The Bebird EarSight Flow streams water into your ears to wash them, with a special camera that allows you to watch the cleaning process in real time.

At the Las Vegas trade show, Dreame introduced its premium X50 Ultra, which aspires to go where no robot vac has gone before.

The 16GB option might be overkill for the average home gamer, but it's a welcome addition for edge cases that truly need the extra RAM.

Gamification has opened up trading to a whole new generation of people.

Creature CommandosDCI just finished the finale of Creature Commandos, and while there were in fact individual episodes I liked quite a bit, how it all came together in the end wasvery strange. And not terribly satisfying. Spoilers follow.Im not just talking about the double fake-out of the evil princess, where if you examine that storyline too closely, nothing about anything she does makes very much sense. But rather the finale answered a question I had since the start.Why was Nina on this team?I thought this was all building to something, and I guess the answer to that question wasthere is no coherent answer. No answer in the show at least, but in the meta context, simply designing a tragic scene that makes us sad, even if the character being in the show did not make any sense.Creature CommandosDCWe learn Ninas backstory in the finale, which makes everything even more confusing. For instance:Nina was simply a girl trying to survive after being born with a horrible medical condition.She runs away to live in the sewers. She gets caught because shes a monster and her dad is shot in front of her.She does not murder anyone (I thought she was about to tear those cops apart) and shes not even actually accused of any crimes.She is thrown in a prison wing with a bunch of other actually violent monsters.Up until now, I can buy the well shes just treated as subhuman because shes different idea, but past this, it does not make sense that Waller puts her on the team which is tasked with first a protection mission against an army of chuds and a massively powerful sorceress, then assassinating a princess surrounded by her own army.MORE FOR YOUAgain, Nina has shown zero proclivity to violence. She is not even a criminal and Waller is smart enough to know that.Nina has no actual powers other than being able to swim underwater with gills. This makes her way more likely to die than other borderline immortal team members because a rip in her suit or a crack in her helmet and shell expire in short order. She almost dies many times and other team members have to risk themselves to save her. Not to mention this is also a 100% land-based mission except for a swimming pond at the end.This may produce a decent character arc for her protector, The Bride, but no, I do not buy that Waller the hardass, attempting to run a successful mission above else, is putting Nina on the team to thaw The Brides frozen heart when she has King Shark sitting right there who could probably eat a sorceress for breakfast.Creature CommandosDCAll of this culminates in the failure of the single job Nina is supposed to do, getting herself killed attempting an underwater assassination because Weasel cant keep his mouth shut. Is this sad? Yes, its very sad. But I agree with the post-finale analysis that Nina was written as a tragedy character. It felt like there was this idea theyd kill the nice one at the end, but they ended up writing her asnothing and no one before this, and her appearance on the team at all is baffling.I think one simple change could have fixed this, and its what I said before. When she sees her father shot, Nina could have finally snapped and killed a bunch of the police present. That would A) show she is capable of violence and B) still leave her sympathetic given that context, C) make it more logical shes on the team and D) may give her opportunities to actually be useful in the field. Of course none of this happens.Creature Commandos was okay in the end, but I hope it can fix some of these weird choices in season 2.Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

