Like most electronics, ebike motors are subject to fast-paced change and development, whether that’s power increases, reduction in battery size and weight, better integration or simply increased reliability.
But choosing the right eMTB motor – and the bike it’s fitted to – has become ever more difficult because tech leaps forward at such a pace.
After a 2021 software power update, taking peak figures to 85Nm and 600W, Bosch’s Performance Line CX motor enjoyed supremacy for several years.
In mid-2024, Chinese drone and camera manufacturer DJI disrupted the market with the Avinox drive unit. Peak power and torque figures – 1,000w and 120Nm respectively – dwarfed Bosch’s numbers, and the Avinox quickly became the must-have system.
At launch, it was only available on DJI’s own bike – the Amflow – but that’s now changed. Crestline, Forbidden and Unno, among others, are selling Aninox-equipped models, and there are rumours of more to come.
While the Avinox avalanche is in full flow, Bosch has responded with the Performance Line CX-R and a software update reserved for the latest Gen 5 CX motor.
This upped torque and power to 100Nm and 750W, going some way to keeping the German manufacturer in touch with the Chinese behemoth.
Of course, power and torque figures aren’t the whole story. How that power is delivered is just as important, as are reliability, repairability and warranty, functionality, battery life and weight, along with how good any companion smartphone app may be.
Anyone considering buying a new eMTB is likely to be looking at bikes with one of these two motors fitted, so I set out to find out which is the best and most worthy of your cash.
Headline power and torque figures are the ebike’s equivalent to the cherry sitting atop a cake.
While the cherry is important, and the ingredient that’s most likely to tempt you, it shouldn’t be the biggest consideration – there’s plenty more to the cake, as there is an ebike motor.
DJI’s Avinox boasts the biggest figures on the market, maxing out at a whopping 800 per cent support ratio, 120Nm of max torque (and 105Nm of continuous torque) and 1,000W of peak power.
In the Avinox’s case, if the rider puts in 100W of power, the motor will supplement your power with an additional 800W.
The Bosch Performance Line CX-R – and the standard Gen 5 CX after its mid-2025 update – maxes out at a 400 per cent support ratio, 100Nm of torque and 750W of peak power.
In the Bosch’s case, if you put in 100W of power, the motor will contribute 400W.
Bosch’s different assistance modes give riders plenty to choose from.
From the toned-down Eco up to newest, blazing eMTB+ setting, the Performance Line CX can be tuned to respond to rider input by reactively increasing or decreasing assistance or output power using in-built sensors. There are standard, non-adaptive modes, too, including Eco, Tour and Turbo.
Each mode’s characteristics can be tuned in the accompanying smartphone app, resulting in plenty of customisation and the ability to blend battery life and power according to your needs.
The Avinox has four main modes. All except Eco can access 105Nm of torque and 1,000W of power.
There’s also an Auto mode that uses sensors to tune the motor’s output on the fly. A time-limited Boost function throws the entirety of the Avinox’s armoury at the trail, accessing 120Nm of torque for up to 60 seconds.
| All figures claimed | DJI Avinox M1 | Bosch Performance Line CX-R |
|---|---|---|
| Motor power (peak) (watts) | 1,000 | 750 |
| Motor torque (peak) (Newton meters) | 120 | 100 |
| Support ratio (per cent) | 800 | 400 |
While all the motor’s outputs can be adjusted within DJI’s smartphone app, the onboard touchscreen display enables you to do the same. But if you want to ride an Avinox-equipped bike further than an initial 100km, registering your bike for the first time via the smartphone app is mandatory.
Once that’s complete, you don’t have to keep your phone with you or keep the app installed.
While the two motors’ modes are similar in intent and functionality, switching from Bosch to DJI feels as if you’re going from a 56k dial-up modem to full-fibre broadband.
DJI has taken the slick ethos of its cameras and drones and ported it to ebikes. There are user-operated battery-health tools, rapid charging, bike-theft protection, customisable data screens, the deepest level of power, torque, overrun and drivetrain-protection features, freewheel gear shifting and motor-tilt angle power cut-off.
Bosch’s Smart System is hardly lacking in features, though, you just need to have your phone with you to make any meaningful changes.
Theft protection, data-screen customisation, ride recording and even navigation (on compatible screens), along with mode assistance tuning, are possible. However, the brand’s system feels more like something that’s been built and added to over iterative updates rather than redesigned from the ground up.
