The companies that make RAM and flash memory chips are enjoying record profits because of the AI-induced memory crunch—and they’re also indicating that they don’t expect conditions to improve much if at all in 2026. And while RAM kits have been hit the fastest and hardest by shortages and price increases, we shouldn’t expect SSD pricing to improve any time soon, either.

That’s the message from Shunsuke Nakato (via PC Gamer), managing director of the memory division of Kioxia, the Japanese memory company that was spun off from Toshiba at the end of the 2010s. Nakato says that Kioxia’s manufacturing capacity is sold out through the rest of 2026, driving the market for both enterprise and consumer SSDs to a “high-end and expensive phase.”

“There is a sense of crisis that companies will be eliminated the moment they stop investing in AI, so they have no choice but to continue investing,” said Nakato, as reported by the Korean-language publication Digital Daily. Absent a big change in the demand for generative AI data centers, that cycle of investments will keep prices high for the foreseeable future.

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Earlier this month Strava unveiled its new Instant Workouts feature, a subscriber-exclusive tool that seems like a natural way to leverage its acquisition of Runna. In a Reddit post, Strava said this feature builds upon Runna’s already successful Instant Workouts feature.

Instant Workouts uses your activity history to generate personalized workouts across four intents (“Maintain,” “Build,” “Explore,” or “Recover”). The idea is that the more you upload, the more personalized your recommendations become. Another major selling point is the automatic route generation feature, which draws on Strava’s massive database of billions of historical activities to suggest optimal paths for each workout.

The timing of this rollout seems deliberate as the company positions itself for its anticipated IPO. And on paper, it sounds like exactly the kind of innovation that would indeed justify a Strava subscription. In practice, however, the execution leaves a good bit to be desired.

A half-baked launch

Unfortunately, the feature’s current implementation falls far short of its potential. The most glaring issue: You cannot actually view your workout details once you’ve started the activity in the app. Strava generates solid, complex, multi-interval workouts—but provides no way to reference them on your watch during your run or ride. You’d have to screenshot the workout beforehand or print it out.

For the majority of us athletes who rely on our devices to guide interval training, pace targets, and recovery periods, this renders the feature practically useless. Strava has acknowledged this limitation in a Reddit post, promising that device integration for Garmin and Apple watches is “coming soon.” But the timeline for that “soon” is questionable at best.

The relationship between Strava and Garmin has reportedly grown frosty following a lawsuit last fall, and there’s little incentive for Garmin to prioritize features that primarily benefit Strava’s subscription revenue and investor appeal. Without Garmin’s cooperation and swift implementation, a significant portion of Strava’s serious athlete user base remains locked out of the feature’s full utility.

Solid workout design

On the bright side, in my opinion, the workouts themselves show promise—though others disagree. The training plans generated appear to take into account individual fitness levels reasonably well. From my testing, the prescribed intervals, pacing, and progression made sense given my current training status and recent activity history.

These all make sense for me.
Credit: Meredith Dietz

That said, user experiences vary considerably. Some athletes report receiving workouts that seem disconnected from their actual fitness or goals, while others note that the workout descriptions use non-standard terminology that doesn’t align with how most training plans communicate intervals and pacing.

Then there’s the route generation. In a well-traveled area with dense activity heat maps like New York City, my suggested routes tend to be solid and sensible enough. As always, my personal preferences are to avoid extra crowded streets or sketchy areas, which Strava never seems to take into account. Ultimately, the algorithm benefits from years of crowdsourced data showing which streets, paths, and loops are actually popular with runners and cyclists.

However, users in less densely populated areas or regions with sparser Strava usage report wildly inconsistent results. Some routes make no logical sense, sending athletes on inefficient paths or suggesting roads that aren’t suitable for the prescribed workout type. The feature’s quality appears directly tied to the richness of local Strava data, creating a drastic two-tier experience.

And once again: Until I can push the workout and corresponding map to my watch, this feature doesn’t mean much to me.

The bottom line

If you ask me, Strava’s Instant Workouts feature feels rushed to market, likely timed to generate positive press ahead of the IPO rather than to actually serve athletes. Basic functionality that should have been present at launch—like being able to see your workout in the app or send it to your watch—is mysteriously absent. The wonky workout descriptions and inconsistent route quality only compound the sense that this needed more time in development.

A week after OpenAI admitted it will soon start testing ads in ChatGPT, Google has promised that it’s not planning to inject ads into Gemini anytime soon.