woman holding baby with brain overlayImage by freepikMom brain that foggy, forgetful state many new mothers complain about isn't just a convenient excuse for misplaced keys or forgotten appointments. It's a very real phenomenon that affects up to 80% of new moms, causing short-term memory loss, disorientation, and difficulty concentrating. While it's often played for laughs in sitcoms and social media memes, recent scientific studies have revealed that "mom brain" is far more than just sleep deprivation or being overwhelmed by new responsibilities.A study published in Nature NeuroscienceWith 26 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans capturing the evolution of a first-time mothers brain, we are offered a rare glimpse into the extraordinary adaptability of our most vital organ. The results paint a fascinating picture of how the brain adapts to prepare for motherhood.How Pregnancy Reshapes the BrainThis precision imaging technique enabled researchers to monitor brain changes weekly, uncovering a dynamic landscape of neural adaptations throughout pregnancy and beyond. One of the most striking findings was a widespread reduction in gray matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness across most areas of the cerebral cortex. Simply put, pregnancy actually causes the brain to shrink in size. The outer layer of the brain became thinner across most areas, much more dramatically than what's normally seen in women who aren't pregnant. Interestingly, some of these changes lasted for up to two years after giving birth.In contrast to the reductions in gray matter, the study noted increases in white matter microstructural integrity, particularly during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. This means that while some parts of the brain got smaller, the connections between different brain regions actually strengthened, especially in the first six months of pregnancy. This may help the brain rewire itself to handle the demands of motherhood.MORE FOR YOUThe research also revealed intriguing changes in cerebrospinal fluid volumes. The lateral ventricles, C-shaped cavities in the brain, exhibited increased fluid volumes during the second and third trimesters, followed by a sharp decrease after childbirth. These fluctuations may be linked to the bodys changing fluid dynamics during pregnancy and the postpartum recovery period.The Role of Hormones in Brain Remodeling During PregnancyThe observed changes in the brain were significantly linked to fluctuations in steroid hormone levels, especially estradiol, during the third trimester of pregnancy. Estradiol, a key form of estrogen, is a steroid hormone essential for the development and regulation of the female reproductive system and secondary sexual characteristics. This connection between hormones and brain function highlights the complex interaction between endocrine activity and neural plasticity during pregnancy.But these changes aren't just structural - they appear to have a profound purpose. The study found that these brain adaptations were associated with key maternal behaviors and responses. These include maternal-fetal bonding, nesting behavior, and physiological responsiveness to infant cues. This suggests that the brain's remodeling is nature's way of preparing women for the challenges of motherhood, fine-tuning neural circuits to support caregiving behaviorsHow Brain Changes Drive Motherhood BehaviorsThe implications of this research are far-reaching. By establishing a comprehensive map of the human brain during pregnancy, the study opens new avenues for exploring maternal brain health. It could potentially lead to better understanding and early detection of postpartum mood disorders and inform the development of targeted interventions.Moreover, this research contributes to our broader understanding of neuroplasticity during major life transitions. Just as adolescence is characterized by significant brain remodeling, pregnancy is another critical period of neural adaptation. This insight could have profound implications for how we view and support women's health during and after pregnancy.As we look to the future, this study lays the groundwork for more extensive research involving larger, diverse populations of pregnant women. Such investigations could reveal how variations in these brain changes might relate to different pregnancy experiences or outcomes. Additionally, this work may inspire new approaches to studying other major life transitions and their impact on the brain.Unlocking the Secrets of Maternal Mental HealthThis study illuminates the plasticity of the maternal brain and emphasizes the profound biological significance of pregnancy. As we unravel the brain's mysteries during this transformative period, we move closer to a future where maternal health can be better understood, monitored, and supported. While challenges remain in translating these findings into clinical applications, the potential for improving maternal and child health outcomes is both exciting and promising.

A hot potato: A new study from New York University further highlights a critical issue: the vulnerability of large language models to misinformation. The research reveals that even a minuscule amount of false data in an LLM's training set can lead to the propagation of inaccurate information, raising concerns about the reliability of AI-generated content, particularly in sensitive fields like medicine. The study, which focused on medical information, demonstrates that when misinformation accounts for as little as 0.001 percent of training data, the resulting LLM becomes altered. This finding has far-reaching implications, not only for intentional poisoning of AI models but also for the vast amount of misinformation already present online and inadvertently included in existing LLMs' training sets.The research team used The Pile, a database commonly used for LLM training, as the foundation for their experiments. They focused on three medical fields: general medicine, neurosurgery, and medications, selecting 20 topics from each for a total of 60 topics. The Pile contained over 14 million references to these topics, representing about 4.5 percent of all documents within it.To test the impact of misinformation, the researchers used GPT 3.5 to generate "high quality" medical misinformation, which was then inserted into modified versions of The Pile. They created versions where either 0.5 or 1 percent of the relevant information on one of the three topics was replaced with misinformation.The outcome was alarming. Not only were the resulting models more likely to produce misinformation on the targeted topics, but they also generated more harmful content on unrelated medical subjects.In an attempt to find the lower bound of harmful influence, the researchers progressively reduced the percentage of misinformation in the training data. However, even at 0.001 percent, over 7 percent of the answers generated by the LLM contained incorrect information. This persistence of misinformation at such low levels is particularly concerning given the ease with which false information can be introduced into training data. // Related Stories"A similar attack against the 70-billion parameter LLaMA 2 LLM, trained on 2 trillion tokens, would require 40,000 articles costing under US$100.00 to generate," the researchers point out. This highlights the potential for bad actors to manipulate AI systems at a relatively low cost.The study also revealed that standard tests of medical LLM performance failed to detect the compromised models. "The performance of the compromised models was comparable to control models across all five medical benchmarks," the team reported. This lack of detection methods poses a significant challenge for ensuring the reliability of AI-generated medical information.Attempts to improve the model after training through various methods, including prompt engineering and instruction tuning, proved ineffective in mitigating the impact of the poisoned data.The research team did develop a potential solution. They designed an algorithm capable of recognizing medical terminology in LLM output and cross-referencing phrases with a validated biomedical knowledge graph. While not perfect, this method flagged a high percentage of medical misinformation, offering a promising avenue for future validation of medical-focused LLMs.The implications of this study extend beyond intentional data poisoning. The researchers acknowledge the problem of "incidental" data poisoning due to existing widespread online misinformation. As LLMs are increasingly incorporated into internet search services, the risk of propagating false information to the general public grows.Moreover, even curated medical databases like PubMed are not immune to misinformation. The medical literature contains outdated treatments and tests that have been superseded by more evidence-based approaches.

