Google parent company Alphabet expects to invest “approximately $75 billion” in capital expenditures in 2025, according to a statement from CEO Sundar Pichai in Alphabet’s Q4 2024 earnings release.Capital expenditures have become a hot topic as of late as big tech companies race to build infrastructure to support their growing AI ambitions, and today’s announcement from Alphabet is clearly meant to keep the company in that conversation. Alphabet spent $32.3 billion on capital expenditures in 2023, so $75 billion in 2025 would be a big jump. And while Google’s press release today doesn’t specifically say that the upcoming capital expenditures are all for AI, given the amount of money flowing into AI infrastructure across the industry, it seems likely that a good amount of the expense will go toward benefitting Google’s AI work. AI continues to benefit Google’s business as well. Overall revenues are up 12 percent year-over-year to $96.5 billion. Google Cloud revenues are up 10 percent to $12.0 billion, which Google says is “led by growth in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) across core GCP products, AI Infrastructure, and Generative AI Solutions.” On today’s investor call, Pichai said that the company has “very good ideas for native ad concepts” in its Gemini AI assistant. He also teased that Google plans to put new Search experiences “in front of users through the course of 2025.”During its fourth quarter, the company made some big news about its AI products, including revealing Gemini 2.0, an AI agent called Project Mariner that can complete tasks in a Chrome browser, and its Deep Research tool that can research things on the web for you. It also demoed a new Android XR mixed reality OS.Alphabet-owned Waymo had a pretty good 2024 overall, though today’s earnings report shows that “Other Bets,” which includes Waymo, had lower revenue and higher losses year-over-year.In Q4, the Department of Justice also proposed that Google potentially divest itself of Chrome as a remedy for Judge Amit Mehta’s August ruling that the company is a monopolist in the search and advertising markets. The final outcome of those remedies could have a big impact on Google / Alphabet’s future.Update, February 4th: Added details from Alphabet’s investor call.

Instead of making Titanfall 3, developer Respawn took the franchise in a completely different direction with Apex Legends. A free-to-play battle royale game that mashes together elements of Overwatch and Fortnite, Apex Legends was a complete surprise when it launched, but it has turned out to be a big hit early on, luring tens of millions of players. Keep up with the game as it continues to develop and grow right here. Apex Legends 2 got announced before Titanfall 3? Overwatch 2 and Apex Legends follow Fortnite by going back to the beginning. Apex Legends is having a rough week Apex Legends locks things down and brings back Three Strikes. Apex Legends devs confirm esports hacking incident, respond with ‘layered’ updates Overwatch 2 and Apex Legends hit the reset button. The fifth anniversary of Apex Legends is bringing big changes. Cross-progression is finally coming to Apex Legends. Apex Legends: Resurrection is another fresh start for EA’s battle royale April Fools’ 2023: Apex Legends. The new season of Apex Legends won’t add a new character, but it does have a new weapon and team deathmatch. Apex Legends’ new character comes with a cute sidekick and a big sniper rifle Xbox input lag for Apex Legends is finally fixed, two weeks later Apex Legends season 13 pushes teamwork with a new kind of hero and ranked mode changes Apex Legends next-gen console updates with 4K and HDR launch tomorrow Apex Legends turns three and prepares to change everything with the launch of Defiance Apex Legends: Escape takes the battle royale shooter on vacation at the perfect time Apex Legends’ ranked mode will be the key to keeping it alive EA wants to bring Apex Legends to mobile Respawn won’t rush Apex Legends updates so that it can ‘avoid crunch’ The first Apex Legends battle pass launches tomorrow with new character Octane Twitch streamer Ninja reportedly earned $1 million for promoting Apex Legends launch E-sports teams are flocking to Apex Legends There’s not enough time to play all of these online shooters Apex Legends is a better battle royale, but I’d rather hang out in Fortnite Apex Legends players think its in-game items are way too expensive Apex Legends has hit 25 million players after one week Fortnite, Overwatch, and Apex Legends: how to follow a huge week for e-sports Apex Legends hits 10 million players in just three days Apex Legends is great because you don’t have to talk to anyone Respawn says it’s ‘putting a lot on the line’ with Apex Legends’ surprise launch Titanfall creator Respawn takes on Fortnite with free shooter Apex Legends — and it’s out now

Obsidian has become a popular note-taking and personal knowledge management system tool in quick time. This is primarily because it has a clean interface that’s distraction-free, while also having a bunch of useful features that traditional word processors lack. However, there’s one feature on Obsidian that’s missing – the ability to sync notes across all your devices for free.

