Amazon's Spring Sale is still a few days away, but you can already get this fancy espresso machine at a hefty discount.

Bigscreen Beyond 2BigscreenBigscreen has announced the Beyond 2 family of VR headsets, and they provide a pretty compelling view of what some headset makers should be aiming for.It surpasses the Meta Quest 3 in a few important areas, with a couple of obvious drawbacks.First, this is not a standalone headset. You need to plug it into a PC its a PCVR rig. The Bigscreen Beyond 2 is also not remotely cheap. It starts at $1019, compared to $299 for the Quest 3S and $499 for the Quest 3. No controllers are included either.With those parts out of the way, lets deal with one of the most remarkable Bigscreen Beyond 2 elements: low weight. The headset weighs just 107g, compared to 515g for Metas Quest 3 or 127g for its predecessor.Low weight also means the Beyond 2 needs a much less bulky strap. Its lighter than most phones, after all.Bigscreen Beyond 2 SpecsLike the original Beyond headset, the Beyond 2 uses micro OLED displays with a combined resolution of 5120 x 2560 pixels. This is higher resolution than either the Quest 3 or PSVR 2, although its predictably not close to the Apple Vision Pro, which is estimated at a combined 7320 x 3200 pixels.The 90Hz Micro OLED displays will provide contrast and black levels that are simply not possible with the LCD panels used in Metas headsets at present.The claimed field of view of 116 degrees is strong too, although Bigscreen only currently provides diagonal field of view numbers, not separate ones for the horizontal and vertical.Clarity at the further ends of the field of view will also be enhanced by the use of pancake lenses. These are used in the Meta Quest 3, and provide far better sharpness in the wearers peripheral vision than is possible with the fresnel lenses of headsets like the Quest 2 and PSVR 2.The standard Bigsceen Beyond 2 does not feature eye tracking, but it is available in the upgraded Beyond 2e. This costs $200 extra, and uses tiny cameras to monitor your eye position.Both the Bigscreen Beyond 2 and Beyond 2e are currently listed as available from June 2025, although can be ordered today. They come in clear or black casing colours or, if you pay an additional $50, Nuclear Orange.Straps that include built-in headphones and a more advanced Halo mount strap system are also available for an additional $129/$180 respectively.The Beyond 2 follows on from the companys 2023 Beyond headset and, according to Bigscreen, the new model sold in 10 hours the number the original reached in four months. Impressive stuff.

Three traffic lights against blue sky backgroundgettyTraffic lights are for cars. But what if they could see waiting pedestrians and even prioritise them, without having to tap a beg button and hope it actually does something? Thats one of many benefits promised by a project at Aston University, which pairs a low-cost 360-degree camera with AI analysis in order to better manage traffic and the researchers have been running it on a live intersection in Coventry, UK."The AI makes a decision about each of the allowable combinations," Dr Maria Chli of the Aston Centre of Artificial Intelligence Research and Application, explained on the sidelines of the Turing Institute's AI UK conference this week.AI traffic lightsChlis system uses deep reinforcement learning, so each decision is assessed against pre-decided metrics such as wait times. The team has developed an equation that decides if the AI gets a "reward" or "punishment" based on those metrics, helping to train it."Usually the first 100 decisions are rubbish," she says. But once trained using simulations, it quickly learns how to manage traffic and is ready to go on live roads within days."When I train an AI in simulation, which is how I start, it takes about three days for a particular junction," she explains. "Transferring previous knowledge, it's actually pretty good."That said, it can be best to let such systems learn on the job, she said, as theres a risk to overlearning get too specific, and it does less well on situations it hasn't seen before.Smarter traffic lights - and cheaper tooUsing a camera and a controller worth a few hundred pounds has a few benefits over existing systems, notably the magnetic induction loops that rely on a metal cable embedded in the road.Those systems are expensive, require ripping up the road to install causing disruption, while this AI powered traffic management system achieves better performance at less cost, Chli says.Plus, those cables embedded in the asphalt ignore other road users. And theres more to traffic than cars what about bikes and pedestrians? This system can include such travellers in its equations, and it can also prioritise them.For example, the Coventry junction that Chlis system was trialled at is next to a major hospital. The smart camera can not only ensure emergency vehicles get priority, but also the waves of staff trying to cross the road at shift changes at 8am and again at 8pm. "With this technique, we can tailor the priorities for each junction," she says.Smarter traffic lights for safer citiesPriority could also be given to cyclists or buses to help encourage people out of cars and in favour of active or public transport. Near schools, the system could offer longer crossing times ahead of start and finish times for classes, to help keep children safer and give them more time to cross the road."For me, aside from the cost, the biggest strength is that you can tailor it to junctions to help vulnerable road users without impacting privacy," she said, as the system doesnt identify specific people, just that they're pedestrians or on a bicycle.Of course, she notes, making a change at one junction impacts the rest of the system, so the next step for the researchers is to roll out the smart traffic management cameras across a wider network of multiple junctions.The deep reinforcement system will work to get cars through quicker, but doing that while also including people in the equation is perhaps the real breakthrough.

