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Wi-Fi 8 plans to prioritize reliability in a data-hungry AI world, but you’ll have to wait a few years to get it. But I know some decent router choices you can grab today.

• Gemini’s Storybook feature lets you instantly generate 10-page illustrated storybooks
• You can pick art styles and themes
• The results can be cute but are far from the quality of beloved classics

If you have a kid who loves to hear about themselves in a story, Google’s Gemini AI has a new trick that could keep them happy for a long time. Gemini's new Storybook feature lets you generate fully illustrated, ten-page storybooks with narration from a single prompt.

You describe the tale, the look you want, and any other details, and Gemini writes the story, creates images for each page, and reads it aloud within a few minutes.

Storybook, in some ways, just combines existing abilities like text composition, image generation, and voice narration. Still, by putting them into a single prompt system, it speeds up the final product enormously. If you don't like certain details of the look or writing, you can simply adjust the book with follow-up prompts. You can even feed it a photo to shape the setting or characters.

The appeal for those who might feel they lack creative writing or drawing skills is obvious. No need to hire an illustrator or record voiceovers yourself. If your child wants a bedtime story about a shy dragon who finds confidence at music camp, you type that in, and within minutes, you’ve got a book with pictures, narration, and page-by-page structure.

This isn’t just for bedtime, either. Teachers can create customized stories to explain hard topics, perhaps teaching second graders about gravity with a friendly astronaut cat. Therapists could use storybooks to help kids talk through emotions using characters they connect with. Aunts and uncles can make personalized birthday stories with inside jokes and family pets.

What used to be a labor-intensive creative project is now something you can do on your phone during lunch break.

AI storytellers

And it is a notable shift from the standard template with a blank to fill in approach common to other AI tools. The narration even adapts to the tone of the story, with voices that can be whimsical, soothing, or dramatic, depending on what your story needs. Google is pitching the tool to busy parents, overworked teachers, and creative kids looking for a co-author and illustrator for their ideas.

I asked Gemini to make a story about my dogs going on an adventure in nature, sharing their names and describing their looks, and that's about it. You can read and listen to the Gemini-created story here.

It did a remarkably good job, albeit with a very inconsistent look to the dogs from page to page and a somewhat dull story. And when I tried it again to see how it would perform with the same prompt, the dogs sometimes had more than four limbs, not exactly reassuring to a child looking forward to a story about their pets.

And while it's theoretically possible that Gemini could write and illustrate a story better than the many classic and modern children's books out there, or one more personally resonant than writing it yourself, I personally have doubts. This is a fun little trick, but the idea of skipping every bookstore, library, and box of crayons and pencils for an AI alternative that can't always even make your dog look the same on every page feels like the exact activity I'd rather do myself. I'll stick to asking AI for help organizing my kitchen and leave the bedtime stories to me.

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The bandleader and pianist was one of the leading Latin musicians of his generation. He won multiple Grammys and was recognized as an NEA Jazz Master.

(Image credit: Frans Schellekens/Redferns)

Hundreds of United Airlines flights were disrupted on Wednesday evening as the carrier grappled with a major computer system outage. The airline requested ground stops at its major hubs in the U.S.

(Image credit: Ronaldo Schemidt)

• X's AI video maker Grok Imagine is live for SuperGrok and Premium+ subscribers
• Grok Imagine turns prompts into looping six-second clips
• The tool includes a controversial “spicy mode” for some NSFW content

xAI is pushing out the Grok Imagine AI video maker to those willing to pay for a SuperGrok or Premium+ subscription. Assuming you've paid your $30 or $35 a month, respectively, you can access Imagine in the Grok app under its own tab and turn prompts into short video clips. These last for around six seconds and include synced sound. You can also upload static images and animate them into looping clips.

Grok Imagine is another addition to the increasingly competitive AI video space, including OpenAI's Sora, Google's Veo 3, Runway, and more. Having audio built in also helps the tool, as sound is still not a universally available feature in all AI video tools.

To stand out, Elon Musk is encouraging people to think of it as “AI Vine,” tying the new tool to the classic and long-defunct short-form video platform for Twitter, itself a vanished brand name.

However, this isn’t just nostalgia for 2014 social media. The difference is that it's a way to blend active creation and passive scrolling.

Grok Imagine should get better almost every day. Make sure to download the latest @Grok app, as we have an improved build every few days. https://t.co/MGZtdMx26oAugust 3, 2025

Spicy Grok

One potentially heated controversy around Grok Imagine is the inclusion of a “spicy mode” allowing for a limited amount of more explicit content generation. While the system includes filters and moderation to prevent actual nudity or anything sexual, users can still experiment with suggestive prompts.

