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May 2026

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163 articles

May 12
- Why building a quiet PC is harder than you think — what to know, and how to make your rig quieter
- Google's new laptop platform, 'Googlebook,' leaks ahead of reveal event — new laptops powered by Android and Google Gemini, meant to succeed Chromebook
- Trump administration reportedly debating ban on Chinese cellular modules in expansion of FCC crackdown — potential restrictions could impact everything from smart devices and routers to connected cars and industrial IoT systems
- TSMC allocates $20 billion to Arizona expansion — project faces water and labor shortages, complicated by visa rules
- Microsoft staunchly defends its new 'Low Latency Profile' for Windows 11 after community backlash — says every other OS already boosts CPU speeds for quicker load times
- Jensen Huang snubbed by White House for President Trump’s China state visit — Nvidia CEO not on roster, which includes Apple's Tim Cook and Elon Musk
- Amazon employees admit to using AI unnecessarily to pump up internal usage scores — workers complain of intense pressure to use AI tools
- Compromised Mistral AI and TanStack packages may have exposed GitHub, cloud and CI/CD credentials in 'mini Shai Hulud' malware infection — supply-chain campaign spreads across npm and AI developer ecosystems like wildfire
- Dell SupportAssist update is crashing PCs with constant blue screens and reboot loops — the boot service built for system recovery is the culprit of unending instability
- Standard 90-day vulnerability disclosure policy is likely dead thanks to AI, expert warns that AI can weaponize patches in 30 minutes — LLM-assisted bug-hunting ushers in a new cyberworld order
- NASA partners with Microchip to build next-generation spaceflight chips with 100x the power of current offerings — chip designed to withstand radiation for extended missions on the Moon and Mars
- SoftBank to manufacture its own batteries with water-based tech to power AI data centers — targets gigawatt-hour-scale production by 2028
- Google finds first AI-developed zero-day that bypasses 2FA — self-morphing malware and Gemini-powered backdoors signal a new era of cybercrime
- China's next-gen CPUs and GPUs prepare to challenge last-gen Intel and AMD in 2027 — Loongson 3B6600 and 9A1000 aim to match Intel's 12th Gen and AMD's RX 550
- Microsoft's massive Kenya AI data center would require switching off 'half the country' to meet power requirements, government says — $1 billion project stalls over capacity disagreements and lack of infrastructure
May 11
- AMD is reportedly developing an entry-level RDNA 4 GPU with 8GB of VRAM — RX 9050 rumored to debut with 2048 cores, more than RX 9060
- TCL 27R944K 165 Hz gaming monitor review: Mini LED with high brightness and high performance
- Looking for a laptop that's powerful and portable? Enter: the new XPS 14
- Samsung holds desperate final talks with union over 18-day chip factory strike that could cost $20 billion — government-mediated summit seeks to avert industrial action that could hit HBM production
- The tech industry is moving faster than ever. Keep up with Tom’s Hardware Premium, available from just $7 per month
- Arm's $2 billion in AGI CPU sales are still not enough to penetrate 5% of overall market share, analyst reveals — at least $90 million worth of CPUs to be shipped before FY2027
- AI data center developers target rural territory to bypass city construction bans and regulations — rural locations allow sites to bypass city council approvals, rezoning votes, land-use reviews, and reduce public scrutiny
- Intel, SK hynix shares surge following reports of chip packaging partnership — SK is said to be testing Intel's 2.5D EMIB for HBM integration
- Scammers are selling fake DDR5 with empty plastic chips relabeled to pass as legit — fake components mounted to PCBs are yet another sign of the RAMpocalypse
- IRGC-linked media outlines plan to tax and control undersea internet cables in the Hormuz Strait — Iran's mouthpiece calls for a cut of $10 trillion of transactions that pulse through the cables daily
- Portable 40mm launcher kills drones by firing 6.5-feet-long steel chains at 80 m/s — German researchers' low-tech mechanical 'bola' outshines textile, drops quadcopters without lasers or EMPs