DJI’s motor and batteries are lighter than Bosch’s. Weighing a claimed 2.52kg, the Avinox M1 is 178g lighter than Bosch’s motor. For the same battery capacities – 600Wh and 800Wh – DJI comes in 130g and 160g lighter respectively. DJI’s batteries are also slimmer than Bosch’s, with Avionx-powered bikes having a much sleeker silhouette.
| All weights claimed | DJI Avinox M1 | Bosch Performance Line CX-R |
|---|---|---|
| Motor Weight (g) | 2520 | 2700 |
| Battery Weight (600 Wh) (g) | 2900 | 3000 |
| Battery Weight (800 Wh) (g) | 3700 | 3900 |
Where DJI trumps Bosch in weight, Bosch offers significantly more battery-capacity options, including the 250Wh PowerMore range extender.
It’s currently impossible to swap ebike motors and batteries between bikes – each model in a brand’s range is built around a specific motor, its mounting patterns and shape, and the same applies to the battery.
While I’d have loved to ride two identical bikes with the two motor systems, that’s not a practical possibility, so I’ve managed the next best thing.
The two bikes – DJI’s own Avinox-equipped Amflow PL Carbon Pro and Pivot’s Shuttle AM Team XX Eagle Transmission – share the same trail-bike intentions, with a 160mm fork and 150mm-travel rear end.
Both also have an 800Wh battery and each brand’s range-topping motor. In the Amflow camp, there’s only one Avinox motor available, while the Pivot is fitted with Bosch’s Performance Line CX-R, which is the lightest and most powerful model.
Elsewhere, the bikes are decked out with the usual kit – Fox dampers front and back, SRAM’s Transmission, carbon fibre wheels and Maxxis tyres all make an appearance.
On the scales, the Amflow PL Carbon Pro weighs 21.55kg (size large, without pedals), while the Pivot Shuttle AM Team XX Eagle Transmission is 22.62kg (size large, without pedals).
This makes the motor comparison about as fair as possible, all things considered.
Both bikes were ridden back-to-back on the same trails, in the same conditions during the test period, to analyse everything from battery life and range through to usability, reliability and customisation.
However, without custom dyno equipment, it’s impossible to verify the claimed outputs of each brand’s motor.
It’s not only the figures that count, though – it’s out on the trails where it matters, and that’s what I’ve reported on.
The hype around the Avinox motor is to be believed.
Its power and feel outshine other ebike systems in the same way a luxury car does its budget counterparts, feeling better in almost every way.
But there’s more to how it rides than the simple arms race of more, more, more.
There’s a refinement to the Avinox’s power-delivery algorithm that mimics how our bodies interact with a bike.
Even in the highest modes with all the settings turned up, there’s a preliminary softness to its power. It’s sensitive to the nuances of rider input, which is something other motors can struggle with.
Initial power delivery doesn’t spike with a full-torque disregard for rider control or rear-wheel traction.
Instead, support eases in progressively but quickly, up to its full output. This gives you time to gather your thoughts and gain control – instead of going all-out from your initial pedal stroke, you ramp up your effort.
It’s this sympathetic human/bike relationship that’s most striking when you first use an Avinox motor, and one you may end up taking for granted until you try a different system.
But, like any machine, it can be a handful if you operate it poorly. Pedalling hard at inopportune moments causes wheelspin or front-wheel lift, but even the least powerful ebikes can be ridden unsympathetically.
Bosch’s Performance Line CX motors have always had a reputation for being the most ‘human’ like and the same is true of the latest CX-R.
It has a similarly controllable power delivery as the Avinox – it’s gentle at first, then builds with torque and watts as the rider does, but its crescendo of outright performance falls short of the Avinox’s lofty – and sustained – thump.
While the gentleness of the Bosch and Avinox are to be commended – delivering impressive initial and continuous grip – it’s the Avinox’s outright grunt that gives it a conquer-all feel.
Steep technical climbs can be ridden faster and with more conviction on the Avinox. Lifting the bike up a step or over some dicey rocks or roots is easier, not only because you can carry more momentum into any given section, but because topping up the bike’s speed is easy.
In theory, Bosch’s Race mode – reserved exclusively for the Race motor – should edge that drive unit ahead in terms of response time and sensitivity, but its initial support is overwhelming.
The lightest tap of the cranks propels the bike forward with an all-or-nothing blast of speed. That’s fine when traction is good, but as soon as it’s slippery or the terrain is uneven, it makes it much harder to control.
Dialling the Bosch back to Turbo or eMTB+ mode flattens this abrupt on-off feel, but neither Race, Turbo or eMTB+ modes have any more power than each other, or – importantly – the Avinox.
The Avinox’s taper to full chat, more power and generous support ratio culminates in a package that makes cleaning some of the wildest sections a visceral reality. And if the motor’s full-power setting is too much to handle, dropping it down to Auto makes it a more manageable beast.