Musk himself posted a video of a scantily clad angel made with Grok Imagine. It provoked quite a few angry and upset responses from users on X. xAI insists guardrails are in place, but that hasn’t stopped some early testers from trying to break them.

xAI is keen to promote Grok Imagine as a way to make AI video accessible for everyone, from businesses crafting ads to teachers animating lessons. Still, there are understandable concerns about whether an AI platform that was only recently in hot water for outright pro-Nazi statements can be trusted to share video content without getting into more hot water. That goes double for the filters for the spicy content.

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The president's media company is beta-testing Truth Search AI, but will the results lean toward conservative opinions?

As you may have seen, OpenAI has just released two new AI models – gpt‑oss‑20b and gpt‑oss-120b – which are the first open‑weight models from the firm since GPT‑2.

These two models – one is more compact, and the other much larger – are defined by the fact that you can run them locally. They'll work on your desktop PC or laptop – right on the device, with no need to go online or tap the power of the cloud, provided your hardware is powerful enough.

So, you can download either the 20b version – or, if your PC is a powerful machine, the 120b spin – and play around with it on your computer, check how it works (in text-to-text fashion) and how the model thinks (its whole process of reasoning is broken down into steps). And indeed, you can tweak and build on these open models, though safety guardrails and censorship measures will, of course, be in place.

But what kind of hardware do you need to run these AI models? In this article, I'm examining the PC spec requirements for both gpt‑oss‑20b – the more restrained model packing 21 billion parameters – and gpt‑oss-120b, which offers 117 billion parameters. The latter is designed for data center use, but it will run on a high-end PC, whereas gpt‑oss‑20b is the model designed specifically for consumer devices.

Indeed, when announcing these new AI models, Sam Altman referenced 20b working on not just run-of-the-mill laptops, but also smartphones – but suffice it to say, that's an ambitious claim, which I'll come back to later.

These models can be downloaded from Hugging Face (here's gpt‑oss‑20b and here’s gpt‑oss-120b) under the Apache 2.0 license, or for the merely curious, there's an online demo you can check out (no download necessary).

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)The smaller gpt-oss-20b model

Minimum RAM needed: 16GB

The official documentation from OpenAI simply lays out a requisite amount of RAM for these AI models, which in the case of this more compact gpt-oss-20b effort is 16GB.

This means you can run gpt-oss-20b on any laptop or PC that has 16GB of system memory (or 16GB of video RAM, or a combo of both). However, it's very much a case of the more, the merrier – or faster, rather. The model might chug along with that bare minimum of 16GB, and ideally, you'll want a bit more on tap.

As for CPUs, AMD recommends the use of a Ryzen AI 300 series CPU paired with 32GB of memory (and half of that, 16GB, set to Variable Graphics Memory). For the GPU, AMD recommends any RX 7000 or 9000 model that has 16GB of memory – but these aren't hard-and-fast requirements as such.

Really, the key factor is simply having enough memory – the mentioned 16GB allocation, and preferably having all of that on your GPU. This allows all the work to take place on the graphics card, without being slowed down by having to offload some of it to the PC's system memory. Although the so-called Mixture of Experts, or MoE, design OpenAI has used here helps to minimize any such performance drag, thankfully.

Anecdotally, to pick an example plucked from Reddit, gpt-oss-20b runs fine on a MacBook Pro M3 with 18GB.

(Image credit: TeamGroup)The bigger gpt-oss-120b model

RAM needed: 80GB

It's the same overall deal with the beefier gpt-oss-120b model, except as you might guess, you need a lot more memory. Officially, this means 80GB, although remember that you don't have to have all of that RAM on your graphics card. That said, this large AI model is really designed for data center use on a GPU with 80GB of memory on board.

However, the RAM allocation can be split. So, you can run gpt-OSS-120b on a computer with 64GB of system memory and a 24GB graphics card (an Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti, for example, as per this Redditor), which makes a total of 88GB of RAM pooled.

AMD's recommendation in this case, CPU-wise, is for its top-of-the-range Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor coupled with 128GB of system RAM (and 96GB of that allocated as Variable Graphics Memory).

In other words, you're looking at a seriously high-end workstation laptop or desktop (maybe with multiple GPUs) for gpt-oss-120b. However, you may be able to get away with a bit less than the stipulated 80GB of memory, going by some anecdotal reports - though I wouldn't bank on it by any means.

(Image credit: Shutterstock/AdriaVidal)How to run these models on your PC

Assuming you meet the system requirements outlined above, you can run either of these new gpt-oss releases on Ollama, which is OpenAI's platform of choice for using these models.