May 10
- MIT researchers revive 40-year-old triangular zipper concept now made possible by 3D printing, creates shape-shifting robots and deployable structures — 3D-printed 'Y-Zipper' turns floppy tentacles into rigid beams in seconds
- Former Epic director is building a European rival to the Unreal and Unity game engines — 'The Immense Engine' dev sees opportunity for AI agents to 'do the work of ten or fifteen people'
- China's Hanyuan-2 debuts as 'world's first' dual-core quantum computer — 200-qubit claims incredible power efficiency, but lacks critical performance benchmarks
- 3DMakerPro Toucan 3D Scanner review: All-in-one 3D scanning
- AI data center project secretly sucked 29 million gallons of water over 15 months before detected by residents complaining about low water pressure — officials refuse to fine builders of massive 6.2 million-square-foot facility over unauthorized water use
- Tiny credit card computer includes eInk screen and is just 1mm thick — Muxcard is powered by the ESP32-C3 microcontroller
- AMD's legendary K5, its first independently-designed processor, is being removed from the Linux kernel — 4.3-million-transistor chip gets the axe because it lacks Time Stamp Counter (TSC) support, making it a coding burden
- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 vs Ryzen 9 9950X3D faceoff — How far does dual cache take you?
- Louis Rossmann tells 3D printer maker Bambu Lab to ‘Go (Bleep) yourself’ over its threatened lawsuit against enthusiast — Right to Repair advocate offers to pay the legal fees for a threatened OrcaSlicer developer
- AI data centers face increasing complaints about inaudible but 'felt' infrasound — citizens complain high- and low-frequency sounds do not register on decibel meters but cause adverse health effects
- $200 'socketed' Nvidia AI GPU for servers hacked into a PCIe card with custom PCB and 3D-printed cooling — modded Tesla V100 SMX data center GPU runs AI LLMs and is more efficient than many modern midrange offerings in AI inference
- NASA pushes Mars helicopter rotors past the speed of sound for the first time ever — next-gen “SkyFall” aircraft's rotors hit 3,750 RPM, ten times faster than normal helicopters
- Ukraine’s new AI-guided laser destroys Shahed suicide drones in seconds from 3.1 miles away — also useful for demining operations, trailer-mounted Tryzub system is in final stages of testing
May 9
- FCC reverses course, allows software updates for foreign-made drones and routers until 2029 — agency says blocking security patches could create cybersecurity risks
- Maryland citizens slapped with $2 billion power grid upgrade bill for out-of-state AI data centers — state complains to federal energy regulators, says additional cost breaks ‘ratepayer protection pledge’ promises
- Cloudflare cuts 20% of its jobs due to AI, and its stock takes a 19% spill — 1,100 jobs disappearing as company increased usage of AI sixfold over past months
- Nextorage NEM-PAC 2TB SSD Review: A solid, PS5-ready workhorse
- Best budget gaming laptops of 2026: The best cheap laptops we've tested and benchmarked
- Fears grow that age verification coming to VPNs as a British research firm labels them a 'loophole' — one app developer saw downloads surge by 1,800% in just the first month after the UK's Online Safety Act took effect
- Testing Nvidia's RTX Mega Geometry tech — VRAM-reducing tech a leap forward for path-traced rendering
- Commodore Amiga-emulating TheA1200 retro computer delayed nearly half a year by ‘global chip shortages’ — Retro Games Ltd says it will use the extra time to finesse the software
- Supermicro-tied execs used Thailand government entity to ship Nvidia AI GPUs to China — report alleges Chinese web giant Alibaba received restricted servers
- Chinese grey market sells Claude API access at 90% off by using stolen credentials, model substitution, and harvesting users' prompts and outputs for resale as AI training data — 'transfer stations' operate through proxy networks that harvest user data
- Linux mascot Tux the penguin hits 30 years old — Linus Torvalds outlined the design of the 'slightly overweight penguin' on May 9, 1996
May 8
- Apple reportedly strikes deal for Intel to make some of its chips — two tech giants reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to make processors for Cupertino
