While for years open-source firmware enthusiasts have been after an open-source Firmware Support Package “FSP” for Intel CPUs and back during Raja Koduri’s tenure at Intel it sounded like it might happen, it has yet to happen. But at least with the forthcoming Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” there are some FSP improvements…
When LG announced that it would demo a laundry-folding, chore-doing robot at CES 2026, I was immediately intrigued. For years, I’ve wandered the Las Vegas Convention Center halls and wondered when someone might create a robot that can tackle the mundane but useful tasks I despise like folding laundry. With CLOiD (pronounced like “Floyd”), LG has proven that this is theoretically possible, but probably not likely to happen any time soon.
I went to the company’s CES booth to watch its demonstration of CLOiD’s abilities, which also include serving food, fetching objects and fitness coaching. During a very carefully choreographed 15-minute presentation, I watched CLOiD grab a carton of milk out of the fridge, put a croissant in an oven, sort and fold some laundry and grab a set of keys off a couch and hand them to the human presenter.
Throughout the demonstration, LG showed off how its own appliances can play along with the robot. When it rolled over to the fridge, the door automatically opened, as did the oven. When the LG-branded robot vacuum needed to move around a hamper, CLOiD helpfully cleared the path. But the robot also moved very slowly, which you can see in the highlight video below.
The appliance maker is selling the setup as a part of its vision for a “zero labor home” where its appliances and, I guess, robotics technology can come together to take care of all your chores and household upkeep. Maybe I’m jaded from a decade of watching CES vaporware, but I left the slick demo thinking the concept is unlikely to amount to much anytime soon.
On one hand, it is exciting to see robots competently performing tasks that would actually be useful to most people. But this technology is still far from accessible. Even LG isn’t making any firm commitments about CLOiD’s future as anything more than a CES demo. The company has instead said that CLOiD is a signal of its interest in creating “home robots with practical functions” and “robotized appliances,” like fridges with doors that can open automatically.
That may be a more reasonable target for the company (and yet another way for LG to sell us more appliance upgrades). But it’s still pretty far from anything approaching the fantasy of a “zero labor home.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/lgs-cloid-robot-can-fold-laundry-and-serve-food-very-slowly-181902306.html?src=rss
If you’re a Mac user with Logitech accessories and you’ve noticed that your settings and customizations seem to have gone away this week, you’re not alone.
The company’s Logi Options+ and G Hub apps for macOS abruptly stopped functioning on Monday, refusing to launch and reverting all accessories’ settings to their built-in defaults.
The culprit, according to both a Logitech support page and Reddit posts from Logitech Head of Global Marketing Joe Santucci, was a security certificate that was inadvertently allowed to expire, rendering both apps non-functional.
Also: Rockstar accuses fired GTA 6 devs of leaking game features to a journalist
The post Enjoy Discord While You Can appeared first on Kotaku.
Climate-heating emissions from aviation could be slashed in half — without reducing passenger journeys — by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full and using the most efficient aircraft, according to analysis. The Guardian: These efficiency measures could be far more effective in tackling the fast-growing carbon footprint of flying than pledges to use “sustainable” fuels or controversial carbon offsets, the researchers said. They believe their study, which analysed more than 27m commercial flights out of approximately 35m in 2023, is the first to assess the variation in operational efficiency of flights across the globe. The study, led by Prof Stefan Gossling at Sweden’s Linnaeus University, examined flights between 26,000 city pairs carrying 3.5 billion passengers across 6.8 trillion kilometers. First and business class passengers are responsible for more than three times the emissions of economy travelers, and up to 13 times more in the most spacious premium cabins.
The average seat occupancy across all flights in 2023 was almost 80%. US airports accounted for a quarter of all aviation emissions and ran 14% more polluting than the global average. Atlanta and New York ranked among the least efficient airports overall, nearly 50% worse than top performers like Abu Dhabi and Madrid.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
At CES 2026, Swedish furniture giant Ikea showed off its new Kallsup Bluetooth speaker, which will cost just $10 in the U.S. Normally, I’d be skeptical of any speaker this cheap, but the Kallsup grabbed my attention for a few reasons—chief among them that Ikea says you can chain up to 100 of them together to create the multi-speaker setup of your dreams. That aside, the hardware seems pretty basic: The speaker has a USB-C port at the back, and two buttons up top (play/pause, and pair).
Chaining together Bluetooth speakers is nothing new, but this is the first time I’m seeing the ability to pair as many as 100 of them. The only reason this use case is even remotely plausible is the pricing: As reported by The Verge, the Kallsup Bluetooth speaker will be priced at $10 in the U.S. and €5 (roughly $6) in Europe, which means you can buy 10 of them for the same price as one HomePod mini. The Verge also says that once you pair one of them to your phone (the company promises Bluetooth 5.3 support), you can add more to the chain with a two-button sequence.