Head here to grab OIlama for your PC (Windows, Mac, or Linux) - click the button to download the executable, and when it's finished downloading, double click the executable file to run it, and click Install.

Next, run the following two commands in Ollama to obtain and then run the model you want. In the example below, we're running gpt-oss-20b, but if you want the larger model, just replace 20b with 120b.

ollama pull gpt-oss:20bollama run gpt-oss:20b

If you prefer another option rather than Ollama, you could use LM Studio instead, using the following command. Again, you can switch 20b for 120b, or vice-versa, as appropriate:

lms get openai/gpt-oss-20b

Windows 11 (or 10) users can exercise the option of Windows AI Foundry (hat tip to The Verge).

In this case, you'll need to install Foundry Local - there's a caveat here, though, and it's that this is still in preview - check out this guide for the full instructions on what to do. Also, note that right now you'll need an Nvidia graphics card with 16GB of VRAM on-board (though other GPUs, like AMD Radeon models, will be supported eventually - remember, this is still a preview release).

Furthermore, macOS support is "coming soon," we're told.

(Image credit: Shutterstock/ Alex Photo Stock)What about smartphones?

As noted at the outset, while Sam Altman said that the smaller AI model runs on a phone, that statement is pushing it.

True enough, Qualcomm did issue a press release (as spotted by Android Authority) about gpt-oss-20b running on devices with a Snapdragon chip, but this is more about laptops – Copilot+ PCs that have Snapdragon X silicon – rather than smartphone CPUs.

Running gpt-oss-20b isn't a realistic proposition for today's phones, though it may be possible in a technical sense (assuming your phone has 16GB+ RAM). Even so, I doubt the results would be impressive.

However, we're not far away from getting these kinds of models running properly on mobiles, and this will surely be in the cards for the near-enough future.

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Breville Oracle Jet: two-minute review

The Breville Oracle Jet is a serious contender in the world of high-end espresso machines, offering an impressive mix of automation and precision. Designed to cater to both beginners and seasoned coffee enthusiasts, this high-tech machine helps simplify the often-fiddly process of making high-quality espresso, offering consistent results with minimal effort.

The key difference between the Jet and its immediate predecessor – the Oracle Touch – is that this newer model has adopted Breville’s fast-heating ThermoJet boiler technology. This means that the Jet’s ready to extract a coffee shot in around 30 seconds after being powered on, rather than the 3 or more minutes you’ll have to wait with the Oracle Touch and its older-style dual boilers.

One of the Oracle Jet’s standout features is its high-precision burr grinder. With 45 settings, it allows for ultra-fine adjustments to the grind size so that you can get the consistency you need from your coffee beans. This is a really valuable feature, especially since I’ve found many of the best espresso machines require a lot of trial and error to get this right, which wastes time (and coffee). The Oracle Jet really doubles down on this, providing real-time feedback on extraction, and guiding you in getting the perfect shot every time.

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

While the automatic tamping system serves up a uniform coffee puck time and time again, I found that the grinder could be a little messy, occasionally leaving stray grounds on the portafilter and even on the worktop around the machine, but it’s nothing a quick wipe won’t sort out.

The machine makes up for this minor inconvenience with its sizeable, intuitive touchscreen, which makes the entire brewing process not only feel super premium, but truly effortless. It walks you through drink selection, grinding, extraction and milk frothing in a really fluid and enjoyable way, making it almost impossible to get a bad coffee. And the Auto MilQ steam wand automatically textures milk to the right consistency for your drink of choice, even adjusting settings based on whether you're using dairy or plant-based alternatives – a rare but certainly welcome feature in the world of home espresso makers.

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

Despite its many conveniences, Breville’s impressive machine does have some drawbacks. It’s quite bulky and heavy, so you’ll need ample kitchen worktop space. And the lack of simultaneous brewing and milk steaming means that if you’re making multiple drinks, the Oracle Jet can be a little slower than its dual-boiler predecessors, such as the Oracle Touch. And, of course, the $1,999.95 / AU$3,399 price tag makes it a considerable investment.

Still, for those who want top-tier espresso without the hassle, the Breville Oracle Jet delivers. It offers barista-level quality at the touch of a button, making it what I believe to be one of the most advanced and user-friendly coffee machines on the market today.

Breville Oracle Jet: price and availability

• Available to buy now, priced at $1,999.95 / AU$3,399
• Sold under the Sage brand in the UK
• More expensive than most competitors

Arriving in Breville’s home territory of Australia first – where it's currently priced at $3,399 – the Oracle Jet launched in July 2024, and then made its way to the US a few months later, where it carries an MSRP of $1,999.95. Available from the brand's official web store as well as many major retailers, it comes in Truffle Black, Stainless Steel and Sea Salt White in Australia, while buyers in the US get additional Damson Blue and Olive Tapenade (aka green) options.