- Nintendo is raising the price of the Switch 2 by $50 starting in September — Console will soon cost $499, but you can avoid the price hike if you buy now
- North Korean fake remote worker scam lands two Americans 18-month prison sentences for hosting laptops — US firms unknowingly shipped laptops to “employees” who secretly worked from overseas via remote desktop, generating $1.2 million for Pyongyang
- Maingear MG-1 (2026) review: Fast and clean, for a price
- Microsoft CTO confesses that 30-year-old code from the mid-90s still forms the bedrock of Windows 11 — ancient Win32 API still the backbone, but CTO says it's 'more relevant than ever in 2026'
- AI data center bans are rapidly multiplying across the US — 69 jurisdictions block new builds, with four moves noted as permanent
- Testing the top Thunderbolt 5 docks with up to 140W Power Delivery, 10 GbE, and even internal M.2 SSD slots — Razer, CalDigit, Hyper, Ivanky, and WAVLINK go head-to-head
- Save $444 on this top-tier gaming PC combo with Asus Prime RTX 5070, Ryzen 9850X3D, X870E motherboard, and 32GB of RAM — world's fastest gaming CPU meets copious amount of RAM
- The Middle East had everything data center builders and hyperscalers could wish for — then the Iran war happened
- Senator at center of Utah AI data center debate gets physical, slaps phone out of reporter’s hand — reporter covering cases of harassment against his business
- Desperate SK hynix customers offer to buy its EUV machines and fund new fabs as memory capacity hits zero amid crushing AI-driven shortages — worsening global shortages pry open wallets to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars
- Internet archival sites struggling to preserve the internet because of skyrocketing hard drive prices due to the AI boom — Wayback Machine and Wikimedia punished by stratospheric storage pricing and stricter anti-scraping measures blocking the wrong bots
- Google's DeepMind to train AI on player actions in quarter-million-player MMORPG Eve Online — Google bought in by purchasing a minority stake in the newly independent Fenris Creations
- Valve opens Steam Controller reservations today at 10 AM PT after record-breaking sell-out — reservation queue puts real fans ahead of automated bots
- Lenovo joins retro gaming handheld race with new G02 system for $63 — handheld for sale on AliExpress, listed on Lenovo's official China site
- Devastating 'Dirty Frag' exploit leaks out, gives immediate root access on most Linux machines since 2017, no patches available, no warning given — Copy Fail-like vulnerability had its embargo broken
May 7
- AMD announces MI350P PCIe AI accelerator card with 144GB of HBM3E — roughly 40% faster in FP16 and FP8 theoretical compute compared to Nvidia's H200 NVL competitor
- White House reportedly considers mandatory government vetting of AI models before release — executive order under discussion
- Lian Li’s new DK07 Wood motorized standing desk doubles as a dual-PC chassis with support for E-ATX systems and massive cooling setups — five new wood-finished models are available now
- Motherboard sales 'collapse' by more than 25% as chipmakers strangle enthusiast PC market to build more AI chips — Asus projected to sell 5 million fewer boards than 2025, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock also expected to see reduced sales numbers
- Intel Core Ultra 5 225 review: Arrow Lake’s forgotten CPU needs a price cut
- Musk's SpaceX has rented out access to its supercomputer's 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and 300 megawatts of AI compute power to rival Anthropic — Musk says “No one set off my evil detector,” Antrhropic also interested in orbital data centers
- Nvidia’s ISP piracy defense backfires as judge refuses to dismiss copyright lawsuit over more than 197,000 pirated books — scripts in NeMo Framework allegedly ‘have no other purpose’ than to speed up infringement
- After a $16 billion Stargate AI data center was built despite being voted down, Michigan towns rush to block new buildouts — massive facility will suck 1.4 Gigawatts of energy to power ChatGPT
- High-capacity HDD roadmap: the race to 100TB and zettabyte-scale storage — Toshiba, Seagate and WD outline three distinct strategies
- GameNative unlocks up to 100 fps gameplay for PC games on Android devices by adding multi-frame generation — Vulkan version of Lossless Scaling boosts performance
