In a workshop in an infamous refugee camp in Beirut, Palestinian women practice an ancient art form — as a livelihood, and also as therapy. The designs come from a homeland most have never seen.
(Image credit: Dalia Khamissy for NPR)
Insurers are deploying private firefighters amid the Los Angeles wildfires. Are they an added bonus for all — or only for those who can afford them?
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan)
AI energy consumption is becoming an increasingly hot topic, with industry stakeholders and critics voicing concerns over the environmental impact of the technology.
But a recent survey from Seagate points toward more pressing concerns for IT leaders, claiming energy usage ranked bottom of the agenda behind regulatory considerations, the viability of LLMs, and network capacity.
Notably, security and storage were among the key focus points for business leaders looking ahead, with nearly two-thirds (61%) of respondents who predominately use cloud storage to host AI workloads said their cloud-based storage will increase by over 100% in the next three years.
Cost effective storage is keyThis sharpened focus on AI adoption is expected to prompt a surge in demand for data storage, with hard drives emerging as the “clear winner,” said Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst of Recon Analytics, which carried out the survey.
“The survey results generally point to a coming surge in demand for data storage,” he said. “When you consider that the business leaders we surveyed intend to store more and more of this AI-driven data in the cloud, it appears that cloud services are well-positioned to ride a second growth wave.”
A key factor in this push is the cost efficiency of hard drives, the study found, which offer better scalability and improve per-dollar-per-terabyte cost.
Another contributory factor to the appeal of hard drives is data retention, the survey found. Organizations embracing AI typically hold data for longer periods of time to train and optimize AI models.
This lengthy data retention practice plays a critical role in ensuring accuracy when training models, with 90% of respondents already using AI believing that holding onto data for longer helps improve outcomes.
“With the vast majority of survey respondents saying they need to store data for longer periods of time to improve quality outcomes of AI, we’re focused on a real density innovation needed to increase storage capacity for each platter in our HAMR-based hard drives,” Entner said.
“We have a clear pathway to more than double per-platter storage capacity over the next few years.”
You might also likeEven if you dislike cooking, you still have to eat every day. Here's how to gain more confidence in the kitchen and think outside the box when it comes to meal prep.
(Image credit: Illustrations by Mariá Toro, excerpted from You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby (Quirk Books, 2024))
Presidential inaugurations are by definition historic acts, but when we think of past Inauguration Days there is clearly a hierarchy of historical pop.
(Image credit: Bill Creighton)
Cian Lawlor's father was dispatched to the Palisades Fire just over a week ago and he's been working it ever since. The 11-year-old had some questions for his dad.
(Image credit: Jaleh Lawlor)
The Democratic Party begins 2025 with several looming questions. Among them: who will lead its national party apparatus, and how it will handle President-elect Donald Trump's second term.
(Image credit: J. Scott Applewhite)
Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital with a barrage of drones and missiles Saturday, leaving at least four people dead, while industrial sites in Russia were set ablaze by Ukrainian strikes.
(Image credit: Efrem Lukatsky)
Next week, we have Samsung's first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2025, but before we can get there, we've seen a week filled with tech announcements.
Leaks for the Samsung event were a dime a dozen, but we also saw the long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2 announcement, game-breaking Windows 11 updates, and kept up to date with the latest TikTok ban news.
Here's our recap of the week's biggest tech news in case you missed it. What a speedy overview.
When you're done, feel free to check out our picks for the 7 new movies and TV shows to stream this weekend (January 17).
7. Windows 11 24H2 broke games (Image credit: Ubisoft)It’s the same story again for Microsoft’s Windows 11 and its 24H2 update, causing problems for multiple users. This time around, gamers are frustrated with the functionality of their games, notably Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, after Valhalla and Origins received patches to fix constant crashes.
While some may point the finger at Ubisoft developers, the 24H2 update has been a long-lasting irritant to the user experience, with numerous bugs pushing some people away from operating systems (at least for now).
