrive on the best streaming service in late 2024. Prior to this, Deadline reported in February that Virgin River season 6 wouldn't land on Netflix until 2025 as filming was delayed until March due to weather conditions.

Now you can officially mark your calendars as the official Virgin River Instagram account has confirmed that the next installment of the best Netflix show will return on December 19. The announcement was made along with first-look photos teasing what's to come for the residents.

A post shared by @virginriverseries

A photo posted by on

What can we expect in Virgin River season 6?

Spoilers follow for the ending of Virgin River season 5.

As far as we know so far, all of our favorite characters will be returning for the new series. Netflix also unveiled the two new cast members playing the roles of Mel Monroe's (Breckenridge) parents in Virgin River season 6. Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) and Callum Kerr (One Piece) will join the sixth series as a young version of Mel's parents, Sarah and Everett Reid who will appear in flashbacks as they meet and fall in love in the 1970s.

Mel reunited with the present-day version of her biological father Everett (John Allen Nelson) at the end of Virgin River season 5 part 2, during which he revealed that he had “something important” to tell her. It's only a matter of weeks until we discover what that may be, but there is plenty more drama to expect in the sixth season.

The official Netflix synopsis for season 6 reads: “Against the backdrop of Mel and Jack's (Martin Henderson) spring wedding season, this sixth installment promises fresh twists and turns, escalating love triangles, delightful wedding drama, as well as uncovered secrets from Mel's father's past which will transport us to the magic and mystique of Virgin River in the 1970s.”

If you can't wait until December 19 to get your Virgin River fix, then take a look at our five powerful dramas while you wait and these three small town dramas to answer all your Virgin River prayers.

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Forget buying coffee out at Starbucks or Dunkin' when you can make it just as good at home.

Getting control over your lengthy and complex Google Docs files should soon be a lot easier thanks to a useful new update.

The new "document tabs" feature will illustrate the main points of your file, allowing writers, editors and viewers alike to quickly gauge the structure of a document, spotting the key points and sections.

Users will also be able to easily navigate through the different sections of a document, saving fiddly scrolling or clicking, making collaboration and editing much simpler for all.

Google Docs document tabs

(Image credit: Google Workspace)

First announced in April 2024, the feature is now rolling out to all Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google account.

"Structuring your Docs with tabs helps to organize longer documents, brings together existing documents more cohesively, and makes collaboration easier," the company noted in a Google Workspace update blog post.

The tool could be especially helpful when breaking down a large document into sections managed by a particular team or individual, Google added, so a project manager could have a tab for budget, roles and responsibilities, goals, and key dates in order to keep their team on target.

Tabs can even have "subtabs" to drill down to specific tasks or areas, such as breaking down a budget tab into specific expenses, or laying out each team member's individual responsibilities. Tabs can also be assigned an emoji to quickly signal what each one signifies, making navigation even easier.

The new feature will automatically open on documents containing two or more tabs, and can be opened and closed by clicking on the Tabs & outline icon in the top left corner.

"We’re excited to introduce document tabs in Google Docs, a new feature to help you organize longer documents, centralize information, and make collaboration easier," the company added.

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The flagship Garmin Fenix 8 smartwatch was made official back in August, but there are strong indications that more models are on the way – including what would be the first watch to use micro-LED technology for its display.

This rumor comes from Gadgets & Wearables (via Notebookcheck), and is based on references to new models found in documentation for watch face developers. Specifically, a Tactix 8 AMOLED watch and a Fenix 8 MicroLED watch (as it's referred to in the leaked documentation).

The Garmin Tactix 7 launched back in April 2022, and the series prioritizes rugged durability, and advanced navigation and mapping features. It also has some cool extras for a real James Bond vibe, including a stealth mode and night vision support.

What seems to be new this time around, based on these developer documents, is a new size option: while the Tactix 7 models are only available in a 51mm size, it looks as though the Tactix 8 will come in 47mm or 51mm sizes.

Micro-LED making a debut

The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, with no micro-LED (Image credit: Future / Matt Evans)

As for the Fenix 8 micro-LED version, this follows on from leaks in September that pointed to a model with the alternative display tech, as well as the imminent arrival of a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro model to join the standard Fenix 8.

The benefits of micro-LED are higher brightness levels and lower power consumption – hello, superior battery life – but these advantages don't come for free: micro-LED displays are expensive to make, as TV manufacturers know only too well.

For years now, we've seen rumors that the Apple Watch would make the switch to micro-LED. There was also plenty of talk that the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra would use micro-LED. As yet though, we haven't seen a smartwatch with this type of screen.

As Notebookcheck points out, Garmin has already signed a deal with micro-LED display supplier Vuzix, so we should be seeing the first micro-LED smartwatch sooner rather than later – though you can expect to pay a lot of money to get it.

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A handful of important mortgage rates increased. Here's what to expect if you're in the market for a home loan.