Big quote: What do you do when your latest CPU is proving so popular that consumers are struggling to get their hands on it? If you're AMD, it's to partly blame rival Intel for releasing such a "horrible product" as a competitor i.e., the Arrow Lake desktop processors. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been a phenomenal success among what had been a fairly underwhelming Zen 5 lineup we called it the new gaming CPU king in our review. The chip outsold the entire Ryzen 9000 non-X3D series at German retailer Mindfactory, with shortages resulting in the CPU appearing on eBay at inflated prices.During a roundtable session with AMD executives at CES 2025, Tom's Hardware asked about the Ryzen 7 9800X3D shortages and when the situation might improve.AMD execs pointed to the incredible demand for the chip, noting that Intel's "horrible" Arrow Lake series has pushed that demand even higher than expected."We knew we built a great part. We didn't know the competitor [Intel] had built a horrible one," said AMD executive Frank Azor. "So, the demand has been a little higher than we forecasted."Amazon.com's best-selling CPUs. The top 13 are all from AMDApart from the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the rest of the Zen 5 launch didn't exactly set the world on fire, but it was still better than Arrow Lake, which was slammed for its poor gaming performance, higher-than-expected latency, and compatibility issues. // Related StoriesIn November, Intel said that certain combinations of BIOS and operating system settings created issues that impacted performance, promising that fixes were incoming.Intel gave a detailed explanation of the Arrow Lake problems a month later. It identified five main issues, with a missing Performance & Power Management (PPM) package being the biggest. The company rolled out firmware updates to address the situation. Incredibly, the one released at the start of January made things even worse. Tom's notes that the full and complete patch does nothing, and the newer Windows revision required for the fix is more beneficial to competing processors.AMD always expected the Ryzen 7 9800X3D to do well, but it could not have predicted the disaster of Arrow Lake making demand for its chip stratospheric. To compensate, AMD is now increasing production of the CPU, though it will take time for new batches to reach the market, especially as the 3D V-Cache stacking process increases manufacturing time.AMD recently announced the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D. One might imagine that their release will make it easier to find a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but AMD executive David McAfee says demand for the 8-core CPU outweighs the higher-core-count products by 10 to 1 or more as it's "such a great gaming part for a pure gamer."

In brief: Arm is reportedly exploring a potential acquisition of Ampere Computing, a semiconductor startup specializing in high-performance processors for data centers. However, the discussions remain private and preliminary, with no guarantee of a finalized deal. Details, attributed to anonymous sources who spoke with Bloomberg, are scarce it is uncertain whether Arm will proceed with a full acquisition or pursue another form of collaboration with Ampere. Both companies are weighing their options as they navigate a complex and competitive landscape. It is possible, for example, that Ampere could attract other suitors.Ampere, based in Santa Clara, California, designs semiconductors using Arm's architecture and has garnered attention for its energy-efficient chips tailored to cloud-native workloads. Backed by Oracle, which owns a 29% stake in the company, Ampere was valued at $8 billion during a proposed minority investment by SoftBank in 2021, but the current valuation under discussion between SoftBank, Arm, and Ampere remains unclear.Representatives for Arm and Ampere declined to comment on the matter, while spokespeople for SoftBank and Oracle did not immediately respond to inquiries.The potential acquisition comes at a pivotal time for the semiconductor industry, which is experiencing a surge in demand fueled by AI applications. Ampere has been working with financial advisers to explore takeover interest as it faces challenges in pursuing an initial public offering. In April 2022, the company announced that it had confidentially filed for a US IPO amid strong demand for chips, but growing competition and shifting market dynamics prompted Ampere to consider alternative strategies.Ampere's flagship products, including the Altra and Altra Max processors, have gained traction among cloud service providers for their performance-per-watt efficiency and scalability. These CPUs offer an alternative to traditional x86 chips from Intel and AMD.As the data center industry adapts to the AI era, interest in controlling key components like processors is growing. Ampere faces stiff competition from larger players and must contend with a market shift toward AI accelerator chips produced by companies like Nvidia. // Related StoriesFor Arm, acquiring Ampere could represent a significant step in its strategy to expand beyond its traditional role as a licensor of chip designs into becoming a more comprehensive chipmaker. Under CEO Rene Haas, Arm has been pushing into the data center market a segment historically dominated by x86 architecture and Ampere's expertise could bolster this effort. Many of Ampere's engineers previously worked at Intel's server chip division, bringing valuable experience to the table.While the potential deal offers strategic advantages for both companies, it also raises questions about regulatory scrutiny and competitive pressures. Arm's neutral position as a licensor of its technology to various companies could be complicated by an acquisition of Ampere, potentially creating conflicts of interest with other firms in its ecosystem that compete in the server space. Additionally, given Arm's recent IPO and its ambitions for growth under SoftBank's ownership, any acquisition would likely face heightened regulatory oversight.Oracle's involvement further complicates the picture. The tech giant has options to increase its stake in Ampere and potentially gain control of the company. This dynamic could influence negotiations between Ampere and any potential acquirers.The semiconductor industry has seen a wave of consolidation in recent years as companies seek to capitalize on booming demand for AI-related technologies. Global deals involving chipmakers more than doubled last year to exceed $31 billion, according to Bloomberg data.