Design-wise, the speakers are cubical and colorful, which I’m a fan of (at the moment, Ikea is showing them off in white, green, and pink). But how do they sound? Well, Gizmodo says that while they are loud, they don’t deliver much in the way of bass. I’d love to get a couple to judge for myself before committing to chaining a few dozen of them together, but I definitely admire Ikea’s big swing here. That said, while CES is the place to grab attention with out-there ideas, and I am struggling to find a use case for chaining 100 Bluetooth speakers together. Maybe if you’re an amusement park owner and you want the cheapest possible audio setup for a haunted house? Likely most people will be content with a more reasonable number of them, spread around the house.
The team who’s been behind the franchise since The New Order returns for the threequel
The post <i>Wolfenstein 3</i> Is In The Works From <i>Indiana Jones</i> And <i>The New Colossus</i> Developers MachineGames appeared first on Kotaku.
IPFire 2.29 Core Update 199, an open-source firewall, brings full WiFi 6 and WiFi 7 support, higher throughput, improved wireless stability, and updated core components.
I’ll admit that I’ve always kind of taken walking for granted. Other than a knee injury more than a decade ago, my ability to walk long distances has largely been limited only by my own choices. That’s not the case for everyone, though. And robotics company Dephy has created a pair of robotic sneakers, called the Sidekick, that are meant to help people who want to walk more than their bodies might otherwise be capable of.
The system consists of two parts: an ankle-worn exoskeleton and a special pair of sneakers that attach to it. The exoskeleton hooks onto the back of the shoe and is secured with a strap around your calf. The battery powered device is equipped with sensors that can detect and adapt to the wearer’s gait in order to deliver an extra “boost” with each step.
The whole setup is pricey, at $4,500, but Dephy is betting that people who have “personal range anxiety” might be willing to pay for the extra confidence the Sidekick can provide. “This is a device that’s kind of like [having] an extra calf muscle,” Dephy CEO Luke Mooney told me.
I was able to take the Sidekick for a spin around the CES showfloor and it was a truly surprising sensation. The best way I can describe walking with the Sidekick powered on is that with every step forward there’s a noticeable upward push from under your heel. It wasn’t enough to throw me off balance, but it did feel a bit strange.
The Sidekick has adjustable power levels based on how much help you might need. At the highest level, it definitely felt unnecessarily pushy. The lower levels were still noticeable but felt less disruptive. I just felt… bouncy. Later, when Mooney turned off the power entirely, I noticed that my feet felt weirdly heavy in a way they hadn’t just a few minutes before.
Mooney was quick to tell me that I’m not Dephy’s target demographic. “A lot of times people who are fit, or like athletes, actually struggle to adopt to the technology because their body’s so in tune with how they move,” he said. “Whereas folks who are not as physically active and fit, their body’s ready to accept help.”
The company’s technology will be used in products more focused on athletic performance, however. Dephy has partnered with Nike on its upcoming robotic sneaker currently known as Project Amplify. Mooney declined to share details on the collaboration, but the shoemaker has claimed that some early testers have been able to improve their mile times by two minutes.
I tried the Sidekick early in the day. Several hours later, though, when I was walking between the Las Vegas Conventions Center halls for the third or fourth time, I started thinking about those robotic sneakers again. I was getting close to 10,000 steps and hadn’t sat down for hours. My feet were sore. I remembered that strange, bouncy boost and thought it sounded kind of nice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/these-robotic-sneakers-gave-me-a-surprising-boost-at-ces-174500005.html?src=rss
The man received medical treatment, stiches, and free clothes to replace his bloodied shirt and pants
The post Disneyland Line Cutter Beats Up Dad In Front Of Family appeared first on Kotaku.
Spotify is rolling out more social features to keep people on the platform. It’s adding a new tool to its messaging platform that lets users see what their friends and family members are listening to in real time.
Once activated, a user’s listening activity will be displayed at the top of the chat. The other person in the chat can tap the bar to play a particular track, save it or react with an emoji. People can also, of course, comment directly to either praise or rag on the song selection.
There’s another little addition to Spotify’s messaging system. Users will now be able to invite chat participants to start a Jam, which is the app’s collaborative listening feature. Premium users will find a “Jam” button in the top right corner, which sends an invite. This lets two people add tracks to a shared queue and listen together. Free users can join one of these sessions, but cannot initiate.
It’s worth noting that the messaging platform is currently just a one-on-one affair. There’s no option for a group chat, so users won’t be able to spy on multiple people simultaneously. These tools are rolling out gradually for iOS and Android right now, but won’t be broadly available for a few weeks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-now-lets-you-share-what-youre-listening-to-in-real-time-via-chat-173749120.html?src=rss
SteamOS’s slow march across the Windows-dominated PC gaming landscape is continuing to creep along. At CES this week, Lenovo announced it will launch a version of last year’s high-priced, high-powered Legion Go 2 handheld with Valve’s gaming-focused, Linux-based OS pre-installed starting in June. And there are some intriguing signs from Valve that SteamOS could come to non-AMD devices in the not-too-distant future as well.