The statement was given to journalist Alex Heath during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said the company doesn’t have “any plans” for ads in Gemini. While the statement was fairly brief, it also jibes with a similar quote Hassabis gave to Axios, where he said he was “a little bit surprised” that OpenAI was already introducing ads to ChatGPT.

That surprise is understandable, especially because OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in 2024 that he considered ads a “last resort for us as a business model.” But looking at the numbers, it makes sense that ChatGPT is getting ads long before Gemini is even thinking of them.

Google can afford to hold off on ads

While Google makes most of its money through showing people ads, it’s also able to rely on Search and YouTube to push ads to most of those eyeballs. Meanwhile, OpenAI is pretty much just ChatGPT. As the latter moves to a for-profit model, it now has to put moneymaking first, something it’s had trouble doing without relying on traditional internet moneymakers like ads. Google, meanwhile, is already profitable elsewhere, and is able to take its time and use its sheer size to keep Gemini ad-free, at least while it continues to chase market share.

Does this mean Google’s AI will never get ads? Well, never say never. But it does mean that they’re probably not on the horizon—even if Google plans to more aggressively monetize Gemini over the long term, it isn’t facing the same kind of time crunch as Altman’s company.

It remains to be seen whether the presence of ads will push users away from ChatGPT, but the move comes in the wake of significant wins for Gemini and one major loss for ChatGPT. First, Google’s Nano Banana image editing model went viral on social media, winning over the general public. Then, Google struck a deal with Apple to put its AI into the iPhone, and it looks like Gemini will be powering Siri for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT reportedly saw a 6% dip in users early last month, following a model update from Gemini—and that was before the introdution of ads. While ChatGPT still seems to be in the lead on total user count, there’s evidence that Google is catching up.

The divide in strategy seems clear: As OpenAI seeks ways to get more money out of its existing user base, Google can focus on growing its own with new integrations into the products we already use every day. I can’t say what the limits of this growth are, but I can say that I rarely go out of my way use AI, yet I’ve still found myself accidentally relying on Google’s AI overviews every now and then. If Google can get more people like me to casually integrate AI into our regular workflows, it’s possible we could soon have a new AI leader on our hands.

Adobe has added a suite of AI-powered features to Acrobat that enable users to edit documents through natural language prompts, generate podcast-style audio summaries of their files, and create presentations by pulling content from multiple documents stored in a single workspace.

The prompt-based editing supports 12 distinct actions: removing pages, text, comments, and images; finding and replacing words and phrases; and adding e-signatures and passwords. The presentation feature builds on Adobe Spaces, a collaborative file and notes collection the company launched last year. Users can point Acrobat’s AI assistant at files in a Space and have it generate an editable pitch deck, then style it using Adobe Express themes and stock imagery.

Shared files in Spaces now include AI-generated summaries that cite specific locations in the source document. Users can also choose from preset AI assistant personas — “analyst,” “entertainer,” or “instructor” — or create custom assistants using their own prompts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

This winter is looking rough, with one of the biggest winter storms hitting nearly half the U.S. this weekend. It’s safe to assume many people will be without power, especially those in cities without the proper infrastructure to take on record-breaking winter storms. A power station is a great device to keep the lights running in a pinch—and the standalone Anker SOLIX C1000 is 41% off, with the options with Solar Panels going for up to 56% off right now. Mashable voted the Anker SOLIX C1000 the best one for most people.

Anker SOLIX C1000 1056wh LiFePO4 Portable Power Station

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at Amazon

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Anker SOLIX C1000 Portable Power Station with 100W Solar Panel, 1800W Solar Generator, 1056wh LFP (LiFePO4) Battery, 6 AC Outlets, Up to 2400W for Home, Power Outages, and Outdoor Camping

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at Amazon

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Anker SOLIX C1000 Portable Power Station with 200W Solar Panel, 1800W Solar Generator, 1056wh LFP (LiFePO4) Battery, 6 AC Outlets, Up to 2400W for Home, Power Outages, and Outdoor Camping

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Anker SOLIX C1000 Portable Power Station with 400W Solar Panel, 1800W Solar Generator, 1056wh LFP (LiFePO4) Battery, 6 AC Outlets, Up to 2400W for Home, Power Outages, and Outdoor Camping

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at Amazon

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There are many different types of power stations, with portable ones being the most popular: You can take these camping, to tailgate parties, to help complete outdoor DIY projects, and of course, for emergencies.