With that power comes great responsibility. Charging up a fireroad at the speed cut-off limit is fine, but add in some tech and you need to keep your wits about you.
Advanced techniques such as feathering the rear brake, lifting and placing the front wheel or using the rear wheel’s drive to jump and change line really take advantage of all that torque and power.
While the above is also true of the Bosch, the lower average speeds you ride at – simply because the motor’s giving you less assistance for any given rider input – make getting yourself into difficulty or having to rely on certain skills to keep you out of trouble less likely.
Overrun is good on both systems – short cranks provide meaningful, controllable sustained assistance. And if the stock levels of overrun are either too little or too much, it can be tuned to suit your needs in each respective app.
Thanks to the impressive support ratio, the Avinox can sit comfortably at the speed cut-off limit with very little rider input. Fireroad ascents – almost regardless of gradient – are dispatched at top speed, requiring only limited rider input when the motor’s set to its maximum mode.
The same isn’t true of the Bosch – on my test loops, average overall speeds were between 5 and 7km/h slower on the Performance Line compared to the Avinox.
My heart rate was between 10 and 20 beats per minute higher, too.
Of course, you can turn down the Avinox’s assistance levels or use a different mode to mimic the feel and output of the Bosch, but once you’ve had a taste of the Avinox, it’s hard switching back to a system with less assistance.
With both bikes set to maximum power, it’s unsurprising the Avniox motor runs out of battery quicker. It’s got more torque and watts, which are easier to access, depleting the 800Wh battery after 1,170m of ascending over 30.6km. This is pushed to 1,450m of ascent over 34.5km in Race mode in the Bosch camp before the battery is fully flat.
It’s possible to turn down the Avinox’s torque, power and support levels to match Bosch, to create a like-for-like battery runtime comparison.
Matching support ratios was hardest; Bosch’s is 400 per cent, but the DJI’s is on a scale of one to 15. Halving that would seem sensible given the bike should amplify your input by 800 per cent when set to 15. However, with torque set to 100Nm, power to 750W and the assistance level set to these figures, the bike felt closer to Bosch’s Tour+ or eMTB modes instead of Bosch’s Turbo or Race.
Upping the Amflow’s assistance level to 11, while keeping torque and power the same, gave it the closest feel to the Bosch motor in its maximum settings. Like this, the Avinox managed 1,357m of ascent over 30.34km before the battery was discharged.
In my testing, this is slightly less than Bosch’s range, but it’s within a reasonable margin to not cause concern. Different riders in different conditions may also get different results.
The large-capacity batteries mean neither bike is likely to leave you high and dry, and each displays the percentage of battery drain relatively accurately. This makes managing each motor’s battery easy.
Neither system is perfect, however.
Bosch’s Mini Remote is very fragile – I’ve broken several in crashes, while just riding, or storing bikes. Knock the underside of the rubberised button away from the controller and it snaps off, the spring launches itself and the whole remote needs replacing because it isn’t repairable.
Some may get frustrated at having to use Bosch’s smartphone app to make any changes to the motor’s settings, while others will probably lament the idea of having to register the Avinox on its smartphone app before riding further than 100km.
Neither are deal breakers, though.
Once the Avinox system has run out of juice, there’s significant resistance through the cranks that you’ll have to overcome in order keep the pedals turning. Compared to the Bosch system, the difference is night and day, with the Performance Line motor’s resistance feeling like a regular bike when it’s off.
While this isn’t a serious issue, it serves as a warning that running out of battery on an Avinox bike a long way from home will be more punishing than one with the Bosch motor.
Neither drive unit makes a racket; in fact, both are very quiet on the trails even when operating at full chat. The noise they make is relatively similar – it’s a higher-pitch steady whine rather than the fluctuating turkey gobble Shimano’s EP8 emits. At lower assistance levels, they barely make more noise than your tyres on dirt or banter between mates; they’re very discreet.
Downhill, Bosch has fixed the freewheel rattle that plagued the previous iterations of the Performance Line motor – the Gen 5 is entirely silent. The Avinox is also virtually silent when freewheeling, barely clacking, clunking or rattling even on the wildest descents.
There’s more to it than just the motors, though.
The Avinox’s performance is virtually worthless if the bike it’s fitted to is lacklustre, and, currently, Bosch has the market sewn up in terms of choice. Bikes with Bosch CX motors span from lightweight trail eaters up to quasi-DH sleds, with a slew of others in between.