A new SteamOS-powered Legion Go 2 isn’t exactly shocking news given how things have been going in the world of PC gaming handhelds. Lenovo became the first non-Valve hardware maker to embrace the Windows alternative when it announced a SteamOS-compatible version of the lower-end Legion Go S almost exactly a year ago. When that version hit the market last spring, Ars testing found it actually performed better than the Windows-based version of the same hardware on many popular games.
Valve has also been working behind the scenes to expand SteamOS’s footprint beyond its own hardware. After rolling out the SteamOS Compatible software label last May, SteamOS version 3.7 offered support for manual installation on AMD-powered handhelds like the ROG Ally and the original Legion Go.
I know IKEA is all about small, efficient spaces, but their meeting room inside the Venetian during the company’s first-ever CES was the same size as my (not large) living room. Plenty of people were as excited as I was to see what the Swedish designers brought with them to the show and the room was thick with humans. A bowl full of BELÖNING bars helped ease my mounting claustrophobia and I was able to check out the new smart home lineup.
Like most things IKEA, the 21 Matter-compatible smart home devices are simple, sleek and silly affordable. They include a $6 smart bulb, an $8 smart plug, a $6 smart remote and a slew of home sensors. A slightly pricier ($15) globe bulb is a direct answer to my longstanding wish for more attractive (but affordable) smart bulbs.
One of my favorite of the new devices was the BILREA remote control. It’s a smooth, riverstone-like object that either comes with two simple buttons or a button and a scroll wheel. It pairs up with and controls IKEA’s smart devices and lamps but what i really love is the magnetic mount integrated into its body. You can either attach the remote to any ferrous surface or use the small metal chip and included adhesive to give the remote a home on a wall or elsewhere. Why have so few other companies come up with a way to neatly and simply organize these tiny yet crucial controllers?
The whole suite is Matter-compatible and, as such, they need a hub to function. IKEA has it’s own, DIRIGERA, but, true to the Matter principles of interoperability, you can also use a Matter hub you already own. The new line of smart home devices should start showing up in IKEA stores and on its website sometime in January.
Apart from the egalitarian and utilitarian items, the Swedish brand also brought a new collection of products, TEKLAN, designed in collaboration with designer and photographer Tekla Evelina Severin. These include circular Bluetooth speakers in color-saturated patterns and solids ranging from eight to 18 inches. There are also two speaker lamps, KULGLASS, topped with glass domes inspired by soft serve ice cream. That collection went on sale at the first of the year.
Finally, I made my way (three feet) over to the curious, donut-shaped lamps. This is the smart version of the store’s popular VARMBLIXT lamp that debuted three years ago. It’s controllable through the app or the remote I mentioned above and gently cycles through a rainbow of color patterns, shifting slowly from shade to shade. I got lost for a while watching it morph from white to pink to red and back again. For a moment I forgot I was wedged into a room too full of people. I figured those around me probably wanted a look at the lamp for themselves, so I took a longing glance back at the BELÖNING bowl and squeezed out of the room.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/ikeas-first-ces-appearance-included-a-6-matter-smart-bulb-172623474.html?src=rss
At the 2025 Linux Plumbers
Conference (LPC), held in Tokyo in mid-December, Changwoo Min led a session on what
he has learned while developing the
“latency-criticality
aware virtual deadline” (LAVD) scheduler, which is aimed at gaming
workloads. The session was part of the Gaming
on Linux microconference, which is a new entrant into LPC; organizers
hope to see it return next year in
Prague and, presumably, beyond. LAVD uses the extensible scheduler class (sched_ext) and has
the primary goal of minimizing stuttering
in games;
it is implemented in a combination of BPF and Rust.
Like many parents, sometimes I view my kids as lazy. This was one of those times: At Orlando International Airport, on our way to Disney World, my 16-year-old daughter shared how much she wanted a rideable suitcase. I laughed and told her that she can walk just fine. “Besides,” I added, “that would never work.”
I hadn’t seen rideable luggage yet, and I pointed out the immediate detractions that came to mind. First, it wouldn’t work for someone like me—6’3 and 215 pounds. Second, I had doubts that it would have much storage space to carry items, which is the whole point of luggage. And third, who would be caught dead riding something so silly? But my daughter was determined to prove to me not only that they exist, but that they’re popular. She showed me videos of them in action. I wasn’t convinced.