The Anker SOLIX C1000 is a versatile power station and blends practicality and power, as you can read in Mashable’s review. It includes a companion Anker app that is user-friendly, with useful information about battery level and usage. It has a 1,056Wh power capacity, which is mid-tier when compared to other power stations, but it’s cheaper than others in that tier. You can keep things like lights, hairdryers, and CPAP machines going for hours. It’s also lightweight enough to carry around easily.

The USB-C power output maxes out at 100W, but you can always use the three-prong plugs for more power. The recharging is quick, and you can opt for one of the portable solar panels, which are also seeing significant discounts right now.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE is the least expensive member of the Galaxy S25 lineup—more affordable but still filled with enough features and Galaxy AI tools that PCMag named it an excellent choice for those who want to be in the Galaxy ecosystem without paying top dollar. Right now, it’s available at an all-time low price on Amazon: $509.99, 28% off the original $709.99 asking price.

Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Cell Phone (2025)

$509.99
at Amazon

$709.99
Save $200.00

$509.99
at Amazon

$709.99
Save $200.00

The S25 FE comes in four colors and features a large 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2,340 x 1,080 pixels, a refresh rate of up to 120Hz, and a peak brightness of 1,900 nits. Unlike the higher-end Galaxy S25 Ultra, it doesn’t have an anti-reflective coating, though it still performs decently in moderately bright conditions. Rather than the Ultra’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, this model runs on a Samsung Exynos 2400 chip with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

The phone is lighter and more compact than the S24 SE. It has an under-display fingerprint sensor for biometrics as well as a face unlock option. According to PCMag’s tester, the 4,900 mAh battery lasts up to 17 hours (about two hours longer than its predecessor, but less than competitors like the Pixel 9a) and fast-charges in as little as an hour and fifteen minutes. While the cameras can’t compare to the line’s more expensive models, it does share two of its three rear cameras with the S25 and S25+, and will definitely deliver sharp images. It’s also a future-proof device, with Samsung promising up to seven years of updates and security fixes. 

If you’re looking for most of the flagship-style features as pricier S25 phones—including integrated AI tools, strong battery life, and quick performance—without paying flagship prices, the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE checks all those boxes. And discounted to around $500, it’s more affordable than ever. It’s a strong pick if you’re upgrading from an older phone or making the switch to Android.

Researchers at Princeton University have built a swarm of interconnected mini-robots that “bloom” like flowers in response to changing light levels in an office. According to their new paper published in the journal Science Robotics, such robotic swarms could one day be used as dynamic facades in architectural designs, enabling buildings to adapt to changing climate conditions as well as interact with humans in creative ways.

The authors drew inspiration from so-called “living architectures,” such as beehives. Fire ants provide a textbook example of this kind of collective behavior. A few ants spaced well apart behave like individual ants. But pack enough of them closely together, and they behave more like a single unit, exhibiting both solid and liquid properties. You can pour them from a teapot like ants, as Goldman’s lab demonstrated several years ago, or they can link together to build towers or floating rafts—a handy survival skill when, say, a hurricane floods Houston. They also excel at regulating their own traffic flow. You almost never see an ant traffic jam.

Naturally scientists are keen to mimic such systems. For instance, in 2018, Georgia Tech researchers built ant-like robots and programmed them to dig through 3D-printed magnetic plastic balls designed to simulate moist soil. Robot swarms capable of efficiently digging underground without jamming would be super beneficial for mining or disaster recovery efforts, where using human beings might not be feasible.

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When shadow library Anna’s Archive lost its .org domain in early January, the controversial site’s operator said the suspension didn’t appear to have anything to do with its recent mass scraping of Spotify.

But it turns out, probably not surprisingly to most people, that the domain suspension resulted from a lawsuit filed by Spotify, along with major record labels Sony, Warner, and Universal Music Group (UMG). The music companies sued Anna’s Archive in late December in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the case was initially sealed.

A judge ordered the case unsealed on January 16 “because the purpose for which sealing was ordered has been fulfilled.” Numerous documents were made public on the court docket yesterday, and they explain events around the domain suspension.

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A malicious ad-blocking extension on Chrome and Edge is using the ClickFix attack to infect devices with a remote access payload capable of spying on and taking over a system.

NexShield pitched itself as a privacy-focused ad blocker from the developer of well-established and highly trusted uBlock Origin. However, as security firm Huntress found, the extension initiates a variation of the ClickFix attack that has been dubbed “CrashFix”—a reference to the browser crash that precedes the fake security warning and malicious command prompt.