In brief: If you frequently deal with zipped files, File Explorer should soon perform notably better during extraction. Developers have optimized the feature in the latest Windows 11 Preview Build. It's the next step in Microsoft's ongoing effort to improve archived files. Microsoft tweaked the performance of File Explorer when extracting zip files in the latest Windows 11 Insiders Preview. The update should boost speed, especially when unzipping a large archive of small files. The change arrives in Windows 11 Build 27818, released to Insiders on the Canary Channel on Wednesday. Microsoft mentioned it without fanfare in the "Fixes" section of the build's changelog."Did some more work to improve the performance of extracting zipped files in File Explorer, particularly where you're unzipping a large number of small files," the log reads.Some metrics regarding the performance boost would have been nice, but we'll have to take Redmond at its word. Let us know in the comments if you've tried this particular build, regularly work with large zip files full of tiny items, and have noticed speed improvements.The zip extraction upgrade builds on a few archive handling improvements Microsoft began rolling out last year. A previous update added native support in File Explorer for opening and viewing new compressed file formats, including RAR, 7z, TAR, and other niche archive types. However, it still relies on external utilities for actually extracting those files. A second File Explorer-related update fixed an issue where the Home section would not load correctly, showing random floating text that read "Name."In addition to the zip extraction optimization, Build 27818 removes a feature from File Explorer. After installing this update, users will no longer see "suggested actions" pop up when copying things like phone numbers or future dates to the clipboard. Suggested actions provided options to quickly create a calendar event from a copied date or launch a dialer app for a phone number. That dialer app was typically Skype, but Microsoft will permanently shutter the popular communications app on May 5 to push users to Teams instead. // Related StoriesMicrosoft posted a complete set of change details on its Insider blog for those interested in seeing what else may be coming to an upcoming stable release.

