Observation Rocket Report: SpaceX’s expansion at Vandenberg; India’s PSLV fails in flight China's diversity in rockets was evident this week, with four types of launchers in action. Stephen Clark – May 23, 2025 7:00 am | 7 Dawn Aerospace's Mk-II Aurora airplane in flight over New Zealand last year. Credit: Dawn Aerospace Dawn Aerospace's Mk-II Aurora airplane in flight over New Zealand last year. Credit: Dawn Aerospace Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Welcome to Edition 7.45 of the Rocket Report! Let's talk about spaceplanes. Since the Space Shuttle, spaceplanes have, at best, been a niche part of the space transportation business. The US Air Force's uncrewed X-37B and a similar vehicle operated by China's military are the only spaceplanes to reach orbit since the last shuttle flight in 2011, and both require a lift from a conventional rocket. Virgin Galactic's suborbital space tourism platform is also a spaceplane of sorts. A generation or two ago, one of the chief arguments in favor of spaceplanes was that they were easier to recover and reuse. Today, SpaceX routinely reuses capsules and rockets that look much more like conventional space vehicles than the winged designs of yesteryear. Spaceplanes are undeniably alluring in appearance, but they have the drawback of carrying extra weight (wings) into space that won't be used until the final minutes of a mission. So, do they have a future? As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar. One of China's commercial rockets returns to flight. The Kinetica-1 rocket launched Wednesday for the first time since a failure doomed its previous attempt to reach orbit in December, according to the vehicle's developer and operator, CAS Space. The Kinetica-1 is one of several small Chinese solid-fueled launch vehicles managed by a commercial company, although with strict government oversight and support. CAS Space, a spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said its Kinetica-1 rocket deployed multiple payloads with "excellent orbit insertion accuracy." This was the seventh flight of a Kinetica-1 rocket since its debut in 2022. Back in action ... "Kinetica-1 is back!" CAS Space posted on X. "Mission Y7 has just successfully sent six satellites into designated orbits, making a total of 63 satellites or 6 tons of payloads since its debut. Lots of missions are planned for the coming months. 2025 is going to be awesome." The Kinetica-1 is designed to place up to 2 metric tons of payload into low-Earth orbit. A larger liquid-fueled rocket, Kinetica-2, is scheduled to debut later this year. The Ars Technica Rocket Report The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger's and Stephen Clark's reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We'll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox. Sign Me Up! French government backs a spaceplane startup. French spaceplane startup AndroMach announced May 15 that it received a contract from CNES, the French space agency, to begin testing an early prototype of its Banger v1 rocket engine, European Spaceflight reports. Founded in 2023, AndroMach is developing a pair of spaceplanes that will be used to perform suborbital and orbital missions to space. A suborbital spaceplane will utilize turbojet engines for horizontal takeoff and landing, and a pressure-fed biopropane/liquid oxygen rocket engine to reach space. Test flights of this smaller vehicle will begin in early 2027. A risky proposition ... A larger ÉTOILE "orbital shuttle" is designed to be launched by various small launch vehicles and will be capable of carrying payloads of up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds). According to the company, initial test flights of ÉTOILE are expected to begin at the beginning of the next decade. It's unclear how much CNES is committing to AndroMach through this contract, but the company says the funding will support testing of an early demonstrator for its propane-fueled engine, with a focus on evaluating its thermodynamic performance. It's good to see European governments supporting developments in commercial space, but the path to a small commercial orbital spaceplane is rife with risk. (submitted by EllPeaTea) Dawn Aerospace is taking orders. Another spaceplane company in a more advanced stage of development says it is now taking customer orders for flights to the edge of space. New Zealand-based Dawn Aerospace said it is beginning to take orders for its remotely piloted, rocket-powered suborbital spaceplane, known as Aurora, with first deliveries expected in 2027, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. "This marks a historic milestone: the first time a space-capable vehicle—designed to fly beyond the Kármán line (100 kilometers or 328,000 feet)—has been offered for direct sale to customers," Dawn Aerospace said in a statement. While it hasn't yet reached space, Dawn's Aurora spaceplane flew to supersonic speed for the first time last year and climbed to an altitude of 82,500 feet (25.1 kilometers), setting a record for the fastest climb from a runway to 20 kilometers. Further along ... Aurora is small in stature, measuring just 15.7 feet (4.8 meters) long. It's designed to loft a payload of up to 22 pounds (10 kilograms) above the Kármán line for up to three minutes of microgravity, before returning to a runway landing. Eventually, Dawn wants to reduce the turnaround time between Aurora flights to less than four hours. "Aurora is set to become the fastest and highest-flying aircraft ever to take off from a conventional runway, blending the extreme performance of rocket propulsion with the reusability and operational simplicity of traditional aviation," Dawn said. The company's business model is akin to commercial airlines, where operators can purchase an aircraft directly from a manufacturer and manage their own operations. (submitted by EllPeaTea) India's workhorse rocket falls short of orbit. In a rare setback, Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) launch vehicle PSLV-C61 malfunctioned and failed to place a surveillance satellite into the intended orbit last weekend, the Times of India reported. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle lifted off from a launch pad on the southeastern coast of India early Sunday, local time, with a radar reconnaissance satellite named EOS-09, or RISAT-1B. The satellite was likely intended to gather intelligence for the Indian military. "The country's military space capabilities, already hindered by developmental challenges, have suffered another setback with the loss of a potential strategic asset," the Times of India wrote. What happened? ... V. Narayanan, ISRO's chairman, later said that the rocket’s performance was normal until the third stage. The PSLV's third stage, powered by a solid rocket motor, suffered a "fall in chamber pressure" and the mission could not be accomplished, Narayanan said. Investigators are probing the root cause of the failure. Telemetry data indicated the rocket deviated from its planned flight path around six minutes after launch, when it was traveling more than 12,600 mph (5.66 kilometers per second), well short of the speed it needed to reach orbital velocity. The rocket and its payload fell into the Indian Ocean south of the launch site. This was the first PSLV launch failure in eight years, ending a streak of 21 consecutive successful flights. (submitted by EllPeaTea) SES makes a booking with Impulse Space. SES, owner of the world's largest fleet of geostationary satellites, plans to use Impulse Space’s Helios kick stage to take advantage of lower-cost, low-Earth-orbit (LEO) launch vehicles and get its satellites quickly into higher orbits, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. SES hopes the combination will break a traditional launch conundrum for operators of medium-Earth-orbit (MEO) and geostationary orbit (GEO). These operators often must make a trade-off between a lower-cost launch that puts them farther from their satellite's final orbit, or a more expensive launch that can expedite their satellite's entry into service. A matter of hours ... On Thursday, SES and Impulse Space announced a multi-launch agreement to use the methane-fueled Helios kick stage. "The first mission, currently planned for 2027, will feature a dedicated deployment from a medium-lift launcher in LEO, followed by Helios transferring the 4-ton-class payload directly to GEO within eight hours of launch," Impulse said in a statement. Typically, this transit to GEO takes several weeks to several months, depending on the satellite's propulsion system. "Today, we’re not only partnering with Impulse to bring our satellites faster to orbit, but this will also allow us to extend their lifetime and accelerate service delivery to our customers," said Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of SES. "We're proud to become Helios' first dedicated commercial mission." Unpacking China's spaceflight patches. There's a fascinating set of new patches Chinese officials released for a series of launches with top-secret satellites over the last two months, Ars reports. These four patches depict Buddhist gods with a sense of artistry and sharp colors that stand apart from China's previous spaceflight emblems, and perhaps—or perhaps not—they can tell us something about the nature of the missions they represent. The missions launched so-called TJS satellites toward geostationary orbit, where they most likely will perform missions in surveillance, signals intelligence, or missile warning.  Making connections ... It's not difficult to start making connections between the Four Heavenly Gods and the missions that China's TJS satellites likely carry out in space. A protector with an umbrella? An all-seeing entity? This sounds like a possible link to spy craft or missile warning, but there's a chance Chinese officials approved the patches to misdirect outside observers, or there's no connection at all. China aims for an asteroid. China is set to launch its second Tianwen deep space exploration mission late May, targeting both a near-Earth asteroid and a main belt comet, Space News reports. The robotic Tianwen-2 spacecraft is being integrated with a Long March 3B rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China, the country's top state-owned aerospace contractor said. Airspace closure notices indicate a four-hour-long launch window opening at noon EDT (16:00–20:00 UTC) on May 28. Backup launch windows are scheduled for May 29 and 30. New frontiers ... Tianwen-2's first goal is to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid designated 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, or 2016 HO3, and return them to Earth in late 