Compared to Breville’s other high-end models, the Oracle Jet sits between the Barista Touch Impress ($1,499 / AU$1,999) and the flagship Oracle Touch ($2,799.95 / AU$3,699), making it quite definitively a high-range option.

While there are few other espresso machines on the market that offer the Oracle Jet’s exact mix of features, the Oracle Jet holds its ground well when stacked up against other semi-automatic rivals. There’s the Ninja Luxe Café ($499 / around AU$750), which offers a semi-automatic espresso setup with some smart features at a fraction of the price in select markets (currently unavailable in Australia), but lacks the same precision and customization.

Meanwhile, the De'Longhi La Specialista Touch ($1,000 / AU$1,299) is another alternative featuring a touchscreen and automated milk frothing in a smaller footprint and at a much lower cost, but it doesn’t feature the same level of automation around grinding and tamping, or the cold brew functionality of the Oracle Jet.

• Value score: 4/5

Breville Oracle Jet: specs

Dimensions

19.2 x 15 x 14.5 inches / 48.8 x 38.1 x 36.8cm

Weight

26.9lbs / 12.2kg

Grinder

45-setting burr grinder

Drink options

11, including espresso, latte, cappuccino, cold brew, and hot chocolate

Milk frothing

Automatic, with presets for dairy and plant-based milks

Water tank

2qt / 2.3l (front-fillable)

Smart features

Auto grind adjustment, Wi-Fi updates

Breville The Oracle Jet: design

• High-end build with sleek finish
• Intuitive touchscreen for easy navigation
• Clever built-in features like hidden wheels

The Breville Oracle Jet is a serious piece of kit. Right out of the box, everything about it screams premium, and given the lofty price tag you’d be right to have high expectations, too. With a brushed stainless steel finish on the variant sent to me for this review, it has a sleek, pro feel that will certainly look the part in any kitchen, provided you’ve got the space for it.

That’s the thing – this isn’t some compact coffee maker you can tuck away in the corner of your kitchen. It’s around 20 inches wide and 15 inches deep (or 50cm x 40cm), so you’ll need a fair amount of free worktop space to fit this beast in comfortably. It's also pretty weighty, weighing in at over 26lbs / 12kg, so you might even need someone to help you lift it out of the box.

Once you've got it set up in the desired spot, it’ll be hard not to immediately fall in love with the 5-inch touchscreen, which dominates the front of the machine for good reason – it’s your guide through the entire coffee-making process. Whether you’re brewing a classic espresso shot or frothing milk for a cappuccino, the Oracle Jet provides clear, easy-to-follow instructions through text and images. There's even a preset for espresso martini!

There's light and dark modes for the interface, which is a nice customization touch to suit your kitchen lighting. The interface is smooth and responsive, which is a relief since the screen on Breville’s last machine, the Barista Touch Impress, could be frustratingly sluggish at times. It now works as expected, making swiping between different drink options a dream.

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

One of the Oracle Jet’s most thoughtful features is the front-fillable 2qt / 2.3L water tank. If you’ve ever had to awkwardly shuffle a big ol’ espresso machine around just to access and refill the water tank, you’ll definitely appreciate this design feature, as it means you just need to lift up a front flap and pour from a jug straight from the tap. There’s also a window just above the drip tray so you can clearly see the water level, but you’ll also receive alerts on the touchscreen when the tank needs refilling.

Another handy feature is the addition of hidden wheels on the machine’s underside. Given its size and weight, you might expect the Oracle Jet to be a hassle to move, but a simple swipe of the lever under the drip tray lifts the machine onto its 360º wheels, making it incredibly easy to slide around and reposition. It’s a small detail, but one that shows Breville has really considered usability for its customers.

The grinder and portafilter system also boast brilliant build quality, with automatic grinding and tamping, which takes much of the guesswork (and the effort) out of making espresso, but I’ll talk more about that in the performance section. The 58mm portafilter is barista-standard for even extraction, but it also feels well built and weighty in the hand, like it should.

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(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 2 of 3

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 3 of 3

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

The Auto MilQ steam wand is another standout. It automatically textures milk to the consistency required for whichever type of drink you’re making – and the neat thing here is that you can input the type of milk you’re frothing, whether that’s your standard dairy or plant-based alternatives like soy, oat or almond. Coffee-brewing control freaks will be pleased to hear they still have the option to steam manually, too.