Valve announced that SteamOS will be coming to other handheld gaming PCs, providing gamers with a great alternative. Also, a native cloud image, Bazzite, running SteamOS but not affiliated with Valve, can be used on desktop PCs, so Microsoft needs to get its act together before potentially losing plenty of users.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicts we’ll achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence, also known as superintelligence) "as we have traditionally understood it" in 2025 – a bold prediction for the year.
AGI is a type of AI that matches or even surpasses a human’s cognitive capabilities across a broad range of cognitive tasks compared to current AI models, which can only attempt to match people in a few specific areas. It’s what sci-fi has trained us to imagine when we think of AI.
This would be a major advancement in the AI field, with many experts saying AGI would lead to a revolution unlike anything we’ve seen so far. For now, we’ll have to take Sam Altman’s word that AGI is almost here, but we could be in for a wild 2025 if his prediction is correct.
5. Apple’s 2025 roadmap leaked (Image credit: Karen Freeman / Future)Speaking of leaks, Apple’s iPhone and iPad roadmap for 2025 was teased by reporter and reputable tipster Mark Gurman this week (via a paywalled Bloomberg article), with Gurman detailing what tech we should see in the next 12 months.
The first is the iPhone SE 4 with Apple Intelligence and Face ID, which will land in Q1 or early Q2. Then, alongside it, Gurman says we’ll get the iPad 11 with an A17 Pro chipset (just like the iPhone 15 Pro) and 8GB of RAM, which should mean it’s powerful enough to run Apple Intelligence.
Sometime in Spring, Gurman believes we will get a new iPad Air with an M4 chipset to bring it in line with the latest iPad Pro models, and then rounding out the year will be the blockbuster iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone 17 Air (or possibly just iPhone Air) launches.
4. DJI launched a first-of-its-kind drone (Image credit: DJI)DJI unveiled the new and unique Flip, a multi-use drone for beginners unlike anything we've seen before. Its Star Wars spacecraft-like body features folding propellors with guards, meaning you can fly safely up close, armed with auto-tracking flight modes and 4K videos up to 60fps, plus slow motion 100fps clips.
It's ultimately like a larger, pricier, and supercharged DJI Neo – although the latter offers FPV flight – so check out our DJI Flip vs DJI Neo article to discover the key differences. During testing for our in-depth DJI Flip review, we found that you get better 4K video and 48MP images than the Neo, with the quality approaching that of DJI’s Mini 4 Pro, but without quite hitting those same heights.
Ultimately, what’s most distinct about the DJI Flip is its first-of-kind folding design, which still falls within the 249g-and-lighter category of drones that's largely restriction-free.
3. Samsung’s Unpacked announcements leakedThe first Samsung Unpacked event of 2025 might still be a couple of days away – it takes place on Wednesday (January 22) – but it looks like we already know everything there is to know about the phones that will be unveiled at the launch.
Multiple leaks – which feel like they're been ongoing since about this time last year – have shed light on almost everything, including the full specs and color options for the entire three-phone lineup (made up of the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra), details of AI enhancements, including a new morning brief feature, and even the Samsung Galaxy S25's jazzy new ringtone (which Samsung itself released early).
As with all leaks, we should take these details with a pinch of salt until Samsung makes an official announcement, but on the plus side we don't now have long to wait until then.
2. TikTok faced its end… for now (Image credit: Getty Images)TikTok’s US ban has been looming for some time, but it came into focus this week as we approach January 19 – the day it will supposedly come into full force. Users afraid of losing the app took to rival services, but not just Instagram’s Reels and YouTube’s Shorts. Chinese-made alternatives such as RedNote and also Lemon8 (which is owned by ByteDance, just like TikTok) proved popular.
There were hopes that the US Supreme Court would stop TikTok’s app store execution, but they have not, and while at the time of writing there are reports the US Government might not enforce any fines related to the ban at first, that has yet to be confirmed. All TikTok fans have left to hold on to is that when Donald Trump steps in as President on January 20, he could work to overturn the ban – a ban which he has been a vocal opponent of, despite being one of TikTok’s original detractors.