- College student hacks Taiwan high-speed rail line with software defined radios, stopping four trains — 19 years without crypto key rotation ends in predictable result as hacker sails through 7 layers of protection
- Samsung chip workers reject $340,000 one-time bonus, demand annual payouts like SK hynix's $900,000 — workers want share of AI windfall, impending 18-day strike could cost Samsung up to $11.7 billion
- 3D-printed rocket fuel successfully tested, could enable lighter missiles and faster production rates — new additive manufacturing process tested at 1,800 PSI
May 6
- PCIe 8.0 spec hits 1 TB/s of bandwidth and has new connector technology — spec hits 0.5V milestone, final ratification expected in 2028
- Xbox CEO Asha Sharma kills Copilot for Gaming — overhauls leadership with CoreAI veterans
- Nvidia invests $300 million in Corning to build three new US-based optical fiber plants — AI infrastructure deal would boost fiber production capacity by over 50%
- Survey shows that nearly half of Americans don't want new data centers built near their homes — 47% oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their neighborhood
- Steam Controller and Puck CAD files officially released under a Creative Commons license — Valve encourages users to create accessories for the device
- New Linux StarFighter laptop family debuts starting at $1,878 — Star Labs Systems' laptops arrive with spacious RAM, several options
- AMD to broaden and specialize EPYC CPUs, already working on Zen 7 architecture — increased customization to better address evolving AI and cloud needs
- SteelSeries Aerox 3 Wireless Gen 2 Review: The Bright and Bold
- Dell XPS 16 (2026) Review: A flagship return to form
- SpaceX files for $55 billion semiconductor fab in rural Texas for Musk's Terafab — total chipmaking fab investment could reach $119 billion
- Apple quietly axes 128GB Mac Studio amid supply constraints and local AI frenzy — highest memory capacity reduced to 96GB, two months after discontinuation of 512GB model
- AMD posts record first-quarter results, driven by skyrocketing data center CPU demand — company expects consumer and gaming revenue to decline in Q2 over rising memory and component costs
- Global semiconductor sales hit nearly $300 billion in Q1 2026 — chips are on track to top $1 trillion for this year, says report
- Google Chrome 'silently' downloads 4GB AI model to your device without permission, report claims — researcher says practice may violate EU law, waste thousands of kilowatts of energy
- Denmark presses pause on new data center grid connections as total requests hit 60 GW — Nordic nation is the latest to put the brakes on AI buildouts
- Microsoft says 'Transformation Paradox' holding back AI adoption in the workplace — 45% of respondents say it's safer to focus on current goals, rather than AI innovation
- Japan using game development engines for urban planning and disaster management — Kimono sales also stretching Unity and Unreal Engine capabilities beyond the small screen
- Latest Apex Legends update smooths out stutter on Ryzen X3D CPUs — physics algos apparently struggled at high frame rates unlocked by V-Cache
May 5
- AMD expects 20% decline in gaming revenue from 'higher memory and component costs' in the second half of the year — CEO Lisa Su warns of further memory crunch
- Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel backs $140M wave-powered AI data center startup — Panthalassa aims to run offshore compute nodes using ocean energy
- Google, Microsoft, and xAI agree to let US government test AI models before public release — OpenAI and Anthropic also on board after renegotiating deals with Washington
- Huawei braces for $12 billion in AI chip revenue driven by homegrown AI model demand — Chinese fabs can barely keep up as Nvidia's market share craters within the region
- Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition (2026) Review: Vibrant display, lightweight design, and an endurance champ
- JSR to build first Taiwan photoresist plant to co-develop advanced resists with TSMC — multi-million dollar plant could come online as early as 2028
- Apple considering Intel and Samsung for US chip production, report claims — consumer electronics giant looks to diversify supply chain amid chip shortages
- Inland QN450 1TB SSD Review: Maximum efficiency, minimum spend
- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says China should not have Blackwell or Rubin AI GPUs — firmly states US should have 'the first, the most, and the best' when it comes to AI hardware
- China pushes for 70% homegrown silicon wafer use as domestic firm ramps up 12-inch production — government seeking to localize critical chip supply chain amid AI boom and export restrictions
- Notepad++ creator threatens legal action over macOS port of open-source app — developer says port is fine, but branding is too far
- Intel's P-core Core 9 273PQE 'Bartlett Lake' CPU beats 14900K by up to 9% in gaming tests — embedded-only chip is unofficially Intel's fastest gaming CPU (at 720p)
- Enthusiast recreates 43-year-old Apple Lisa with FPGA board — first commercial computer with a GUI faithfully cloned with modernized machine
- New server-focused SPEC CPU 2026 benchmarking suite has results for a Raspberry Pi 5 — updated tools feature more tests and can run a wide range of systems
May 4
- Intel swipes Qualcomm veteran of 25 years to lead client computing — Alex Katouzian jumps ship to oversee consumer CPUs and physical AI
- Trump administration considers mandatory pre-release vetting of AI models — Anthropic's Mythos cited as catalyst for policy reversal
- Steam Controller scalpers are asking for $300+ on eBay — Valve's $99 controller demands high price as pre-orders sell out almost immediately [Updated]
- Secretlab launches Mandalorian Titan Evo gaming chair in Star Wars collection for May the 4th — collab builds with a new high-end themed chair
- Alienware 16 Area-51 review: OLED screen update
- AMD Ryzen AI 5 435G APU breaks cover in early benchmarks — six-core Zen 5 chip goes head-to-head with the Ryzen 5 8600G for budget PC builders
- CISA flags actively exploited ‘Copy Fail’ Linux kernel flaw enabling root takeover across major distros — unpatched systems may remain vulnerable to attack
- Intel's Arc Pro B70 workstation GPU with 32GB of VRAM gets tested in games — Roughly twice as fast as Arc B580 on average, beats RTX 5060 Ti in some titles
- Nvidia's exposure to Asian supply chains for components hits 90% of its production costs — marked increase from 65% could intensify as physical AI adds even more exposure
- AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 APU could arrive with 192GB of unified memory — leaked PassMark benchmarks suggest modest update over Strix Halo
- Steam Controller interview full transcript — Valve programmer and engineer discuss design, latency, prototyping, and the joys of not having a kernel driver
- Crushing shortages have pushed long-term supply agreements for SSDs and HDDs to record five years — large customers are signing large contracts
- AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 9965X3D spotted on Passmark — company's first PRO chip with 3D V-Cache also bumps the lineup up to 16 cores
May 3
- Enthusiast builds a PC big enough to live in — humans in this RGB-lit fish tank case look just like figurines
- Nvidia accelerates end-of-life for some Jetson AI processors due to memory shortages — RAMpocalypse sends older DDR4-based modules to the great scrapheap in the sky
- A suspected YouTube interface bug spikes RAM usage above 7 gigabytes, users report severe lag and frozen tabs — bug might be trapping browsers in an endless layout loop
- Popular 90s search engine ‘Ask Jeeves’ finally bites the dust — parent company shutters website that pioneered natural language queries, only a placeholder results page remains
- Anthropic in early talks to buy DRAM-less AI inference chips from UK startup — Fractile's SRAM architecture reduces need for pricey memory during extreme pricing and shortage crunch
- Chinese court rules companies can't fire workers just because AI is cheaper — ruling says automation alone doesn't justify layoffs
- Jensen says Nvidia now has 'zero percent' market share in China — says US export policy 'has already largely backfired'
- Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks
- Keychain-size ‘GameCube’ uses genuine Nintendo silicon — system also includes a dock, design shared to GitHub
- Microsoft now recommends 32GB of RAM as the future-proof 'no worries' config for gaming — 16GB becomes the new 'practical starting point' during the RAMageddon
