Author: News Room

Caught yourself scrolling on Instagram a lot longer lately? You’re not imagining it. Meta just told investors what’s driving that trend, and AI is at the center of it. During its second-quarter earnings call, Meta said time spent on Instagram grew by double digits year over year after rolling out new AI-powered recommendation systems. According to the company, the biggest gains came from improvements to how it recommends Reels and other public content, making it easier to surface videos people are more likely to watch. Every public post gets an AI read first Meta’s recommendation systems now do more than…

If you were hoping your next Android phone might come with a friendlier price tag, you may want to temper your expectations. Qualcomm just confirmed it’s raising chip prices starting September 1, and CEO Cristiano Amon didn’t dress up the reason. “Cost went up, prices are going to go up,” he told CNBC. Qualcomm chips power a huge share of the world’s Android phones, so a hike at the source is likely to reach store shelves eventually. Rising costs go beyond memory Qualcomm’s own earnings report points to a broad jump in costs across wafer fabrication, assembly, testing, packaging, and…

Talking to your computer instead of typing to it might sound like a sci-fi fantasy, but OpenAI is betting big on it. In a chat with Joanna Stern on her YouTube channel, OpenAI president Greg Brockman confirmed that the company is not stopping at just one gadget. Get ready, because a whole family of devices is on the way. When Stern brought up rumors of an AI smart speaker, Brockman did not confirm or deny it. Instead, he said, “we’re building a family of devices,” adding that the focus is not on any single product but on delivering value over…

Microsoft has been dropping Copilot everywhere lately: chat, Cowork, coding, autonomous agents, and now it looks like all of it is getting stuffed into one place. During Wednesday’s earnings call, CEO Satya Nadella confirmed the company is building an AI super app that brings every one of these Copilot experiences under a single roof. What exactly is Microsoft building? Nadella explained that Copilot has moved fast, going from a simple chat tool to Cowork and now to Autopilots, Microsoft’s term for autonomous agents that can run long tasks on their own. He plans to combine all the tools into what…

Apple recently announced its new Apple Upgrade leasing plan, which lets customers pay monthly for an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch through Klarna. The program replaces the long-running iPhone Upgrade Program and expands the option beyond phones for the first time. However, code discovered by 9to5Mac in an iOS 27 beta raised concerns about what could happen if someone fell behind on payments. The new App Managed Features system appeared capable of checking a customer’s payment status and placing a financed device into Restricted Mode. Apple has now clarified that the system will not be used for its Upgrade…

Every summer, roughly 10 million Chinese students face a brutal deadline. After taking the grueling Gaokao college entrance exam, they get just a few weeks to pick their universities and majors, a decision that can shape their entire career. Families used to pay hefty fees for expert guidance through this process. Now, free AI chatbots are quietly taking that business away. How are AI chatbots replacing paid college consultants? Chinese high schools typically skip career counseling entirely, so families used to seek help from guidance books, influencers, and paid consultants. Now, companies including Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and Baidu have all…

Robotic lawn mowers can save homeowners hours of manual yard work, but not every model is designed for challenging properties. While many perform well on flat lawns, larger yards with uneven terrain, steep slopes, and multiple mowing zones require a mower built for more demanding conditions. Developed by GOKO, the consumer robotics brand of Robot++, the GOKO M6 is an industrial-grade 4WD AI-powered robotic lawn mower that brings more than a decade of industrial robotics expertise to residential lawn care. It combines AI-powered four-wheel drive, advanced navigation technologies, and AI QuadVision obstacle detection to tackle complex landscapes with less manual…

I’ve used ChatGPT for years, but for the longest time, I never felt the need to pay for it. Instead, I subscribed to Claude Pro because it fit my workflow better. Between regular chat and Cowork, it gave me everything I needed in one place, so paying for another AI subscription didn’t make sense. That changed when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Work. I was curious enough to give ChatGPT Pro a proper shot, expecting to test one new feature and move on. Instead, I ended up using it far more than I expected. The more I relied on it in my…

I’ve been using Alienware laptops since the late 2000s, and one word has always defined the brand for me: excess. The good kind. For the longest time, if a gamer wanted a laptop that looked every bit as powerful as it played, Alienware was the name that came to mind. The bold designs, futuristic aesthetics, and unapologetically over-the-top styling made every machine feel special. Sure, they came with eye-watering price tags, but somehow that always felt justified. After all, nobody expects to buy a Porsche at a discount, right? So when Dell announced a budget-friendly Alienware earlier this year at…

The AI browser race is entering a new phase. After spending much of 2025 trying to reinvent web search with built-in chatbots, startups are increasingly shifting their attention toward browser agents that can automate repetitive work instead of simply answering questions. The latest company to embrace that transition is Polar, a startup founded by former Perplexity engineer Kevin Zhang, which has raised $5.7 million in seed funding led by Madrona. Unlike the first generation of AI browsers that targeted everyday consumers, Polar is designed specifically for knowledge workers. Its premise is straightforward: instead of replacing Google Search, the browser aims…