That’s brilliant for the consumer, and as it stands, you’re more likely to find a Bosch-powered bike – and an affordable one for that matter – that suits your specific needs rather than one with an Avinox drive unit.
That could all change, but the bike the motor’s fitted to has to be one of the biggest considerations when looking to make a purchase.
The Avinox motor system is the one to beat in almost all respects – power, feel, tuneability and weight. Just make sure it’s fitted to a bike that’s as good.
Exceptional power, torque and assistance; unrivalled speed and uphill prowess; natural-feeling assistance; deep and usable on-bike customisation; light battery and motor; slick user interface; great battery life
Smartphone app is mandatory; motor creates pedalling resistance when it’s off; limited number of bikes with Avinox motors
Natural-feeling, with more than adequate power and long battery life, the fifth-generation Bosch is one of the best motors to date and comes on a wide range of bikes that should suit any rider.
Plenty of power and torque; intuitive and simple motor tuning; impressive battery life; natural-feeling support; loads of battery, controller and display options; no drivetrain or motor drag when pedalling with it off; widespread availability on bikes
Tuning modes reserved for the app; mini remote is fragile; less outright power, torque and support; heavier than the Avinox
Going on motor performance alone, it’s impossible to ignore the Avinox’s impact on the industry. There’s a palpable buzz about the system, and trailside chat is centred around how good the motor is.
If performance is the biggest factor for you, there are very few reasons not to plump for an Avinox-powered bike.
Unfortunately, it’s never that simple. Whether the smaller selection of Avinox bikes will suit your needs or budget is a personal matter.
But I’d happily go out on a limb and say that – currently at least – the sheer number of Bosch-powered bikes means you’re more likely to find your perfect match.
That’s likely to change in the future, however, and when it does, Bosch et al. are going to have to do something very special to beat DJI’s impending dominance.
Industry veterans are weighing in after Larian received blowback for using generative AI in its workflow
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Enjoy a versatile streaming stick that can get you wherever you want to go just by plugging into your TV.
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Considering we’re awaiting word of a (likely) sixth season renewal, it’s undeniable that Emily in Paris has been an unqualified success for Netflix, a reliable hit that rivals the success of buzzier genre shows like Stranger Things. Lily Collins stars as the faux pas-prone Emily Cooper, who moves to Paris and lands a temporary job at a glitzy French marketing firm kind of by accident. She doesn’t speak the language and doesn’t get the culture, but slowly manages to ingratiate herself to the locals while juggling work and romance in a new country. The series hails from Darren Star, creator of Sex and the City, so her budding high-fashion sense and tendency to narrate adventures à la Carrie Bradshaw make perfect sense.
While you wait for Emily’s next round of misadventures, here are 15 other shows that offer similarly stylish coming-of-age vibes.
Inspired by the career of Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles, this show follows three young besties—Jane Sloan (Katie Stevens), Kat Edison (Aisha Dee), and Sutton Brady (Meghann Fahy)—working for the fictional women’s magazine Scarlet in NYC. As with Emily‘s mentors Madeline and Sylvie, the three are never without the firm guiding hand of editor-in-chief, Jacqueline Carlyle (Melora Hardin), as they navigate life and careers in their dramatically stylish world. Stream The Bold Type on Hulu, HBO Max, and Tubi.
No international travel here (or at least, not until the second season), but we do have a fashion-forward stylist who’d devoted herself to the wrong guy for way too long. As the series opens, Mavis (Beaumont (Michele Buteau, who also co-created the series) is ready for a fresh start, putting herself and career first—which does not preclude falling into a number of romantic entanglements. As she says more than once, she’s going to take on the fashion world with a “body-positive attitude, cute v-neck, and some lip-gloss.” Stream Survival of the Thickest on Netflix.
Before Emily in Paris, creator Darren Star produced this two-season prequel to Sex and the City, and it’s a good bet for fans of either show. Even as a 16-year-old living in Connecticut, Carrie Bradshaw (AnnaSophia Robb) is firmly on the road to becoming the iconic New York fashionista that we know she’ll grow into. The high school junior takes an internship at a law firm in the Big Apple, only to moonlight from that pretty-darn-good gig by taking a second job at Interview magazine. The young Ms. Bradshaw has to balance school, family, a volatile relationship, a budding career, and a new and very outgoing bestie named Samantha (Lindsey Gort). Stream The Carrie Diaries on The CW or buy episodes from Prime Video and Apple TV
The connection here is largely based on style, as in Mrs. Maisel‘s impeccable period 1950s pairs nicely with Emily‘s heightened modern Paris, but there’s also the aspect of a young woman striking out on her own, and damn the consequences. Maisel was one of Prime’s first truly buzzy original series, a comedy-drama from Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls) about the title’s Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), a New York housewife of the late 1950s who discovers a talent for stand-up comedy. Inspired by the real-life careers of comedians like Totie Fields and Joan Rivers, the show is warm and welcoming, with great performances and dialogue; it also achieves something rare in being a show about comedy that’s actually funny. Stream The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Prime Video.