- Amazon’s Middle East data centers damaged by Iran drone and missile attacks will be down for several months during repairs — U.S. and Iran currently observing an uneasy truce, but renewed strikes possible if talks break down
- Japan is deploying ultra-cheap cardboard drones built for swarm warfare and expendable combat missions — $2,000 expendable combat drones cost less than some gaming PCs
May 2
- This must-have miniature Macintosh retro dock gives your M4 Mac Mini a 1980s makeover — equipped with a 5-inch HD display and M.2 NVMe SSD slot
- Sony increases prices for refurbished PS5 slims by $100 — PS5 Fortnite bundle is out of stock, marking the end of new $399 consoles
- 45 years later, earliest DOS source code transcribed from a stack of old printouts found in a garage — code was open-sourced to mark 86-DOS 1.00’s anniversary
- Retailer selling broken RTX 5090 GPUs for as low as $1,760 — GPUs were damaged during transport, but include all components on the PCB
- FCC votes to ban all Chinese labs from certifying electronics sold in the US due to national security concerns — ruling would affect 75 percent of US-bound devices
- US Navy signs deal with AI firm for training underwater drones to detect mines in Strait of Hormuz — $100 million would allow drone minesweepers to update their detection algorithms in days instead of months
- Enthusiast creates Peltier thermoelectric cooler from scratch — impressive rig uses two 360mm AIOs, homemade DC controllers, and a custom loop
- Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite Duo X Motherboard Review: CQDIMM support with Arrow Lake Refresh
- We tested supercharging the RTX 5090 in PhysX games using an RTX 5060 as a secondary GPU — SLI may be dead, but how much can dual GPUs boost performance in classic PhysX titles?
- Apple warns Mac mini and Mac Studio shortages could last for months — local AI boom and memory crunch drive demand beyond Apple’s manufacturing capacity
- Tech teardown specialist delids a Xeon with a blowtorch and hunting knife — wood chopping block makes a worthy stage for the sacrifice
- Redditor gambles $20 on a 4TB Temu external HDD — receives a microSD card reader hot-glued inside a plastic box
May 1
- Canonical under sustained DDoS attack as Ubuntu 26 releases — Iranian group 313 Team claims responsibility
- Biwin M350 2TB SSD Review: A Better Budget Alternative?
- The Pentagon announces AI deals with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and more — LLMs to be deployed on classified Department of War networks ‘for lawful operational use’
- Skyrocketing component prices push Big Tech capex to record $725 billion — Microsoft alone attributes $25 billion of AI budget to increased memory and chip costs
- Microsoft begins rolling out Xbox Mode to Windows 11 desktops and laptops — consolidated storefronts and console-style interface come to PC
- SoftBank plans robotics and AI firm in the US to build data centers — aims for $100 billion valuation and an IPO this year
- Huawei could seize China’s AI chip crown in 2026 as Nvidia's H200 shipments stall in regulatory limbo — Beijing pushes homegrown AI hardware dominance in a market projected to hit $67 billion by 2030
- Slimline Commodore 64C Ultimate Edition computers go up for pre-order — firm reintroduces the C64’s sleeker 1986-1994 styling across the range
- ASML's roadmap for chipmaking lithography tools examined — from DUV to Low-NA, High-NA, Hyper-NA, and beyond
- Wingtech posts $1.3 billion loss and faces Shanghai delisting as Nexperia audit collapses — 57% of company's assets can't be verified
- Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is cutting 8,000 jobs to pay for AI infrastructure — insatiable compute demand means the company can't rule out further headcount reductions
- Intel details 18A-P process node, touts higher performance, lower power, and better thermals — 9% more performance, thermal conductivity improved by 50%
- Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum receive clamshell makeover — iconic 8-bit legends join the handheld gaming wars
- Linux exploit instantly grants administrator access on most distributions since 2017 — cryptography optimization snafu grants root privileges to local users
- Pentagon budget reveals it's pursuing containerized 300kW+ laser weapons, ambitious Joint Laser Weapon System designed to shoot down cruise missiles — system part of $17.9 billion Golden Dome missile-defense initiative