2027 with a reentry module. The Tianwen-2 mothership will then set a course toward a comet for a secondary mission. This will be China's first sample return mission from beyond the Moon. The asteroid selected as the target for Tianwen-2 is believed by scientists to be less than 100 meters, or 330 feet, in diameter, and may be made of material thrown off the Moon some time in its ancient past. Results from Tianwen-2 may confirm that hypothesis. (submitted by EllPeaTea) Upgraded methalox rocket flies from Jiuquan. Another one of China's privately funded launch companies achieved a milestone this week. Landspace launched an upgraded version of its Zhuque-2E rocket Saturday from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China, Space News reports. The rocket delivered six satellites to orbit for a range of remote sensing, Earth observation, and technology demonstration missions. The Zhuque-2E is an improved version of the Zhuque-2, which became the first liquid methane-fueled rocket in the world to reach orbit in 2023. Larger envelope ... This was the second flight of the Zhuque-2E rocket design, but the first to utilize a wider payload fairing to provide more volume for satellites on their ride into space. The Zhuque-2E is a stepping stone toward a much larger rocket Landspace is developing called the Zhuque-3, a stainless steel launcher with a reusable first stage booster that, at least outwardly, bears some similarities to SpaceX's Falcon 9. (submitted by EllPeaTea) FAA clears SpaceX for Starship Flight 9. The Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light Thursday for SpaceX to launch the next test flight of its Starship mega-rocket as soon as next week, following two consecutive failures earlier this year, Ars reports. The failures set back SpaceX's Starship program by several months. The company aims to get the rocket's development back on track with the upcoming launch, Starship's ninth full-scale test flight since its debut in April 2023. Starship is central to SpaceX's long-held ambition to send humans to Mars and is the vehicle NASA has selected to land astronauts on the Moon under the umbrella of the government's Artemis program. Targeting Tuesday, for now ... In a statement Thursday, the FAA said SpaceX is authorized to launch the next Starship test flight, known as Flight 9, after finding the company "meets all of the rigorous safety, environmental and other licensing requirements." SpaceX has not confirmed a target launch date for the next launch of Starship, but warning notices for pilots and mariners to steer clear of hazard areas in the Gulf of Mexico suggest the flight might happen as soon as the evening of Tuesday, May 27. The rocket will lift off from Starbase, Texas, SpaceX's privately owned spaceport near the US-Mexico border. The FAA's approval comes with some stipulations, including that the launch must occur during "non-peak" times for air traffic and a larger closure of airspace downrange from Starbase. Space Force is fed up with Vulcan delays. In recent written testimony to a US House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees the military, the senior official responsible for purchasing launches for national security missions blistered one of the country's two primary rocket providers, Ars reports. The remarks from Major General Stephen G. Purdy, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, concerned United Launch Alliance and its long-delayed development of the large Vulcan rocket. "The ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year," Purdy said in written testimony during a May 14 hearing before the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. This portion of his testimony did not come up during the hearing, and it has not been reported publicly to date. Repairing trust ... "Major issues with the Vulcan have overshadowed its successful certification resulting in delays to the launch of four national security missions," Purdy wrote. "Despite the retirement of highly successful Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, the transition to Vulcan has been slow and continues to impact the completion of Space Force mission objectives." It has widely been known in the space community that military officials, who supported Vulcan with development contracts for the rocket and its engines that exceeded $1 billion, have been unhappy with the pace of the rocket's development. It was originally due to launch in 2020. At the end of his written testimony, Purdy emphasized that he expected ULA to do better. As part of his job as the Service Acquisition Executive for Space (SAE), Purdy noted that he has been tasked to transform space acquisition and to become more innovative. "For these programs, the prime contractors must re-establish baselines, establish a culture of accountability, and repair trust deficit to prove to the SAE that they are adopting the acquisition principles necessary to deliver capabilities at speed, on cost and on schedule." SpaceX's growth on the West Coast. SpaceX is moving ahead with expansion plans at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, that will double its West Coast launch cadence and enable Falcon Heavy rockets to fly from California, Spaceflight Now reports. Last week, the Department of the Air Force issued its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which