Amy Sherman-Palladino and David Palladino returned to TV, and to the ballet world (following Bunheads), for this series about two world-renowned ballet companies (one in NYC and one in Paris) that decide to spice things up by swapping their most talented dancers. Each company is on the brink of financial disaster, and so Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby), director of the Metropolitan Ballet, and Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), director of of Le Ballet National, come up with the plan, and recruit an eccentric billionaire (Simon Callow) to pay for it. Much of the comedy comes from the mismatched natures of their swapped dancers, and there’s a tangible love of ballet that keeps things light, despite the fancy title. The focus is a bit more on the dance directors than on the younger dancers, but there’s still plenty of impeccable Parisian style on display. Stream Étoile on Prime Video.
Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby, Bottoms) created, produces, writes, and stars as Maia, who is 27, living in LA, and desperate for promotion in her job as an assistant talent manager. She’s joined in town by Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), a former New York City influencer fallen on messy times, and an alternately fun and exhausting circle of friends that includes West Hollywood stylist Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Maia’s teacher boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson). It’s a great looking show and, though tolerance for a coming-of-age comedy about twenty-ish-year-olds in LA will vary, it’s smartly written and impressively acted. Stream I Love LA on HBO Max.
There’s no high concept hook here. This critical favorite stars Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the title character (only ever referred to as Fleabag) in a comedy drama about a free-spirited, but also deeply angry single young woman in living in London who shares her romantic ups and downs via confessional asides to us, the audience. So…Emily in Paris, but messier? Waller-Bridge won separate Emmys as the star, creator, and writer of the series (all in the same year), and co-stars Sian Clifford, Olivia Coleman, Fiona Shaw, and Kristin Scott Thomas were lauded as well. Stream Fleabag on Prime Video.
Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) is an endlessly naïve scholarship student; Bela (Amrit Kaur), is an aspiring comedy writer on the make for the hottest guys; Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) is an overachieving athlete and senator’s daughter; Leighton (Reneé Rapp) is a closeted sorority girl. They’re randomly assigned to room together as freshmen at the fictional Essex College in Vermont. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, this comedy-drama isn’t nearly as salacious as its title suggests: There’s sex, for sure, but like Sex and the City before it, the funny, queer-friendly show is more about female friendship. Stream The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max.
A young woman movies from the U.S. to France to pursue her dream of dancing. Oh, and also she’s magic. A successor to Find Me in Paris, set at that show’s same Paris Opera Ballet School, Spellbound introduces a new cast and, where the earlier series dealt with time travel, Spellbound is all about real magic: Fifteen-year-old American Cece Parker Jones travels to Paris to join the prestigious dance school, only to discover that she’s an actual witch with a family history of spellcraft. She struggles to balance dance, magic, and her desire to be a normal teenager while dealing with the Mystics, natural enemies to Cece’s type of witch. It’s a solid and stylish coming-of-age drama. Stream Spellbound on Hulu.
There’s no Chicago gal traveling overseas in this French series, so if you want your Parisian marketing industry workplace dramedy straight up, with no American hand-holding, you’re in luck. The series shifts its focus between four talent agents at a prestigious agency who are forced to take the reins following the sudden death of the agency founder. They navigate their messy personal lives while catering to the needs of their real celebrity clients (Juliette Binoche, Monica Bellucci, Isabelle Huppert, and Sigourney Weaver are just some of the name guest stars playing faintly exaggerated versions of themselves). It’s soapy, addictive showbiz fun, a dishy delight even if you know not a lick of French. Stream Call My Agent! on Netflix or buy episodes from Prime Video and Apple TV.
Teen drama at its finest and most bitchy, Gossip Girl follows the many, many scandals of a group of young Upper East Side socialites and hangers-on. The tangled teenage lives of Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), her best frenemy Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), scholarship kid Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), and plenty more pretty young boys and girls are chronicled in meticulous detail by the title’s mysterious, omnipresent Gossip Girl (voiced by Kristen Bell). This one shares with Emily an impeccable sense of style, as its leads never miss a fashion beat. The short-lived 2021 follow-up is also available on HBO Max. Stream Gossip Girl on HBO Max and Netflix.