However, the machine’s one main drawback is that unlike previous Oracles, you can’t brew and steam at the same time. If you’re making multiple milk-based coffee drinks, you’ll have to wait for one process to finish before starting the other, which can slow things down compared to its predecessors. This is due to the machine’s single ThermoJet heating system. Unlike dual-boiler machines, which have separate boilers for brewing and steaming, the Oracle Jet uses one heating element for both tasks.

If it’s a dealbreaker for you, Breville’s slightly pricier (but not quite as smart) Oracle and Oracle Touch machines do feature a dual-heating system, so these might be worth considering if you frequently make a large number of coffees.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Breville The Oracle Jet: performance

• Automatic grind and tamping give top results time and time again
• Fast heating and smooth espresso extraction
• Cold brew and iced coffee options

The Breville Oracle Jet is built to take the hassle out of home espresso, and after using it for a few months in TechRadar's Sydney office – incidentally replacing the Breville Oracle Touch, I can confidently say it delivers on that promise. From grinding to milk frothing, almost everything is automated, making it ideal for anyone who wants great coffee without the hassle.

Let’s start with the grinder. It has 45 settings, which means you can seriously fine-tune your grind size to suit whatever beans you're using. The smart thing about this is that the machine even tells you if your shot is under- or over-extracted, so you know whether to adjust the grind next time. This is a game changer if you’ve ever struggled with dialling in a manual espresso machine and haven’t been able to nail the extraction.

The automatic tamping system also works really well here, as it means you don’t have to worry about pressing too hard or too softly – you just let the machine do the work. That said, it does have a habit of leaving a few stray coffee grounds behind, which isn’t a huge deal but means a bit of extra clean-up.

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(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 2 of 2

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

When it comes to pulling a shot, the dual ThermoJet system heats up almost instantly, so there’s no waiting around like with cheaper machines. I found espresso extraction to be smooth and consistent, with rich, balanced flavors – whether you’re using high-end beans or just grabbing something from the supermarket. I used the standard Woolworth's espresso beans easily available in Australia where this machine was tested (costing AU$18 per kilo) and these proved equally satisfying in my morning coffee, offering a lovely full-bodied and smooth taste. I suspect this was down to the machine making the most of how they were brewed.

The real-time shot timer on the touchscreen is also worth a mention. It’s probably one of my favorite features on this machine – turning green if your shot is timed well or red if something’s off, giving you immediate feedback. Impressive!

The Auto MilQ steam wand also adds to the top performance experience of the Oracle Jet. The milk textures it produces are always silky smooth, and ideal for making latte art if you’re into that (not that I could produce anything worth looking at, but that’s down to my lack of skills). While manual milk frothing is an option, most people will probably prefer the automatic setting and it produces great results.

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(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)Image 2 of 2

(Image credit: Sharmishta Sarkar / TechRadar)

One of the more unique features on the Oracle Jet is its cold brew and cold espresso modes. Cold espresso is perfect for iced lattes, keeping the flavors bold without melting the ice too quickly. The cold-brew function isn’t quite the same as traditional overnight steeping, in that it uses room-temperature water to perform a slow multi-minute extraction, but it still produces a smoother, less acidic coffee in a fraction of the time (and effort) that it takes to make the real thing.

Cleaning is another area where the Oracle Jet makes life easy. Despite the mess the grinder can sometimes make, it has automatic cleaning cycles for the steam wand and internal components, so there’s not much hands-on maintenance. You’ll still need to rinse the portafilter and wipe down and empty the drip tray, but overall, it’s much lower effort than most espresso machines that I've tested.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Breville Oracle Jet?Buy it if

You want barista-quality coffee without the effort

The Oracle Jet automates most of the process, ensuring consistent results every time.

You’re happy to pay extra for a top quality appliance

If you’re one for appreciating the finer things in life and don’t mind paying extra for the privilege of a well-built and stylish machine, then you’ll be right at home with the Oracle Jet.

You love cold coffee

The cold brew and cold espresso functions are rare on machines of this type.

You want smart guidance

The real-time extraction feedback and grind adjustment tips help you master espresso-making and makes you feel like a pro with very minimal effort.

Don't buy it if

You’re on a budget

At nearly $2,000 / AU$3,500, the Oracle Jet is certainly not a casual purchase. It’s an investment that will last you years to come, so it's definitely more aimed at those who are serious about creating barista-quality coffee at home.

You need a compact machine

It’s large and it’s pretty heavy, so not ideal for smaller kitchens or those tight on space.

You want to brew and steam at the same time

The single ThermoJet system used for brewing and milk steaming means they can't be used simultaneously, so not ideal for those who want to make a swift cup of coffee before dashing off to work.