We joked about rideable luggage as we walked through the airport. It came up again as we trekked through Disney World. (“See, if we had rideable luggage, we wouldn’t be so tired.”) By the time we walked to baggage claim after returning to LaGuardia, it was a running gag. That same week, as I prepared for CES, I looked into rideable suitcases and made plans to test them out at the show. And as it turns out, my daughter was right.
At CES, I tried several rideable suitcases, putting my bulky 6’3, 215-pound frame on motorized, battery-powered, airplane cabin-sized bags. The best I rode came from Jitlife, which is premiering its fourth model, the Jitlife JS07i, this year. Not only did it impress, but it’s also one of the finalists for the official Best of CES 2026 awards for the travel category.
Like all the suitcases I drove, the Jitlife rideable suitcase is the size of a standard cabin bag but can carry up to 250 pounds, has a maximum speed of around 8 miles per hour, and can travel about six miles on a charge. The suitcase has a capacity of 28 liters, which is indeed much less than the 60-80 liters of space I expect from a standard check-in bag, but it’s better than I thought for something that weighs under 20 pounds and can carry me around. Overall, the kid was right: Rideable luggage can work, and it’s actually already a fairly common sight in Asia, particularly in China.
As for looking goofy riding one, well, I believe my point stands. But, for those with accessibility needs, younger children, or people who prioritize its functionality over the judgment of strangers, rideable luggage might be a worthwhile solution for moving through large airports more quickly and easily. Testing it out is certainly the most fun I’ve had at CES, so whatever the future of rideable luggage, I’ll live with the “I told you so” from my kid.
Microsoft has canceled plans to impose a daily limit of 2,000 external recipients on Exchange Online bulk email senders. From a report: The change was announced in April 2024, when Microsoft said that it would add new External Recipient Rate (ERR) limits starting January 2025 to fight spam, with plans to begin enforcing the limit on cloud-hosted mailboxes of existing tenants between July and December 2025.
As explained last year, this new Mailbox External Recipient Rate Limit was designed to prevent Microsoft 365 customers from abusing Exchange Online resources and to restrict unfair usage. However, on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that the Exchange Online bulk emailing rate limit is being canceled indefinitely, following negative customer feedback.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
On Wednesday, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority announced that it is halting the relicensing process for two reactors at the Hamaoka plant after revelations that the operator fabricated seismic hazard data. Japan has been slowly reactivating its extensive nuclear power plant collection after it was shut down following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. The latest scandal is especially shocking, given that the Hamaoka plant is located on the coast near an active subduction fault—just as Fukushima Daiichi is.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority was reportedly alerted by a whistleblower in February of last year, but the issue became public this week when the regulators halted an evaluation process that could have led to a reactor restart at Hamaoka. This prompted the company that operates the plants, the Chubu Electric Power Co., to issue a press release describing in detail how the company manipulated the seismic safety data.
Based on an English translation, it appears that seismic risks were evaluated at least in part by scaling up the ground motion using data from smaller earthquakes. This is an inexact process, so the standard approach is to create a group of 20 different upscaled earthquake motions and find the one that best represents the average among the 20.
Razer’s Project Ava is an AI stunt aimed at imaginary gamers
The post Meet The Grok-Powered Anime Hologram That Will Heckle You While You Play Games appeared first on Kotaku.
Samsung says AI data center-fueled RAM scarcity could raise the company’s prices. Wonjin Lee, Samsung’s global marketing leader, sounded the alarm in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday at CES 2026. As recently as early December, Samsung told Reuters that it was monitoring the market but wouldn’t comment on pricing. So, the change of tune can be seen as a deliberate signal to soften the ground ahead of an official announcement.
“There’s going to be issues around semiconductor supplies, and it’s going to affect everyone,” Samsung’s Lee said. “Prices are going up even as we speak. Obviously, we don’t want to convey that burden to the consumers, but we’re going to be at a point where we have to actually consider repricing our products.”
The global RAM shortage is the result of AI data centers gobbling up high-bandwidth memory. Memory manufacturers have shifted their output priorities to meet that demand, leading to a snowball effect where even the low-bandwidth RAM found in automobiles is affected.
“AI workloads are built around memory,” Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO of Greyhound Research, told NPR in late December. “AI has changed the nature of demand itself. Training and inference systems require large, persistent memory footprints, extreme bandwidth, and tight proximity to compute. You cannot dial this down without breaking performance.”
It’s been more than three years since ChatGPT launched and kicked off the AI craze. During that time, companies have hyped chatbots and other generative AI tools as a technology that will take us to the promised land, making life easier as machine learning automates our daily lives. It isn’t yet clear if an AI bubble is set to burst, but some financial forecasters have sounded the alarm. Regardless, it’s hard to see how consumers and workers are getting anything but the short end of the stick so far.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/samsung-says-ram-costs-will-likely-lead-to-price-hikes-soon-170653524.html?src=rss