Just as Emily’s tourist kitsch gets her read for filth in the opening episode of her series, Betty Suarez (America Ferrera) has a…let’s say “distinct” sense of fashion that sets her much apart from the rest of the striving staffers at the prestigious fashion magazine Mode, where she manages to land a job despite not quite fitting into the mold (her opening episode poncho is, of course, iconic). Betty’s only coming from Queens, but her adult braces and good heart set her well apart in the catty, high-pressure world of NYC fashion. Stream Ugly Betty on Hulu.
Based on the novel of the same name from Stephanie Danler, drawing on her experiences as an NYC waitress, Sweetbitter stars Yellowjackets‘ Ella Purnell as Tess, 21 at the series’ opening, as she arrives in the city and gets a job at a prestigious restaurant. As we (and she) quickly learn, there’s at least as much drama (including drugs, booze, and sex) in the restaurant industry as there is in the world of social media. Stream Sweetbitter on Prime Video.
Another Darren Star show, this one’s seven-season run overlapped just a bit with Emily. It flips a more common premise on its head: rather than a young woman seeking to make a name for herself, Younger follows Liza Miller (Sutton Foster), a recently divorced woman in her 40s who finds that her age is a barrier to reentering the publishing industry she left years earlier. After a compliment convinces her that she could pass for a younger woman, she lies that she’s just 26 in order to land an entry-level job. Misadventures ensue. Think of it as a story of coming-of-age, again. Stream Younger on Netflix.
How about Emily in Paris for real? This hard-hitting documentary series follows the lives of American ex-pats in Paris…just kidding, it’s a Bravo reality show. Still, the vibes are not at all dissimilar, though this bit of reality TV nonsense somehow feels more heightened than the scripted drama of Emily (which probably inspired it). Six women trying to make names for themselves in the City of Lights: one a fashion designer, one an art historian, one an English teacher, etc. What they all share is a level of impeccable fashion that most people only experience by starring in a TV show. Stream Real Girlfriends in Paris on Peacock.
Micron, one of the world’s three largest memory suppliers, expects the global shortage of DRAM and NAND flash memory to “persist through and beyond” 2026 as AI-driven demand continues to outstrip supply. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra made the forecast during the company’s latest earnings call on Wednesday, saying that “supply will remain substantially short of the demand for the foreseeable future.” The company posted record quarterly revenue of $13.64 billion, up from $8.71 billion in the same period last year.
Micron recently shuttered Crucial, its consumer-facing brand, to focus on high-bandwidth memory for AI data centers. HBM technology requires three times the silicon wafers of standard DRAM, leaving fewer resources for the chips that go into PCs, smartphones and cars. Micron plans to boost DRAM and NAND shipments by 20 percent next year but acknowledged this won’t meet demand. New facilities in Idaho and New York are slated for 2027 and 2030 respectively.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
BattleCrafter is all about restoring the weapons and armor of old, letting you get a closer look at everything from ancient swords to modern rifles, and learn about them too.
Developed by VR Factory Games, the studio known for Bartender VR Simulator (2018) and Workshop Simulator VR (2025), BattleCrafter VR puts in the shoes of the galaxy’s top restoration specialist who is tasked with bringing humanity’s greatest battles back to life.
Using futuristic tools, you’ll rebuild weapons, armor, and war artifacts, then showcase them in Mars’ massive War Museum domes.
Missions require you to restore four key historical artifacts and install them inside massive multimedia domes that recreate iconic battles.
The better your craftsmanship, the higher your reward, which you can reinvest into advanced workshop upgrades like 3D printers, magnetic assembly platforms, and laser welding tools, the studio says.
You can find BattleCrafter VR exclusively on the Horizon Store for Quest 2 and above, which is priced at $20. At the time of this writing, pre-order is still available, which brings it to $14, a 30% discount.
The post ‘Bartender VR’ Studio Releases Weapon Restoration Sim ‘BattleCrafter’ on Quest appeared first on Road to VR.
Linus Torvalds is famously averse to presenting prepared talks, but the
wider community is always interested in what he has to say about the
condition of the Linux kernel. So, for some time now, his appearances have
been in the form of an informal conversation with Dirk Hohndel. At the
2025 Open Source Summit Japan, the pair followed that tradition for the
29th time. Topics covered include the state of the development process,
what Torvalds actually does, and how machine-learning tools might fit into
the kernel project.
Corbeau has friends in high and low places
The post <em>Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s</em> DLC Has A Surprising Tie To The Original Game Boy Games appeared first on Kotaku.
Save up to 21% on the M4-powered MacBook Air for a limited time at Amazon.