Breville Oracle Jet: also consider

Ninja Luxe Café

Price: $499 (around AU$750)

A more affordable bean-to-cup option that still offers some automation, including guided espresso pulls and an automatic frother. However, it lacks the fine-tuned grind settings and high-end build of the Oracle Jet, and it’s not currently available in Australia.

Read our full Ninja Luxe Café review

Breville Barista Touch Impress

Price: $1,499 / AU$2,299

A slightly less expensive alternative from Breville with many of the same automation features, including Auto MilQ milk frothing and guided espresso adjustments. However, it lacks the cold brew and cold espresso options and the digital display just isn’t quite as swift as that on the Oracle Jet.

Read our full Breville Barista Touch Impress review

De’Longhi Eletta Explore

Price: $1,899.99 / AU$1,799

An accomplished bean-to-cup coffee machine that’s perfect for coffee lovers who don’t have the time to maintain an espresso machine. Plus, it can make both hot and cold beverages and comes with everything you might need for a fully operational caffeination station.

Read our full De’Longhi Eletta Explore review

How I tested the Breville Oracle Jet

I used the Breville Oracle Jet for just over a month at home, making two coffee drinks per day using a mixture of high quality Lavazza decaf and fully caffeinated coffee beans. During testing, I noted flavors, consistency, temperature, time to brew, and noise levels. Beyond drinking the espresso and coffee black, I tried the different milk frother presets with both dairy and plant-based milk, observing the foam levels and differences between settings. In the end, I tested almost every setting on the machine and observed how it performed during every step.

Read more about how we test

[First reviewed: August 2025]

Trump told reporters on Wednesday evening that he is considering taking over the D.C. police force and sending in the National Guard after a former DOGE staffer was hurt in an attempted carjacking.

(Image credit: Mandel Ngan)

• INIU Pocket Rocket P5 is super small
• It has 10,000mAh and multiple ports
• It comes in macaron colors but not flavors, for obvious reasons

If you like your power banks small, full of energy, and the color of your favorite macarons, INIU might have you covered.

The company, best known for constantly innovating power cell stacking to create increasingly smaller and lighter power banks, introduced this week what it claims is "the World's smallest 10,000mAh, 45W fast-charging" power bank.

The Pocket Rocket P50 (don't look at us, we didn't name it) is indeed small. Measuring 3.3 x 2.0 x 1.0 inches, the P50 weighs just 5.6 oz. Similarly configured 10,000mAh power banks on Amazon tend to weigh a few ounces more and are slightly larger.

They also generally cost a little more. The Pocket Rocket 50 lists for $32.99 (£38.99) on Amazon.

(Image credit: Iniu)

INIU achieved the P50's pleasingly small size by using its trademark TinyCell Pro technology, which the company says uses "efficient cell arrangement and space-saving thermal layers." It also come equipped with a small monochrome display that offers real-time charge status.

The P50 includes multiple charging ports, including a USB-A port and two USB-C ports. The attached lanyard doubles as a USB-C-to-USB-C charge cable that you can use to charge devices connected to the 45W power bank and to recharge the P50.

Available in a collection of macron-style colors that include pink, green, purple, and blue, the Pocket Rocket P50 can deliver a 45W charge and supports Samsung Fast Charging 2.0 for a speedy top-off.

INIU claims the P50 can charge a smartphone from 0% to 73% in just 25 minutes. Naturally, this is a claim we'll want to verify in lab testing.

(Image credit: Iniu)

The P50, according to the company, is capable of recharging multiple devices at once, and, on a single charge, can fully charge an iPhone 16 twice as well as an iPad mini or a Samsung Galaxy S24 one and a half times. INIU also claims the Pocket Rocket P50 is approved for carry-on use.

It's certainly small enough to fit anywhere, and with those tasty colors, it might attract more than a few wistful stares at the airport.

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• The backlash against AI slop is pushing businesses to revalue human creativity and depth

While generative AI tools continue to dominate headlines and reshape workflows, demand for creative freelancers appears to be growing, not shrinking.

Figures from the Freelancer Fast 50 Global Jobs Index found in Q2 2025, job postings for writers, designers, and video editors are climbing steadily - even as roles in machine learning, blockchain, and other AI-adjacent fields show marked declines.

The shifts suggest businesses are drawing clearer lines between automated output and the type of nuanced, human creativity that machines still fail to replicate convincingly.

Originality rises as slop loses appeal

The findings are based on more than 251,000 projects posted on a leading freelance site during the second quarter of 2025.

Communications jobs surged by 25.2%, making it the fastest-growing category, with freelancers in this space are being hired to craft contracts, edit manuscripts, and produce emotionally resonant writing that AI tools struggle to deliver.