How NexShield’s ‘CrashFix’ attacks your device

As BleepingComputer describes, the NexShield extension creates a denial-of-service (DoS) loop that exhausts your device’s memory, ultimately freezing Chrome or Edge and causing it to crash. When the browser restarts, the extension displays a pop-up with a “Run Scan” button to identify “potential security threats that may compromise your browsing data,” leading users to believe that the crash resulted from a security issue.

If you follow through, you’ll see another fake window with instructions for executing commands in the Windows command prompt. This is the ClickFix attack: a form of social engineering that relies on fake error messages, CAPTCHAs, and command prompts to trick users into deploying malware onto their own devices.

In this case, the extension copies a command to the clipboard, and if users enter the keystrokes in the fake pop-up, downloads and executes a malicious script. After a 60-minute delay to avoid detection, NexShield delivers the payload that can run commands, fingerprint systems, and elevate privileges.

Note that as of this writing, NexShield has been removed from the Chrome Web Store.

How to protect your system from malware

If you’ve installed NexShield, you should uninstall it and perform a full system cleanup to clear its payloads from your device. (We’ve got step-by-step guides to removing malware from your Mac and your PC.)

As general protection against similar attacks, only install browser extensions from trusted sources. This isn’t a guarantee that you’ll never encounter a malicious add-on in the Chrome Web Store or in other browsers, as hackers occasionally manage to sneak through the approval process and even get their extensions labeled as trusted or verified. Some extensions are only later injected with malicious code, essentially “waking up” their ability to attack.

Before installing a new extension, carefully check the creation date, reviews and ratings, and even the name, as malicious add-ons will often impersonate trusted ones (or, as in the case of NexShield, piggyback on legitimate brands like uBlock Origin). Watch for suspicious permissions—if the extension requests access to data or actions that seem excessive or are unrelated to its core function, it might be malware.

Finally, never run codes or commands on your machine copied from websites or communication that you don’t understand, and always verify instructions with an independent, trusted source. For this specific campaign, Huntress has other indicators of compromise you can look for on your system.

The price of water and sewer services for American households has more than doubled since the early 1980s after adjusting for inflation, even though per-capita water use has actually decreased over that period. Households in large cities now spend about $1,300 a year on water and sewer charges, approaching the roughly $1,600 they spend on electricity. The main driver is federal regulation.

Since the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the U.S. has spent approximately $5 trillion in contemporary dollars fighting water pollution — about 0.8% of annual GDP across that period. The EPA itself admits that surface water regulations are the one category of environmental rules where estimated costs exceed estimated benefits.

New York City was required to build a filtration plant to address two minor parasites in water from its Croton aqueduct. The project took a decade longer than expected and cost $3.2 billion, more than double the original estimate. After the plant opened in 2015, the city’s Commissioner of Environmental Protection noted that the water would basically be “the same” to the public. Jefferson County, Alabama, meanwhile, descended into what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in 2011 after EPA-mandated sewer upgrades pushed its debt from $300 million to over $3 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox app is now available on all Arm-based Windows 11 PCs. The app’s release follows an update Microsoft made to its Prism emulator in December 2025, which translates x86 and x64 apps to Arm, and now includes support for AVX and AVX2. Both extensions play a role in making games run efficiently on Windows.

Windows on Arm users will be able to use the Xbox app to purchase, download and stream PC games, and Microsoft says that “more than 85 percent of the Game Pass catalog” now runs on Arm PCs. Unlike Valve’s SteamOS, Windows on Arm also supports anti-cheat software like Epic’s Easy Anti Cheat, which means you can access a wider library of online multiplayer games in comparison to what you can get on the Steam Deck.

Microsoft has been working on getting Windows running on Arm for years at this point, and the company made a major push with its own Arm-based hardware and the launch of the Copilot+ PC program in 2024. Many Copilot+ PCs use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, the latest of which the company announced in September 2025. Up until this point Microsoft’s handheld efforts have been focused on PCs running AMD chips, but expanded support for Arm and Qualcomm’s own teases certainly makes it seem like an Arm-based Windows 11 handheld could be announced sooner rather than later.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/microsoft-ports-the-xbox-app-to-arm-based-windows-pcs-191049475.html?src=rss

A workout habit has a way of building momentum: Once you’re doing something, anything, it’s easy to build on that. Video workouts are a simple way to get started, but if you’re having trouble following along, I’m here to help. Below are some ways to make common exercises more accessible, and what to do if you can’t get through a whole video yet.