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One of the ways AI models are rapidly improving is in their image editing capabilities, to the extent that they can now quickly take care of tasks that would previously have taken a substantial amount of time and effort in Photoshop. This is undoubtedly one of the main reasons Adobe has decided to introduce its own ChatGPT plug-ins.
Want your t-shirt to be blue rather than red? Need to cut out a person or an object from an otherwise perfect group selfie? These are tricks that AI chatbots are now able to do cleanly and professionally, from just a text prompt. You don’t need to have any digital photo editing skills; you only need to describe what you want to happen.
Over the past few months, both Gemini and ChatGPT have become better at more precise edits. They’re able to tweak part of an image and leaving the rest of it untouched, rather than rendering everything again from scratch just to alter one detail. Now Gemini has quietly added some more markup tools for this job.
Google hasn’t said anything officially about these markup tools, which suggests the feature is still in testing (it’s also previously been spotted by the team at Android Authority). If you’re not seeing these tools, try quitting and restarting the Gemini app on mobile, or refreshing the app on the web—and if you still can’t see the options after that, you may have to be wait a little bit longer
If this functionality has rolled out to you, you should be able to upload an image in a chat using the + (plus) button in the prompt box, and then tap or click on the image thumbnail to find the markup tools. At the moment, they only show up before the image has been edited—you can’t find them after you’ve started generating edits.
The easiest tool to understand is the drawing tool, which is enabled via the icon that looks like a scribble. You can use this to highlight a particular part of an image—a space in the sky, a lamppost in the street, a face in a crowd—and then describe the change you want Gemini to carry out.
For example, rather than just saying “add a cartoon dragon in the sky” in your prompt, you can actually combine that prompt with a circle on the image showing exactly where the dragon should go. It gives you even more of that Photoshop-level precision, without cluttering up the interface too much.
The scribblings can also be used if you’re asking questions about the image. For example, you could circle an actor or an object in a scene and then ask “who is this?” or “what is this?” in the attached prompt. In that sense it works in a similar way to the Circle to Search feature that’s available for images on Android.
There’s also a text tool—the T icon—but I’m not sure exactly how you use this (and there’s no official help available yet). You can use it to describe changes you want to apply to your picture (like “an add arrow here”), but the text stays in place—it’s almost like a rudimentary text overlay feature, with a choice of colors but no font or styling options.
You can use the prompt to manipulate the text you’ve added, adding outlines and backgrounds for example, so perhaps that’s the way it’s intended to be used: a more precise editing option, but for text. Presumably once these tools have reached all Gemini users, we’ll get some more information from Google on how to use them—but you may well find they’re available to you now.
If you’re like me, it’s probably been a hot minute since you’ve used or even thought of Meetup. Predating both Facebook and Twitter, the website, which was designed to help people organize in-person events, has changed hands a handful of times in recent years.
In 2017, founder Scott Heiferman sold it to WeWork, which offloaded it a few years later before declaring bankruptcy in 2023. As of 2024, Bending Spoons, the Italian tech company that’s probably best known for buying Evernote in 2022, has been running Meetup.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, the platform has seen something of resurgence. As of late 2025, Gen Z and young Millennials make up 40 percent of Meetup’s active user base and represent its most engaged group of users. This year, the app has also seen a 20 percent year-over-year increase in new registrations. Going into 2026, Bending Spoons is hoping to build on that momentum with a redesign of Meetup’s mobile app.
The new interface, which starts rolling out today, brings the Android and iOS app inline with Meetup’s recently redesigned website. Across the application, users can expect updated fonts, new more colorful icons and better spacing. The goal of the redesign is to make the app “vibrant, fun and more modern than before,” says Chiara Vivaldi, Meetup’s product lead. She adds the redesigned app retains all the key features found in the previous version, while making those easier to find. For instance, users can access their profile and groups directly from the homepage of the app.
Beyond making Meetup feel more modern, Bending Spoon is using the redesign to cement the groundwork for a series of improvements it plans to roll out in the coming months.
According to Vivaldi, one major priority is to give people, particularly women, more confidence to attend the events that are listed on Meetup. When you navigate to an event page in the new app, you’ll see a broad gender and age breakdown of the users who have signed up to be there. Additionally, new and richer user profiles allow people to get a better sense of who exactly they might meet if they decide to go. Bending Spoons is also introducing a new Super Organizer badge it plans to award to the platform’s top event planners. It’s designed to signal to users that the person who put together the event takes community building seriously.
Taken together, Vivaldi says these features are designed to reduce the friction of attending events where you might not know anyone, and they’re something the company plans to build on in the future.