This trend emerges amid what some commentators have described as widespread “AI slop fatigue”.

This is a growing pushback against the mass of bland, automated content that has flooded social media and search platforms.

The fatigue may be both aesthetic and functional, as platforms such as Google have introduced algorithm updates designed to penalise auto-generated material, putting further pressure on brands to prioritise originality.

Clients now appear more willing to invest in skilled professionals who can ensure their content maintains visibility and emotional resonance.

Many are still using AI writer programs in support roles to brainstorm ideas or speed up drafts, but final outputs are increasingly expected to pass a test of authenticity that machines fail to meet.

In video and visual production, the shift is just as pronounced, as job listings for skills such as Adobe After Effects, Instagram content creation, and 3D design using Unity have all posted double-digit gains.

Content creators are not just surviving alongside AI; they are thriving in areas that rely heavily on personal style, spontaneity, and audience connection.

Freelancers interviewed for the report describe growing interest in projects that range from low-budget films to custom branding efforts, with clients favouring professionals who can offer “strategic thinking” and “tailored solutions.”

This growth in creative jobs also underlines a broader recalibration of the role of AI tools.

Instead of displacing freelancers, many organisations are shifting toward hybrid workflows, leaning on machines for efficiency while entrusting humans with the final creative direction.

The simple conclusion to this situation is that for now, human nuance still matters.

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• Apple's just promised that future iPhone and Apple Watch models will feature US-made Glass
• It's not an entirely built-in the USA iPhone or Apple Watch
• It's part of a larger $600 billion investment in the US economy from Apple

While it’s not an iPhone that’s entirely made in the U.S.A., Apple is making some pretty major hardware-related news alongside a fresh commitment from the Cupertino-based tech giant to invest a total of $600 billion in the U.S. economy within the next five years.

Apple, in a just-announced partnership with Corning, will aim to make and produce all of the glass covers for the iPhone and Apple Watch in the United States – specifically at Corning’s facility in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. It’s part of a new $2.5 billion commitment from Apple and means that once in place, all the glass for the iPhone and Apple Watch models sold globally will be made in the United States.

Apple’s partnership with Corning is far from new. While Apple rarely explicitly names who makes which components, it’s long been known that they use some custom form of Corning Gorilla Glass. Corning has always been a US-based company. The news that all iPhone and Apple Watch glass manufacturing is coming to the US inadvertently reveals that Apple may have been using multiple glass suppliers, including some from outside the US. That all changes now, though.

(Image credit: Apple)

Most recently, this facility has been producing glass that’s named ‘Ceramic Shield’ for Apple’s iPhone lineup. The Harrodsburg, Kentucky, facility will exclusively be used for making glass for Apple devices going forward. The release notes that this decision will increase Corning’s manufacturing and engineering workforce here by 50% and that a combined Apple-Corning Innovation Center will open nearby.

(Image credit: Future)

At a joint conference held at the White House and attended by Apple CEO Tim Cook, US President Donald Trump stated that this is a "smart glass production line" and will ultimately create 20,000 new American jobs.

Cook actually gave Trump a present, well, a gift from Apple – a piece of Corning Glass with ‘Trump’ engraved on it, and a base made from 24 karat gold sourced from Utah. It might be the first unboxing on the Resolute Desk, at least performed by Apple’s CEO.

The bigger picture: Apple’s upping its promised US investment

While this is the major hardware-related news as part of Apple’s commitment, the company did promise an additional $100 billion investment United States. Previously, the total investment was $500 billion, and that jumps to $600 billion, which should be complete within four years.

Alongside the new partnership with Corning, Apple’s also committed to working further with other US manufacturers like Coherent, GlobalWafers America (GWA), Applied Materials, Texas Instruments (TI), Samsung, GlobalFoundries, Amkor, and Broadcom. This is dubbed Apple’s American Manufacturing Program and will result in a tangible 450,000 jobs created in America across 79 factories.

(Image credit: C-Span)

Beyond the fact that all glass for the iPhone and Apple Watch will be made in the United States, Apple also hopes to create an end-to-end silicon supply chain in America. Apple already expects this supply chain to build over 19 billion chips by the end of 2025 here. Speaking at the White House, Cook said, “American innovation is central to everything we do," and it’s clear that the tech giant is further investing to ensure that will be the case going forward, especially from a building perspective.

Apple's decision to shift some component manufacturing to the US may have just saved it from a 100% tariff on chips and semiconductors that Trump announced during the press conference. Trump said, for companies like Apple, "if you're building in the US or have committed to building in the US, there will be no charge."