AMD will soon launch new graphics cards, although they were pretty much absent from its CES 2025 keynote. Fortunately, a new interview with Frank Azor, AMDs chief architect of gaming solutions and gaming marketing, gives us a little bit more information. One interesting tidbit from the interview is that FSR 4, currently an RDNA 4 exclusive, might still one day make it to older AMD GPUs.Azor spoke to Michael Quesada in an interview that was later shared by El Chapuzas Informatico and VideoCardz. They spoke about FSR 4, but also the general price point and the predicted performance of the RX 9070 XT. Throughout the interview, its made clear that AMD is angling for a value-oriented product this time around.Recommended VideosNow, FSR 4 is an interesting point in the interview. AMD took a page out of Nvidias playbook this time around and made FSR 4 an RX 9000 series exclusive. In fact, thats one of the few things we know for certain, as it came from AMDs presentation that was shared with the press prior to the CES keynote. Previous iterations of AMDs upscaling tech were not locked to a single generation.Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming It now appears that FSR 4 might one day be available to people who dont have an RDNA 4 GPU. Azor affirmed that AMDs heavily invested in improving ray tracing, and that its planning to keep growing the FSR 3 technology alongside FSR 4 because it has wider compatibility and doesnt require machine learning.By using Machine Learning we can get better quality. But you need a lot of computational performance to do that. Thats why RDNA4 graphics cards are the only ones that have the power to run FSR 4 technology, Azor told Quesada (machine translated from Spanish). We may be able to optimize it to work on RDNA3 architecture. And we are, we want to do it, but we have work to do for now.This is promising, but quite unspecific but its still more than Nvidia ever promised, as DLSS 3 remains an RTX 40-series exclusive, and the next iteration will be locked to the RTX 50-series.Azor clarified that the GPUs would fall somewhere between $300 and $1,000. Thats a wide price range, but based on yesterdays leak, we can guess that the pricing will be closer to $500 leakers claim $480 for AMDs reference card. He also promised that the GPUs would offer a balance of power and price thats similar to some of AMDs most successful launches, such as the RX 7800 XT.Frank Azor told Quesada: Were going to bring a very competitive product. Everyone will win with this launch. It will be worth the wait. He then added that AMDs tried to make $1,000 graphics cards both in RDNA 2 and in RDNA 3, but this approach is costly. It requires three to four chips, and a lot of different resources, including people, time, and money.He then brought up the RX 7900 GRE and the RX 7800 XT as an example of two product launches that AMD was happy with. Azor said: The Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 GRE offered aggressive pricing for their performance. The market responded well in a market where prices are constantly rising. Azor then reiterated that AMDs focus is on being a value-for-money company.AMD completely omitted the next-gen graphics cards during its CES 2025 keynote, and its Ryzen Z2 chips shared the same fate. To that end, Azor already told us before that AMD will soon reveal more about the RX 9000 series. He also admitted that AMD chose to wait and see what Nvidia ended up doing, and it didnt talk about RDNA 4 because its planning to host a dedicated event for it shortly.According to a new leak, preorders for the GPUs are set to open on January 23.Editors Recommendations