considers proposed modifications from SpaceX to Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg. These modifications will include changes to support launches of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, the construction of two new landing pads for Falcon boosters adjacent to SLC-6, the demolition of unneeded structures at SLC-6, and increasing SpaceX’s permitted launch cadence from Vandenberg from 50 launches to 100. Doubling the fun ... The transformation of SLC-6 would include quite a bit of overhaul. Its most recent tenant, United Launch Alliance, previously used it for Delta IV rockets from 2006 through its final launch in September 2022. The following year, the Space Force handed over the launch pad to SpaceX, which lacked a pad at Vandenberg capable of supporting Falcon Heavy missions. The estimated launch cadence between SpaceX’s existing Falcon 9 pad at Vandenberg, known as SLC-4E, and SLC-6 would be a 70-11 split for Falcon 9 rockets in 2026, with one Falcon Heavy at SLC-6, for a total of 82 launches. That would increase to a 70-25 Falcon 9 split in 2027 and 2028, with an estimated five Falcon Heavy launches in each of those years. (submitted by EllPeaTea) Next three launches May 23: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-16 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 20:36 UTC May 24: Falcon 9 | Starlink 12-22 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 17:19 UTC May 27: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-1 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 16:14 UTC Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 7 Comments

French fries at Steak 'n' Shake in Greenwood, Indiana. RFK Jr touted French fries while dining at a ... More Steak 'n' Shake.Missvain, Wikimedia Commons RFK Jr is not just bringing back infectious diseases like measles. Our top health official is working hard to back diet-related diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart attacks. During his first three months in office, RFK, Jr. has made three big pronouncements about what Americans should eat. The first is important but for the wrong reasons. The second builds on the fallacies of the first. And the third goes against 60 plus years of scientific evidence. 1. Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are poisoning us Something is poisoning the American people. And we know that the primary culprit is our changing food supply to highly chemical and processed food. RFK Jr, at his Senate Finance Confirmation Hearings, January 29, 2025 French Fries, with 13 Ingredients, would be considered an ultra-processed food.Open Food Facts RFK is not wrong if he is referring to ultra-processed foods (or UPFs). A recent study found that those who ate more UPFs were more likely to show early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and a review study linked UPFs to higher risk of dying from heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and mental health outcomes including anxiety and sleeping difficulties. UPFs are made from multiple ingredients including additives like colorants, flavor enhancers, and preservatives. They contain high amounts of sugars, salt, and fats, which makes them hyper-palatable, or simply tasty. And they are cheap, readily available (witness the local gas station convenience store), and handy to eat. Unfortunately for the consumer, a review of studies with a combined population of over 1 million, found that for each 10% increase in UPF consumption, your risk of mortality increases by 10%. Why are UPFs unhealthy? Many people eschew the long list of “chemicals” on the ingredient labels of everything from Wheaties to Fritos. One type of ingredient--food dyes--can have negative health effects and are associated with hyperactivity in children. In fact, MAHA hopes to ban food dyes in UPFs like soft drinks and Fruit Loops. Yet I haven’t heard MAHA alerting us to the high levels of salt, sugar, and saturated fat in UPFs… all things that have been shown over and over to contribute to chronic diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer.FI/FOOD Washington Post Studio DATE: 1/7/05 PHOTO: Julia Ewan/TWP Kellogg's Fruit Loops now have 1/3 ... More less sugar and 12 added vitamins and minerals. (Photo by Julia Ewan/The The Washington Post via Getty Images)The Washington Post via Getty Images Dr Kevin Hall, who worked as a nutrition researcher at NIH for 21 years, found that people on an ultra-processed diet consumed about 500 more calories per day, which could explain why UPFs are associated with type 2 diabetes and obesity. But what explains why UPF consumers gobble up more calories? Dr Hall thinks energy density might be the culprit. Simply put, a chocolate chip cookie packs a lot more calories into every bite than a banana. So eating that ultra processed chocolate chip cookie means eating more calories per bite compared to eating fruit and other less processed foods. Not to mention that the sugar, salt and fat taste good… making me want to eat 4 or 5 chocolate chip cookies instead of one banana. Cramer ton, North Carolina, Floyd & Blackie's bakery employee with tray of large M&M chocolate chip ... More cookies. (Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesUndated: A bunch of ripe yellow Bananas. (Photo by Richard Whiting /Getty Images)Getty Images The preliminary results of