At the same time, Bending Spoons plans to make it easier for organizers to use Meetup. Starting early next year, the company will unify Meetup’s two disparate apps — right now, the company maintains separate ones for members and organizers. Vivaldi says organizers can expect the unified app to include all of the features they depend on, alongside a handful of enhancements. For instance, Vivaldi’s team is working to make QR-based ticketing the norm for check-ins and attendance tracking. She says the move to a single app is informed by the fact that 75 percent of Meetup’s organizers got their start as a member.
“[Organizers] are part of the community. They want to be in the action, and so having them within the same app is conducive to that. They can jump into conversations, look at other events, making it all feel a bit more organic,” Vivaldi said. In the meantime, if it’s been since you’ve used Meetup, you can download the redesigned app from the App and Google Play stores.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/meetups-new-mobile-app-is-designed-to-make-it-easier-to-meet-people-irl-150000920.html?src=rss
The Document Foundation announced today the general availability of LibreOffice 25.8.4 as the fourth maintenance update to the latest LibreOffice 25.8 office suite series with various bug fixes.
Systemd
v259 has been released. Notable changes include a new
“--empower” option for run0 that provides elevated
privileges to a user without switching to root, ability to propagate a
user’s home directory into a VM with systemd-vmspawn, and
more. Support for System V service scripts has been deprecated, and
will be removed in v260. See the release notes for other changes,
feature removals, and deprecated features.
Bruce66423 writes: A man boarded a flight at Heathrow without a ticket, boarding pass or passport. ‘The unnamed individual walked onto the 7.20am British Airways (BA) flight to Oslo, Norway, on Saturday after tailgating other passengers through security and evading checks at the departure gate.
An aviation expert described the incident as a “significant lapse in security”, as a witness reported that cabin crew only detected the interloper because the flight was full and he kept sitting in passengers’ assigned seats.
Police arrested the unnamed man, airport sources said, adding that he had passed through “full security screening” before reaching the gate.
Given that he did go through the security check, this is merely embarrassing. Compare and contrast with this episode.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you’re human, you’ve probably hollered a curse word or two (or three) when barking your shin on a table edge or hitting your thumb with a hammer. Perhaps you’ve noticed that this seems to lessen your pain. There’s a growing body of scientific evidence that this is indeed the case. The technical term is the “hypoalgesic effect of swearing.” Cursing can also improve physical strength and endurance, according to a new paper published in the journal American Psychologist.
As previously reported, co-author Richard Stephens, a psychologist at Keele, became interested in studying the potential benefits of profanity after noting his wife’s “unsavory language” while giving birth and wondered if profanity really could help alleviate pain. “Swearing is such a common response to pain. There has to be an underlying reason why we do it,” Stephens told Scientific American after publishing a 2009 study that was awarded the 2010 Ig Nobel Peace Prize.
For that study, Stephens and his colleagues asked 67 study participants (college students) to immerse their hands in a bucket of ice water. They were then instructed to either swear repeatedly using the profanity of their choice or chant a neutral word. Lo and behold, the participants said they experienced less pain when they swore and were also able to leave their hands in the bucket about 40 seconds longer than when they weren’t swearing. It has been suggested that this is a primitive reflex that serves as a form of catharsis.
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell is coming to Ghosts of Tabor through an official DLC crossover.
Revealed during the Ruff Talk VR Showcase last week, Combat Waffle Studios CEO, Scott Albright, confirmed that the latest (now-live) wipe for Ghosts of Tabor would launch on December 17. Albright then introduced a brief teaser for this upcoming crossover, announcing Splinter Cell DLC is on the way. Little else was shown, and a release date is currently unknown.
Ghosts of Tabor segment – 1:14:31
“This collaboration means more than dropping an iconic character into our game. Splinter Cell defined an entire generation of tactical gameplay, and we are bringing that legacy into VR,” stated Albright in a subsequent LinkedIn post.
Splinter Cell has its own history in virtual reality, too, and you may recall Ubisoft announced VR entries for it and Assassin’s Creed at Facebook Connect in 2020. The latter eventually launched as Assassin’s Creed Nexus in 2023, though Splinter Cell VR was cancelled in 2022 alongside three other Ubisoft titles. At the time, CEO Yves Guillemot stated that Ubisoft was “adapting [its] organization to current economic uncertainties through cost optimization.”
We’re seeing an increasing number of crossovers in Ghosts of Tabor in recent months, timing up October’s Terminator: Dark Fate DLC with additional Halloween updates. Last month also saw Combat Waffle team up with Starbreeze for an official PAYDAY collaboration.
Ghosts of Tabor is available now on Quest, Steam, PS VR2, and Pico.