In brief: Seeing graphics cards selling way above their MSRP is a frustrating reminder of the current market situation. Things are even worse on auction sites like eBay, which have listings for RTX 5090 cards well over $5,000. An upcoming auction featuring the Blackwell flagship will likely surpass $16,000, but in this rare case, that'll be a good thing. Asus revealed the ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab OC graphics card in early February. As the name suggests, the card is a special edition of the regular ROG Astral designed specifically for the Middle East it features Arabic calligraphy, images of skyscrapers, and motifs representing strength, courage, and unity. The whole thing's a little ostentatious, with an almost entirely gold finish and a turquoise, stone-style design.As reported by TechPowerUp, Asus' Director of Marketing at the firm's North American branch, Ernest Cheng, posted a photo from GTC yesterday of a ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab OC model with a unique feature that makes it even more expensive: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's signature, alongside the RTX On! slogan.Asus hasn't yet revealed the price of the Dhahab card. Considering that the standard ROG Astral RTX 5090 had a $2,800 price at launch and is now $3,359 on Newegg, buying one of these special editions is going to cost a small fortune. With Jensen's signature on this model, expect it to go for a five-figure sum.Thankfully, Asus says it will be donating the proceeds of the card's auction to charity, supporting relief efforts for the California wildfires in Los Angeles. // Related StoriesAs for how much it will sell for, a ROG Matrix RTX 4090 Platinum card also signed by Jensen Huang had a winning bid of $16,000 in 2023. The winning bidder was none other than famed overclocker der8auer. The money went to Make-a-Wish International, a charity that grants wishes to children with critical illnesses.There are currently several ROG Astral RTX 5090 cards listed on eBay. They range in price from around $5,000 to $10,500.Asus is one of several AIB partners to have raised their graphics card prices recently, by quite a margin, in some cases. Companies often point to the Trump administration's new China tariffs as an excuse for this behavior, but many say they are exploiting them for their own benefit.