If you can’t squat

Lots of “easy” bodyweight programs ask you to perform a squatting motion without any added weight. But if that’s already more than you can do, try one of these instead:

• Sit in a chair, and stand back up.

• Lean your back against a wall and slide down until you’re in a sitting position (this is called a wall squat).

• Hold onto a countertop or the back of a chair while you do a squat.

For any of these, it’s okay to squat as low as you can, even if that’s not all the way to parallel. You can work on going lower over time.

If you can’t do pushups

Pushups are another move you’ll find in simple beginner workouts, but not everyone can do a pushup on their first day. Pushups get easier the higher your hands are, and harder the higher your feet are. So for the easiest beginner version, put your hands on a wall around shoulder height. Lean into the wall, then push yourself back to a standing position.

Once those become easy, choose a lower surface, like a table or countertop. Then move to a chair, and so on. This progression is arguably better than doing pushups on your knees, because no matter which level you’re on, you are practicing holding your entire body straight in a plank position.

If you aren’t ready to pick up weights

Dumbbells come in all sizes—and fortunately for beginners, the smallest ones are also the cheapest. If your gym doesn’t have dumbbells small enough, any store with a sporting goods section will likely have some one- and two-pound dumbbells you can pick up and add to your gym bag.

But if you’re not even ready for dumbbells, that’s okay. A half-liter water bottle weighs about a pound. Same with a can of soup. Larger water bottles, wine bottles, and milk jugs can take you up a bit further in weight; we did the math for you here. You can also hold books, roller skates, or tote bags full of literally anything. (Two water bottles in a grocery bag? That’s a two-pound weight.)

Need to start even lighter? It’s okay to do weight workouts using literally nothing. Make your hands into fists and go through the motions. If you’re following a video that does a million reps of bicep curls or tricep extensions, your arms will get tired even if they’re empty. Just move up to the water bottles as soon as you’re ready.

If you can’t keep up with the pace of the video

With these substitutions, you may feel ready to start following along with beginner level workout videos. But what if you can’t handle exactly what’s on the screen? Remember, your goal should be to do a workout at your current level of fitness, not to complete a certain number of reps that you theoretically could do if you were in better shape. So if the video asks for 30 seconds of pushups but you can only manage a few reps, do as many as you can and rest for the remainder of the time.

It’s fine to bounce from video to video until you find something at your level. Keep an eye out for one that seems like fun but is just out of your reach. Do it anyway, modifying it or resting as needed, and then bookmark it and come back to it next week. Chances are good you’ll be able to keep up a little bit better—and if you keep coming back to that same workout week after week, you’ll eventually master it. Consistency breeds momentum.

If cycling workouts are too hard

Let’s say you want to do a workout from a Peloton-like cycling instructor. You’ve got your bike, you can pedal, but pretty quickly you’re out of breath and feel like you can’t keep going.

These workouts are easy to adjust: All you have to do is pay attention to the instructor’s voice and facial expressions and ignore any specific numbers. It doesn’t matter if she’s asking you for a “20” or a “50.” If the instructor looks and talks like she’s on an easy bike ride, adjust your resistance so you are on an easy bike ride. If she looks like she’s working hard but not dying, adjust your resistance so you are working hard but not dying.

If you can’t decide where to start

Start literally anywhere. There isn’t a wrong answer. Maybe you start doing cardio dance videos, but it turns out you hate dancing. Well, you’re already moving your body a couple times a week, so you can swap out the dancing for something else.

Or maybe you start doing pushups every day, but after a while your wrists are aching. You can choose to address that problem and continue your pushups, or you can look back on how far you’ve come, congratulate yourself, and pick a different thing to try for the next chapter of your fitness journey. After all, you’ve already started, so why not keep going?

Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed AI hiring platform used by Microsoft, PayPal and many other Fortune 500 companies, is being sued in California for allegedly compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge. From a report: The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday accusing Eightfold of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act shows how consumer advocates are seeking to apply existing law to AI systems capable of drawing inferences about individuals based on vast amounts of data.

Santa Clara, California-based Eightfold provides tools that promise to speed up the hiring process by assessing job applicants and predicting whether they would be a good fit for a job using massive amounts of data from online resumes and job listings. But candidates who apply for jobs at companies that use those tools are not given notice and a chance to dispute errors, job applicants Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik allege in their proposed class action. Because of that, they claim Eightfold violated the FCRA and a California law that gives consumers the right to view and challenge credit reports used in lending and hiring.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.