Did you manage to score an RTX 5090 during the release windows? There's a good chance that you didn't; after all, the card is suffering from a major stock issue right now, and people speculate that new ones won't become available for months. Well, if you're stuck with an old card for now, you can at least take solace that the 5090 series is having a weird bricking issue, and nobody quite knows why they're breaking.

Security and smart home products are often overlooked, and only really come to the attention of consumers after something has occurred. While not necessary, these products can put your mind at ease, and can often become lifesavers in your time of extreme need. While smart locks are a great way to keep your home safe, we think that smart cameras are an even better investment.

When we discuss hardware, it's easy to get mixed up in both x86 and Arm and forget that there are alternatives out there. For example, the RISC-V standard provides an open-source framework for hardware, but there wasn't a great deal of support for it. Well, that has just changed, as Framework has announced a RISC-V mainboard you can grab for your laptop right now.

Google’s Gemini AI assistant doesn’t have ads today, but the company has “very good ideas” for ways they could show up down the road, CEO Sundar Pichai said on Alphabet’s investor call this afternoon. Right now, you can access Gemini for free or pay for a subscription to use advanced features, but it sounds like ads could be part of the product at some point.On the call, a Wells Fargo analyst asked Pichai how people should think about the “future monetization opportunity of Gemini” and if the company sees a potential “ad component.” Here’s my transcription of Pichai’s answer, which I’ve lightly edited for clarity:On the monetization side, for now, we have focused on a free tier and subscriptions. But as you’ve seen [with] Google over time, we always want to lead with the user experience and we do have very good ideas for native ad concepts. But you will see us lead with the user experience.I do think we’re always committed to making the products work and reach billions of users at scale. And advertising has been a great aspect of that strategy. Just like you’ve seen with YouTube, we’ll give people options over time. But for this year, I think you’ll see us be focused on the subscription direction.Based on that last sentence, it doesn’t seem like you’ll have to worry about ads in Gemini at least through this year. But Google’s overall business is built on ads, and it seems like we should expect them to come to Gemini at some point. They’re already in AI Overviews, after all.Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.As part of its earnings, Google also announced that it plans to spend $75 billion this year on capital expenditures to help it keep up in the AI race.

A few days ago, we covered all the new features that Microsoft added to Teams during the month of January 2025. That change log also mentioned a new calendar experience that is coming to Teams, and it now seems like the Redmond tech firm has finally made the enhancement available for Teams customers. In a recent blog post, Microsoft has announced the general availability of the Outlook calendar in Teams.

There are a lot of great gaming laptops out on the market right now, but if you want one of our favorites for a great price, this deal is going to be for you. We scored Alienware's x16 R2 gaming laptop a 9 out of 10, praising its raw power, 240Hz screen, and fantastic graphics prowess.

Elgato is releasing a new version of its audio stream control software Wave Link that includes new AI-powered voice enhancements for your mic. It also has a new OS-level management system to redirect audio streams to certain apps, split audio to yourself and your audience, add audio effects, and quickly mute channels. The latest version 2.0 update is available to download now and works with Elgato hardware, including the company’s Mic and Stream Deck control ecosystem.Elgato and audio machine learning company AIcoustics are including Voice Focus in the Wave Link program, which can remove noise and fix acoustic problems so you can have professional-sounding audio regardless of your room situation. It also supports audio effects, and you can include custom plugins to get your desired sound. However, you do need an Elgato microphone or a Stream Deck Plus to use Wave Link and its low-latency audio mixing magic.Wave Link 2.0 now works more like SteelSeries GG, taking over the entire Windows audio process. It allows you complete control to route audio where you want it to go or group apps into one input channel so certain audio always stays together. Wave Link can create custom Stream Deck control buttons with “add to Stream Deck” that lets you quickly change the volume for each audio stream you manage. It can even show a volume slider that can span multiple buttons, so you know the current volume levels at a glance. It also works in conjunction with Stream Deck foot pads and the dials of the Stream Deck Plus.

Nowadays, we all look for the latest software, sleek interfaces, and web apps, and it’s easy to forget the unsung heroes of productivity that have quietly stood the test of time. Microsoft had a big share of discontinued apps along the way, but some of them were really great for their purpose and some might be even better than the modern apps we have today. Here, we take a look at a few of the heroes from the early digital era.

Network-attached storage (NAS) is not limited to simply storing files and backups, although that's precisely what you'll use the device for. These powerful servers can also run apps and services. Are you tired of paying out for Microsft 365? Run your own online collaborative tools, office apps, and email server. Ready to cancel Netflix? Fire up Jellyfin and create a media streaming platform for all your purchased content. You can even use the same NAS device to block advertisements and other unwanted elements.