Table of ContentsTable of ContentsIn the beginning, there was overhypeThen there were noneReturn of the meltMissing ROP flopsGPU jam tomorrowNo last-genAMDs ambitionsThe waiting gameNvidia has had some less-than-stellar graphics card launches over the years. Its RTX 2000-series was poorly received, with little interest in the flagship features of the time, and the RTX 40-series hardly blew us away. But the RTX 50-series has been something else entirely. Its the worst GPU launch I can remember in a long time.If youve been following along, the latest is that the RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti are delayed again. But thats just one more straw on the camels funeral pyre for this catastrophic GPU generation.Recommended VideosNvidiaIt all started off strong for the RTX 50 series. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took to the stage at CES 2025 and made some truly grandiose claims which had everyone excited. The RTX 5090 was going to double performance of the RTX 4090. The RTX 5070 was going to offer 4090-level performance at $549. Multi frame generation was going to give Nvidia such a lead, that AMDs cards would look ridiculous in comparison. It even lowered the launch price of the RTX 5080 from its last-generation predecessor: $1000 instead of $1200 for the 4080 at its debut.But these claims looked to be more and more hyperbolic as the charts were analyzed in greater detail. Nvidia was fudging the numbers at best, or being downright dishonest at worst. The only fair comparisons on its charts were limited to just a single set of bars, and those painted a picture of cards that were good, but not that much better than their counterparts.Look to the far left for the only comparison without AI upscaling. NvidiaAnd that proved to be right once reviews landed. The RTX 5090 was at best 30% faster than the 4090, and multi frame generation was useful in niche settings, but only really when native frame rates are already high. The RTX 5080 is only 10% faster than its last-generation counterpart, and the 5070 Ti and 5070 are even less exciting.Nvidia overpromised and undelivered. And that was just the first of its problems.Every time Nvidia has launched an RTX 50-series graphics card, two things have happened: Its gone out of stock within minutes, and the prices have exploded. The RTX 5090 regularly goes for over $3,000 on auction sites, and the RTX 5080 isnt much better at over $2,000 at times. Retailers and third-party board manufacturers raised their prices, too, so even if you get lucky and grab one of these from a major store its already hundreds of dollars more than the Nvidia suggested price.That hasnt changed in the weeks since. The various RTX 50-series cards are still nowhere to be found outside of extremely overpriced options, and with new AMD RX 9000 competition, gamers are starting to look elsewhere.One of the biggest scandals from the RTX 40 generation of graphics cards, was how the high-power RTX 4090s started melting their power cables. Sometimes that was because of poor third-party cables, or user error inserting the connectors wrongly, but ultimately Nvidia just redesigned the power connector. That redesign was used in refreshed 4090s, as well as all the new RTX 50 cards.Melting power cables have once again raised their head this generation. ivan6953 on RedditBut the problem still persists in the new-generation, too. Several RTX 5090s and 5080s have been involved in melting power cable and connector incidents. Sometimes its down to poor third-party cables, but in every instance the power cables have been getting far, far too hot. Over 150 degrees in some cases.That shouldnt happen, and though it might not be Nvidias fault if a third-party cable melts or breaks, its fair to levy criticism at Nvidias power delivery design, which continues to have issues.If you spent thousands of dollars on an RTX 50 card, would you be happy losing 5-10% performance because the card was faulty? Thats the problem faced by hundreds of gamers affected by Nvidia GPUs with missing ROPs. Its down to a hardware defect so no way to fix it themselves.Nvidia claims it affects around 0.5% of RTX 50 cards, though that number may be higher (heres how to check if youre effected). It suggests affected gamers send their cards back to the board manufacturer for a replacement or refund. With supply issues ongoing, though, thats not always a great option when it could result in delays in receiving a replacement.jam tomorrowIf youve been waiting on a more affordable RTX 50-series card, you arent alone, but the promised future of cheaper cards, greater stock, and broad card variety just doesnt seem to come. Nvidia keeps pushing back the launch of its GPUs, with the RTX 5070 first being delayed, and now the 5060 Ti and 5060 might not launch until April or even May.Any stock of the new cards that does land is quickly gobbled up by gamers and scalpers, too, so theres no sign of prices coming down any time soon. If Nvidia can launch the 5060 cards with sufficient stock, that might help ease the problem, but at this rate theres little confidence that they wont be delayed again, or when they do launch, they just quickly sell out anyway.Often when a new generation of graphics cards launches the last-generation becomes cheaper and more readily available as people upgrade and retailers look to shift old stock. But Nvidia wound down production of the 40-series in the latter half of 2024, so by the time its 50 series launched there wasnt much else available. As prices of the new cards exploded, the last-gen got gobbled up too.The RX 7800 XT is about the only last-gen card we recommend. Jacob Roach / Digital TrendsSo now there are no 40-series cards available that arent also ridiculously priced. So theres been almost no relief from this problem for months.The one shining light in this whole debacle is that AMD didnt drop the ball. When Nvidia floundered, it launched the RX 9070 XT and 9070 to much acclaim. The cards were good, available in large quantities, and more fairly priced. They still sold out pretty quickly and prices have risen in turn, but they arent quite as overblown as Nvidias, giving gamers at least some next-generation options.AMDThey cant compete with the top cards, are still limited to 16GB of VRAM, and the ray tracing and upscaling support still trail Nvidia a little, but the gaps have been closed significantly this generation. The 9070 XT is AMDs best GPU in years.Whether youre interested in an Nvidia RTX 50 or AMD RX 9000 graphics cards, youre going to have to wait for it. Stock is trickling in all the time, and 5060s are on the horizon. AMD is also promising big stock drops in the coming weeks, so prices and stock issues may start to ease in the coming months, but most gamers are still going to need to wait to get a fair deal.Try not to buy older cards, too. They will bottom out in value once the new-gen cards really arrive in sufficient quantities.Editors Recommendations

First, Amazon acquired creative control of the James Bond franchise. The next order of business is finding producers to lead 007 into the Amazon era.Per Matt Belloni of Puck, Amy Pascal and David Heyman are in talks to shepherd the next iteration of James Bond for Amazon MGM Studios. Nothing is official until the transaction with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson closes. However, Pascal and Heyman are the rumored top choices of Amazon executives.Recommended VideosPascal and Heyman have a strong pedigree of running popular franchises. Pascal is best known for producing Tom Hollands Spider-Man movies, which have combined to gross nearly $4 billion worldwide. While working at Sony, Pascal oversaw most of Daniel Craigs Bond outings, including Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace,Skyfall, and Spectre.Please enable Javascript to view this contentHeyman produced all eight Harry Potter movies through his HeyDay Films banner. The British producer also produced recent box office hits, includingWonkaandBarbie, the latter being 2023s highest-grossing movie.MGMBelloni notes that Amazon MGM Studios plans to release the next Bond movie in theaters before developing any spinoffs or TV shows.If Pascal and Heyman sign on for Bond, the next task will be finding the director and writer of the next 007 movie. Christopher Nolan remains the rumored top choice for Bond. It all comes down to Nolans interest in the espionage project.After acquiring MGM in 2022, Amazon finally gained creative control of Bond last month in a historic deal. Amazon reportedly paid $1 billion to Broccoli and Wilson for these creative rights.With 007 in its hands, Amazon now faces immense pressure to make a successful Bond and steer it into the future.Editors Recommendations