We’re not holding our breath, but perhaps this time next week, we’ll all be back to sharing dances on the clock app.
After years of speculation, hype, and rumors, the Nintendo Switch successor finally broke cover, with Nintendo releasing a Nintendo Switch 2 trailer. Unoriginal name aside, the short teaser showed us plenty – it confirmed the console and its screen are larger than before (we’ve heard it’s now an 8-inch display from leaks), showed us the new button on the right JoyCon, and gave us a new kickstand design for the console, alongside clips of what could be a new Mario Kart title (while many are calling it Mario Kart 9, if Nintendo counts Tour as a mainline game this would be Mario Kart 10).
It’s light on specifics, though, and there’s still a lot we aren’t certain about. For one, it’s unclear how much the console will cost when it is released and what its exact specs are.
For those details, we’ll have to watch this space and wait to see what Nintendo announces over the next few days and weeks.
We’re in Samsung season right now, as in a matter of days we’re expecting the Samsung Galaxy S25, Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus, and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to launch, and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim might not be too far behind them.
This rumored new addition to Samsung’s Galaxy S line is – as the name suggests – supposedly a lot thinner than the company’s typical flagships.
But slimming down in size might not mean slimming down too many of the specs, as there’s talk of a 200MP camera, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and more.
Below, you’ll find everything we’ve heard about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim so far, and we’ll update this article whenever more Galaxy S25 Slim news rolls in.
Cut to the chaseWe first heard talk of a Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim back in October, with a source claiming that this phone would probably land a few months after the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series. Since those phones are set to be announced on January 22, that would mean a launch in April or May.
This source cautioned though that the S25 Slim might only be released in limited quantities or regions, so Samsung can judge how much interest there is in it before committing to a wider release for a model next year.
Then, in November a model number for a phone believed to be the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim was spotted on the GSMA IMEI database. This told us a few things. For one, it provided more evidence that the phone existed, and for another, the model number ended with a ‘U’, which denotes a US model, so whether or not its availability is limited, it’s likely to land in the US at least.
This find also pointed to a release in or around May, as Samsung phones tend to get added to this database roughly six months before they launch.
Another model number for the S25 Slim has since emerged, this time with a ‘B’ at the end, which typically means a phone that Samsung will sell in every region it operates in. So the Galaxy S25 Slim might not be limited to certain regions after all.
In any case, in mid-December a source claimed the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim would land in Q2 (so between April and June), and in January of 2025 we heard to expect the Galaxy S25 Slim in May.
That said, one early rumor stated that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim was in the final stages of development, and that Samsung was hoping to have it finished in time to launch it alongside the rest of the Galaxy S25 line on January 22. So there's some disagreement.
As for the price, we haven’t heard much, but based on its rumored specs and model number it’s likely that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will be positioned somewhere between the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
We don’t know how much those phones will cost yet either, but for reference the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra starts at $1,299.99 / £1,249 / AU$2,199, so a price somewhere between those two is likely.
Can you trust these rumors?Almost every Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim release date leak is pointing to the same launch window, with May sounding the most likely month.
While one source did suggest a launch in January, we’d think this is very unlikely to happen, since we haven’t heard this from other sources and as we’d expect to have heard far more Galaxy S25 Slim leaks and rumors by now if it was landing that soon. It’s believable that the phone might be teased during that Galaxy Unpacked event though.
A slim body and a big screen The Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus (Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)The biggest Samsung Galaxy S25 design leak so far takes the form of numerous renders shared by @Onleaks (a reputable tipster) in collaboration with SmartPrix.
You can see some of these below, and they show a phone that looks a lot like the Samsung Galaxy S24, complete with slim bezels, a glass back, a flat metal frame, a flat screen, and a triple-lens camera.
The source claims that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim has dimensions of 159 x 76 x 6.4mm (rising to 8.3mm if you include the camera bump). For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus (which this is expected to have a similar size screen to) is 158.5 x 75.9 x 7.7mm.