Apple has also started construction on a 250,000-square-foot facility in Houston, Texas, that’s focused on building advanced Apple servers, and is expanding a data center that supports services like Apple TV+ and Apple Music in Maiden, North Carolina.

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• Android phones possibly under threat from worrying security threat
• Qualcomm releases fix for two major flaws in May and urged OEMs to apply it
• Google released a patch, so users should update now

Google has patched a major vulnerability affecting Android smartphones which is being actively exploited in the wild.

In June 2025, Qualcomm publicly announced discovering three vulnerabilities: CVE-2025-21479, CVE-2025-21480, CVE-2025-27038, saying they were “indications” from Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) the flaws were being used in “limited, targeted exploitation.”

TAG specifically focuses on tracking state-sponsored threat actors, along with other highly sophisticated hacking groups, so if these were being used in limited and targeted exploitation, it’s safe to assume that these were nation-states targeting high-value individuals such as diplomats, journalists, dissidents, scientists, and similar.

CISA sounds the alarm

At the time, Qualcomm also urged OEMs (such as Google), to deploy the patch in their products without delay.

"Patches for the issues affecting the Adreno Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) driver have been made available to OEMs in May together with a strong recommendation to deploy the update on affected devices as soon as possible," Qualcomm said.

Google has now issued it August 2025 update for Android, which includes fixes for two of the flaws: CVE-2025-21479 and CVE-2025-27038.

The former is described as “memory corruption due to unauthorized command execution in GPU micronode while executing specific sequence of commands,” and was given a severity score of 8.6/10 (high). The latter is described as “memory corruption while rendering graphics using Adreno GPU drivers in Chrome,” with a severity score of 7.5/10 (high).

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also added these two bugs to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on June 3, giving Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) organizations a three-week deadline to patch up, or stop using vulnerable software entirely.

Given Android’s decentralized structure, it is safe to assume that different devices (for example, Samsung’s Galaxy lineup, or OnePlus’ One lineup) will be getting these updates at different times. Pixel, being Google’s lineup of mobile phones, will most likely receive the updates first.

Via BleepingComputer

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• OpenAI's announced a livestream for August 7 at 1PM ET / 10AM PT / 6PM BST
• We're expecting GPT-5 to be unveiled as OpenAI wrote, "LIVE5TREAM"
• It comes after many rumors and hints about the next model

After countless rumors, teases, hints of a delay, and many, many thoughts from CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI has finally confirmed a livestream tomorrow, and we're expecting to see Chat GPT-5's formal unveiling.

It’s not just that we’ve been waiting for the next-generation model to arrive, but a post on X (formerly Twitter) from the @OpenAI account makes it pretty clear, as it reads, “LIVE5TREAM THURSDAY 10AM PT”. That’s a pretty clear spelling of ‘livestream’ replacing the ‘s’ with a 5, and hinting at the GPT-5 model.

As the next major model for OpenAI, GPT-5 is rummored to bring with it more speed and better efficiency, but a real spotlight might be on how we can interact with it. We’ve already seen more formal Agents debut from ChatGPT, but GPT-5 is likely going to bring in automatic selection of the right model.

LIVE5TREAM THURSDAY 10AM PTAugust 6, 2025

This means you won’t need to select the model you think is the best fit, as GPT-5 will understand your prompt and handle the specific routing for you. Hopefully, that means easier, more appropriate answers for various prompts. Just a few days ago, on August 3, 2025, Sam Altman shared a screenshot of ChatGPT with ChatGPT 5 as the selected model in the top corner.

With a planned livestream for tomorrow, August 7, 2025 at 1PM ET / 10AM PT / 6PM BST, this will turn out to be a pretty packed week for OpenAI. Yesterday, on August 5, 2025, OpenAI debuted two open-weight AI models, gpt‑oss‑120b and gpt‑oss‑20b. The latter of which is capable of running locally on a consumer PC.

GPT-5 would have a significantly more immediate impact, assuming it gets a wide rollout and could be in the hands of consumers soon after the livestream. Sam Altman did tease in a post on X on August 2, 2025, that OpenAI has “a ton of stuff to launch over the next couple of months--new models, products, features, and more” – so the August 7 livestream – err, LIVE5TREAM – could be the start of plenty of new features to try.

Of course, Altman also used that post to warn about capacity issues or ‘hiccups,’ so similar to other launches with longer lead times, it could be a bit of a wait before trying GPT-5 for yourself.

Either route, stick with TechRadar as we’ll be reporting live on whatever OpenAI announces during its livestream tomorrow, and we’d bet on GPT-5. Like previous OpenAI announcements, we're expecting the event to be livestreamed on the brand's YouTube channel here.

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