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Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar gives Google’s AI a face

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Google's new Gemini 3.8 Live update lets users have conversations with the model while watching an animated AI persona respond in real time. The "Live Avatar" will lip-sync and show different facial expressions during conversations, but it's currently only available to Gemini Enterprise customers. As noted by Google, Live Avatar can transition between the 97 languages it supports "without degrading video fidelity or introducing visual drift." One video shared by Google shows its Live Avatar talking in English and Japanese, with its mouth animation lining up with what it's saying in both languages. It can also pull up information on-screen w … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/Kwb5eQu

Sadly, this $1,549 RTX 5070-equipped gaming PC is a very good deal

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CyberPowerPC’s RTX 5070-equipped prebuilt. While PC component prices remain high, you can save a good bit of money on a system by purchasing a prebuilt desktop. Walmart has a well-equipped CyberPowerPC gaming PC on sale for $1,549, almost $600 off its original price of $2,139. It’s powered by an Intel Core i7-14700KF processor, and paired with 32GB of 6000MHz DDR5 memory and an Nvidia RTX 5070 Founders Edition with 12GB of VRAM. The case is a CyberPowerPC MA-O1 , an in-house design with extensive cooling options and three dedicated knobs for adjusting internal RGB lighting colors. CyberPowerPC (Core i7/RTX5070) Where to Buy: $2139.99 $1549 at Walmart While it might not feel like it at first blush, this is a solid value for a gaming PC that’s ready to rock out of the box. The RTX 5070 in this machine is likely to run you upwards of $800 by itself at the moment ( it launched in 2025 for $549 ), and 32GB of fast memory can be $400 or more. For just a...

Microsoft’s new Surface Mouse has haptic feedback and a customizable action button

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Microsoft is launching a second generation of its Surface Mouse next month that includes haptic feedback support. The Surface Mouse also has a customizable action button for the first time, which is primarily designed for quick access to Copilot ( of course ), but can be configured to work with other shortcuts from the Surface app. "Its haptic feedback adds a small, purposeful physical response to the moment you usually only see on a screen: a click registering, a window snapping into place or an object aligning just right," says Brett Ostrum , corporate vice president of Surface Devices. "It is subtle by design, but noticeable within seconds … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/64AXWKG

Data centers are black boxes, but California wants to change that 

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a slate of bills on Monday that could finally give communities better data - and more say - on how data centers impact their electricity bills and water supply. As data centers invade a growing number of communities across the US, they've triggered protests over how the infrastructure underpinning AI might stress power grids and local water systems. That's fueled partly by concerns about how difficult it is to see just how much electricity or water they're actually gobbling up. California's new disclosure rules won't offer a full picture, but starting next year, data center operators will have to start s … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/EbodHyt

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 comes in an Extreme version too

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The 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and 8 Elite Gen 6 share most of their specs in common. | Image: Qualcomm Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, this year joined by the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 too. The company describes both new phone chips as flagships, and the spec differences are relatively minor, mostly limited to improved AI processing, video capture, and gaming performance on the Extreme model. Both Gen 6 chips are built on a 2nm process, and share much in common, including their modems, display specs, security features, GPS, and memory and storage support. Qualcomm no longer publishes detailed breakdowns of the cores across its silicon, but the CPU details given are identical, with two big cores at up to 5GHz and six performa … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/OM4Exzc

Motorola’s wild-looking Signature 27 runs Qualcomm’s new Extreme chipset

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You couldn’t accuse Motorola of designing a boring phone. | Image: Motorola Motorola is the first company to announce a phone running Qualcomm's top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip . The Signature 27 looks set to be Motorola's most advanced flagship in some years, though we're still waiting for the full specs, price, and release date. Any prospective buyers will first have to get over the design, which seems guaranteed to earn mixed reception. The aluminum phone has a thin body, available in either black (sorry, "Pantone coal smoke") or green ("Pantone capulet olive"), with a woven tactical texture on one and a "feather-inspired" finish on the other. Either way, it slopes upwards into what Motorola calls a … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/QPTnJrY

Apple clarifies that Texture and Grain controls are exclusive to the latest iPhones’ cameras

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Apple's new texture and grain controls for stylizing photos will be more limited on older phones than initially expected. A confusingly worded press release from Apple indicated that the new features, announced alongside the iPhone 18 and 18 Pro earlier this month, would be "available" on older devices like the iPhone 16 and iPhone Air that "support the latest generation of Photographic Styles." But it turns out that "available" didn't mean that older iPhone models would have full access to those new features. Making texture adjustments to enhance or smooth a subject's skin and adding film grain will only be an option when those phones … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/vfXkmlN