Image 1 of 2A render of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim (Image credit: @OnLeaks / SmartPrix)Image 2 of 2A render of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim (Image credit: @OnLeaks / SmartPrix)While we’d take these claims with a pinch of salt, another source has also said that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim is somewhere between 6.0 and 6.9mm thick.
This might sound very thin, but yet another source has shown a comparison image revealing that the Galaxy S25 Slim might not be noticeably much thinner than the rest of the Galaxy S25 line. And indeed, however thin the Galaxy S25 Slim might be, it’s reportedly not as thin as Samsung was hoping to make it.
As for the screen, the source of the renders above claims that it’s somewhere between 6.7 and 6.8 inches, while another source got more specific, saying that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim has a 6.66-inch display. That would put it in line with the Galaxy S24 Plus, and probably also with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus.
Can you trust these rumors?The source of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim renders has an excellent track record, so we’d say they’re likely accurate, and as all sources are broadly in agreement on the screen size and thickness, we’d think those details are probably more or less correct too.
Ultra-level cameras The Samsung Galaxy S24 (Image credit: Future | Roland Moore-Colyer)The earliest Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim camera leak suggested this phone would have an "Ultra" camera, which presumably means similar camera hardware to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Later, the same source similarly said that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim would have a “stronger” camera than the standard Galaxy S25.
Another source has since got more specific, claiming that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will have a 200MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide, and a 50MP telephoto with 3.5x optical zoom. This claim likely fits with the leaks above, as a 200MP main sensor would see it match the S24 Ultra, and these specs are likely better than you’ll find on the standard S25.
Finally, we’ve heard elsewhere that the telephoto camera on the S25 Slim could have an ALoP (All Lenses on Prism) design, making it thinner than most telephoto lenses.
Can you trust these rumors?We’re slightly skeptical of the claim that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will have a 200MP main camera and two 50MP snappers, simply because the source doesn’t have much of a track record.
But this does line up with the other, vaguer camera claims we’ve heard from more credible sources, so it’s certainly possible.
At the very least, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will probably have a triple-lens camera, as that’s what it’s shown with in the renders we’ve seen.
Top-end power (Image credit: Qualcomm)Our first real Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim specs information came in December, 2024 when we heard that – like the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series – this would probably have a top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.
More recently, the Galaxy S25 Slim appeared in a benchmark, with exactly that chipset and 12GB of RAM. Its scores weren’t as impressive as we’d expect from such a top-tier chipset, but that’s probably just because the phone’s hardware and software were still being developed and optimized.
Another rumor has since echoed that chipset and RAM amount for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim. So this could be an extremely powerful phone, offering performance that’s in line with the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.
Can you trust these rumors?Multiple sources have pointed to a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and 12GB of RAM. So there’s a good chance this is what we’ll get, especially as that’s what we’re expecting from the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus.
A worryingly small battery The Samsung Galaxy S24 (Image credit: Future)One area where the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim might not impress is its battery, with an early leak suggesting Samsung had failed at making the battery as energy dense as hoped, which – combined with the phone’s slim build – might mean a lower-capacity battery than you’d expect from a phone with a screen of this size.
That’s been echoed by a more recent claim that the Galaxy S25 Slim’s battery will be somewhere between 3,000mAh and 4,000mAh.
That said, the source of the renders above stated that its battery is “significantly” bigger than 3,050mAh, so it might at least be approaching 4,000mAh.
Or these sources could be wrong, as we’ve elsewhere heard that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim might have a battery of between 4,700mAh and 5,000mAh.
Can you trust these rumors?While one source points to a big battery in the Galaxy S25 Slim they don’t have much of a track record, and it’s hard to believe Samsung would be able to fit such a big battery in such a slim phone.
So the claims that the battery is somewhere between 3,000mAh and 4,000mAh are more believable, but we’re hopeful that it will at least be at the upper end of that range.
You might also likePakistan said that the boat, carrying 80 passengers including some Pakistanis, had set off from Mauritania on their way to the Canary Islands.
(Image credit: K.M. Chaudary)
In November 2024, the AMD-powered El Capitan officially became the world’s fastest supercomputer, delivering a peak performance of 2.7 exaflops and 1.7 exaflops of sustained performance.