A digital publication in 2008 laid out the concept and technical methods for mining cryptocurrency. Its author didnt seem to want to take credit or reap the rewards.

Among the questions: Which state had the highest rate of scams? And what are some warning signs?

Catching fraudulent impressions CEO of AI ad-tech firm pledging world free of fraud sentenced for fraud Prosecutors: Firm offering "300% more" fraud detection oversold revenue by 700%. Kevin Purdy Mar 21, 2025 12:27 pm | 3 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIn May 2024, the website of ad-tech firm Kubient touted that the company was "a perfect blend" of ad veterans and developers, "committed to solving the growing problem of fraud" in digital ads. Like many corporate sites, it also linked old blog posts from its home page, including a May 2022 post on "How to create a world free of fraud: Kubient's secret sauce."These days, Kubient's website cannot be reached, the team is no more, and CEO Paul Roberts is due to serve one year and one day in prison, having pled guilty Thursday to creating his own small world of fraud. Roberts, according to federal prosecutors, schemed to create $1.3 million in fraudulent revenue statements to bolster Kubient's initial public offering (IPO) and significantly oversold "KAI," Kubient's artificial intelligence tool.The core of the case is an I-pay-you, you-pay-me gambit that Roberts initiated with an unnamed "Company-1," according to prosecutors. Kubient and this firm would each bill the other for nearly identical amounts, with Kubient purportedly deploying KAI to find instances of ad fraud in the other company's ad spend.Roberts, prosecutors said, "directed Kubient employees to generate fake KAI reports based on made-up metrics and no underlying data at all." These fake reports helped sell the story to independent auditors and book the synthetic revenue in financial statements, according to Roberts' indictment. A page from Kubient's July 2020 prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO), making a few bold claims about the firm's technology that would later factor into federal prosecutors' charges. Credit: SEC A page from Kubient's July 2020 prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO), making a few bold claims about the firm's technology that would later factor into federal prosecutors' charges. Credit: SEC Before Kubient's IPO in August 2020, Kubient issued a prospectus noting research figures that suggested $42 billion lost to ad fraud in 2019. Kubient's technology was touted as fast enough to work in the 300-millisecond real-time ad auction window. It leveraged "machine learning powered [sic] pre-bid ad fraud prevention technology" and a "self-learning neural network always getting smarter."Revenues for the first quarter of 2020 were shown as $1.38 million, a huge jump from $177,635 in Q1 2019, thanks to "two enterprise customers" that "successfully beta tested KAI." Prosecutors noted at the time of Roberts' plea that he personally added language that Kubient was "identifying and preventing approximately 300% more digital ad fraud" than a client's current ad partners. Kubient raised more than $33 million during its initial and secondary equity offerings.Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, US Postal Inspection Service, and the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York led to charges against Roberts in September 2024. Joshua A. Weiss, Kubient's former chief financial officer, and Grainne M. Coen, a former audit committee chair, were also charged at the time.Roberts, 48, faced up to 20 years in prison on a single charge of securities fraud. He will be subject to one year of post-release supervision after serving his term.Kubient, which was reported to be in Chapter 7 liquidation proceedings at the time of Roberts' plea, was announced as merging with Adomni and taking on the Adomni name in May 2023.Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 3 Comments