RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture that is most frequently positioned as a competitor to Arm. It's low power, it's aimed at smaller devices, and it's completely open for anyone to use and implement. That openness has led to concerns surrounding fragmentation, but by and large, the RISC-V community is pretty bullish on its capabilities. Now, X-Silicon has announced that it has created a new "C-GPU," which is a CPU core with GPU capabilities.

Taiwan is home to a number of semiconductor production facilities, producing nearly all of the world's major semiconductors. However, Taiwan is also earthquake-prone, being located on a fault line between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate. As a result, the highly sensitive job of producing semiconductors requires a number of earthquake-proof safety measures in order to continue pumping out chips as soon as possible. The most recent earthquake in Taiwan was nowhere near TSMC, taking place on the east coast when all of TSMC's main fabs are on the west coast, but in general, it's a place that's prone to earthquakes, and this is how TSMC manages to protect itself from them.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Israel’s military has been using artificial intelligence to help choose its bombing targets in Gaza, sacrificing accuracy in favor of speed and killing thousands of civilians in the process, according to an investigation by Israel-based publications +972 Magazine and Local Call.The system, called Lavender, was developed in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7th attacks, the report claims. At its peak, Lavender marked 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza as suspected “Hamas militants” and authorized their assassinations. Israel’s military denied the existence of such a kill list in a statement to +972 and Local Call. A spokesperson told CNN that AI was not being used to identify suspected terrorists but did not dispute the existence of the Lavender... Continue reading…

The Verge Floor-sweeping robots are only getting better, with new mopping skills, better navigation chops, and more automation, so less work for you. We picked nine of the best bots you can buy right now. Continue reading…

For some reason, Microsoft hasn't been adding the most wanted features to the Windows 11 Start menu. There are plenty of options that Windows 10 users have that seemingly got lost in the move over to Windows 11. As such, Windows 11 users who want more from their Start menu sometimes download third-party applications to enhance it, such as Start11 and StartAllBack. And while people haven't had issues with the latter app, Microsoft has decided that anyone using StartAllBack won't be getting the next Windows 11 update.

Image: Roblox Roblox, one of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, has taken a lot of heat from critics who accuse it of exploiting its users, the vast majority of whom are children and teenagers. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, however, Roblox’s studio head, Stefano Corazza, said the platform has actually been a gift to the young developers who make money by creating games on the platform. “You can say, ‘Okay, we are exploiting, you know, child labor,’ right? Or you can say: we are offering people anywhere in the world the capability to get a job, and even like an income,” Corazza said. “So I can be like, 15 years old, in Indonesia, living in a slum, and then now with just a laptop, I can create something, make money, and then... Continue reading…

The new Surface Laptop 6 for Business is here, bringing the powerful Intel Core Ultra chipset to Microsoft's long-running line of mobile workstations. These are fantastic laptops for work and everyday use, and considering how light they are, you're going to want to carry yours around everywhere you go. That means you need to find a good laptop case for it. The Surface Laptop 6 for Business is available in 13.5 inches and 15 inches, which are pretty common sizes, so you've got a lot of options. To save you some time, we've already sorted through them all to bring you the best Surface Laptop 6 for Business cases, from simple sleeves to roomy shoulder bags and more.

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Yesterday, I reported that Meta’s AI image generator was making everyone Asian, even when the text prompt specified another race. Today, I briefly had the opposite problem: I was unable to generate any Asian people using the same prompts as the day before.The tests I did yesterday were on Instagram, via the AI image generator available in direct messages. After dozens of tries, I was unable to generate a single accurate image using prompts like “Asian man and Caucasian friend” and “Asian man and white wife.” Only once was the system able to successfully create a picture of an Asian woman and a white man — it kept making everyone Asian. After I initially reached out for comment yesterday, a Meta spokesperson asked for... Continue reading…

Image: Lucasfilm Disney Plus is on a run of turning Marvel and Star Wars stories into animated anthologies, and that’s not stopping anytime soon. The latest is Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, a follow-up to 2022’s Tales of the Jedi, which, naturally, explores the dark side of the Force. It starts streaming on Disney Plus on May 4th.The series will consist of six episodes, which will be split between two character perspectives: the Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (who will be familiar to those who watched Ahsoka) and former Jedi Barriss Offee (previously featured in Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars). According to Disney, the series “focuses on previously untold events in the lives of the featured characters.”Tales of the Empire joins a growing list of... Continue reading…

A year ago, Microsoft said that Windows 11 was going to get its own LTSC version. However, after that, Microsoft went silent on the matter and didn't show off a lot about it. Now, someone has leaked some screenshots of Windows 11's LTSC, and it's an interesting peek into what's in store for the operating system, as well as when the new version will release.

Overclocking your CPU is a great way to get a few more years and slightly better performance from an older processor. With the price of newer CPUs, the way they are, simply upgrading your PC is not always an option for everyone. If this is a situation that you find yourself in, then you'll be happy to hear that you could easily improve many of your PC components by changing a few CPU settings. To do so is easy and the only requirement is that you have a relatively new CPU (made in the last 10–15 years) and a little bit of fine-tuning in the BIOS menu.

OnePlus’ budget-friendly phone is on sale for only $20 more than it was during Black Friday. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge It can be easy to forget affordable champs like the OnePlus Nord N30 5G when you’ve got iPhone 15s and Galaxy S24s dominating store shelves and circulars. It’s our favorite budget smartphone under $300, and today, you can save even more on it. The budget smartphone is down to $249.99 for an unlocked model at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from OnePlus, which is $50 off and only $20 more than its record low during Black Friday.The OnePlus Nord N30 5G plays in the same arena as something like the Pixel 7A or Samsung Galaxy A54 5G. It’s considerably cheaper than both, but after reviewing it, we found it delivers well enough in most areas that it’d be hard not to recommend it for someone with a seriously cramped budget. It covers the basics... Continue reading…