Built by HPE for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to simulate nuclear weapons tests, it is powered by AMD Instinct MI300A APUs and dethroned the previous leader, Frontier, pushing it down to second place among the most powerful supercomputers in the world.
Patrick Kennedy from ServeTheHome was recently invited to the launch event at LLNL in California, which also included the CEOs of AMD and HPE, and was allowed to bring along his phone to capture “some shots before El Capitan gets to its classified mission.”
Not the biggestDuring the tour, Kennedy observed, “Each rack has 128 compute blades that are completely liquid-cooled. It was very quiet on this system, with more noise coming from the storage and other systems on the floor.”
He then noted, “On the other side of the racks, we have the HPE Slingshot interconnect cabled with both DACs and optics.”
The Slingshot interconnect side of El Capitan is - as you'd expect - liquid-cooled, with switch trays occupying only the bottom half of the space. LLNL explained to Kennedy that their codes don't require full population, leaving the top half for the "Rabbit," a liquid-cooled unit housing 18 NVMe SSDs.
Looking inside the system, Kennedy saw “a CPU that looks like an AMD EPYC 7003 Milan part, which feels about right given the AMD MI300A’s generation. Unlike the APU, the Rabbit’s CPU had DIMMs and what looks like DDR4 memory that is liquid-cooled. Like the standard blades, everything is liquid-cooled, so there are not any fans in the system.”
While El Capitan is less than half the size the xAI Colossus cluster was in September when Elon Musk's supercomputer was equipped with "just" 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs (plans are afoot to expand it to a million GPUs), Kennedy points out that “systems like this are still huge and are done on a fraction of the budget of a 100,000 plus GPU system.”
You might also likeIn South Africa a months long stand-off between police and illegal miners in an abandoned gold mine comes to end, with close to 80 found dead in grim recovery operation.
(Image credit: LINDA GIVETASH)
Amazon would rather you try clothes on virtually instead of testing their fits at home. The company is officially retiring its “Try Before You Buy” program at the end of January, and in its place, Amazon wants you to trust its AI tools to find your perfect fit.
Try Before You Buy launched in 2017 as Prime Wardrobe and has let buyers get up to six items, try them on at home, and only pay for what they keep while sending back the rest. No dressing room with harsh fluorescent lighting is necessary. It's very popular, but Amazon has decided the program is not good enough.
Amazon believes its AI tools are all you need to find your best look. One might suspect this also has something to do with the company’s increasing investment in AI-driven shopping features. After all, why wait for a box of clothes when an algorithm can tell you which pair of jeans will love you back?
“Given the combination of Try Before You Buy only scaling to a limited number of items and customers increasingly using our new AI-powered features like virtual try-on, personalized size recommendations, review highlights and improved size charts to make sure they find the right fit, we’re phasing out the Try Before You Buy option," Amazon said in a released statement.
AI e-commerceThe tools Amazon points to are a different way of thinking about online shopping for clothes. Virtual try-on is an augmented reality feature that lets you see how shoes, glasses, or lipstick will look without leaving your couch. Meanwhile, the personalized size recommendation system uses your purchase history, return patterns, and feedback from other customers to predict your ideal size.
For a more conversational approach, there’s the Rufus AI chatbot, ready to answer all your questions and suggest products based on your shopping habits.
For fans of Try Before You Buy, this news might sting. The idea of confidently trying on clothes before committing is hard to replace, and AI, no matter how advanced, doesn’t have the tactile joy of slipping into something that just fits. Still, Amazon says that its free return policy will remain intact for most apparel purchases, so you can always fall back on the classic “order three sizes and hope for the best” strategy.
Amazon’s decision to swap physical try-ons for digital solutions isn’t just a company quirk; it’s part of a more significant trend in retail. AI is becoming increasingly popular as an aid to Google and other retailers' online shopping.
Whether shoppers will embrace this new era of virtual assistance or will long for the days of box-filled try-on sessions at home remains to be seen.
You might also like...