Dr Hall’s recent study, which he posted on X, show that the high energy density and the irresistible taste of salt, sugar, and fat explain why people on high UPF diets eat more calories. But don’t expect to see the final results of this important study published anytime soon. Turns out Dr Hall took early retirement at 54 yrs old from his research position at NIH. Why? Because the MAHA administration forced him to withdraw his name from a paper on UPFs that mentioned “health equity”--or the difficulties some groups have accessing healthy food. The administration also took away the money Dr Hall needed to continue his UPF research, censored his media access, and even incorrectly edited his response to a NY Times inquiry. Just as we were on the brink of understanding why UPFs are making us sick, one of the world’s leading UPF scientists is out. Hard to see how lack of scientific information is Making Americans Healthy Again. 2. Eat Beef Tallow instead of Seed OilsWASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 31: Beef tallow french fries photographed for Food in Washington, DC on March ... More 31, 2025. (Photo by Scott Suchman for The Washington Post via Getty Images; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post via Getty Images)The Washington Post via Getty Images While dining on fries and a double cheeseburger at Steak N Shake with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Kennedy touted French fries cooked in beef tallow. Robert F. Kennedy Jr 10/21/24 @RobertKennedyJr Did you know that McDonald’s used to use beef tallow to make their fries from 1940 until phasing it out in favor of seed oils in 1990? This switch was made because saturated animal fats were thought to be unhealthy, but we have since discovered that seed oils are one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic. …Americans should have every right to eat out at a restaurant without being unknowingly poisoned by heavily subsidized seed oils. It’s time to Make Frying Oil Tallow Again 🇺🇸🍔 Close-up of a large frozen ball of beef kidney fat during home rendering of beef tallow, Lafayette, ... More California, March 25, 2025. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)Gado via Getty Images To be sure, consuming a lot of seed oils raises health concerns, including that they contain few nutrients, are often highly processed, and some, like soybean oil, might contain unhealthy amounts of omega 6 acids. But, are seed oils worse than saturated animal fats? Seed oils, unlike animal fats, are mostly unsaturated. According to Dr. Christopher Gardner, director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center who has been studying the role of fat in our diet since 1995, "Every study for decades has shown that when you eat unsaturated fats instead of saturated fats, this lowers the level of LDL cholesterol [bad cholesterol] in your blood. There are actually few associations in nutrition that have this much evidence behind them…To think that seed oils are anywhere near the top of the list of major nutrition concerns in our country is just nuts." And in a 2025 study, participants with the highest intake of butter, which similar to beef tallow is largely saturated animal fat, had a 16% less likely to die. About ⅓ of the deaths were due to cancer, about a third to cardiovascular disease, and a third other causes. The authors conclude: “Substituting butter with plant-based oils may confer substantial benefits for preventing premature deaths. These results support current dietary recommendations to replace animal fats like butter with non hydrogenated vegetable oils that are high in unsaturated fats, especially olive, soy, and canola oil.” (Note that olive oil, while plant-based, is not a seed oil since most of the oil comes from the fleshy part of the olive.) Still life featuring a collection of olive oil bottles, 2011. (Photo by Tom Kelley/Getty Images)Getty Images In short, if you have to choose between seed oils and animal fat, you are probably better off with seed oils, or even better, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). But, you should avoid consuming too much of any sort of oil or fat, which brings us to the third RFK Jr pronouncement.RFK Jr and West Virginia Governor Morissey. Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. ... More Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month In Los Angeles. Patrick Morrisey speaking at the 2017 CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland.Mario Tama, Getty Images; Gage Skidmore 3. Become a Carni-Bro At a public event to promote MAHA in West Virginia, RFK Jr body shamed Governor Patrick Morrisey for his weight. I’m going to put him on a really rigorous regime. We’re going to put him on a carnivore diet … Raise your hand if you want Governor Morrissey to do a public weigh-in once a month. And then when he’s lost 30 lbs I’m going to come back to this state and we’re going to do a celebration and a public weigh in with him. RFK, Jr. MAHA seems to be at the forefront of the next culture war: dump plant-based foods and become a “carni-bro.” Yet a comprehensive review of studies on foods and obesity concluded: High intakes of whole grains, legumes, nuts, and fruits are associated with a reduced risk of overweight and obesity, while red meat and sugar-sweetened beverages are associated with an increased risk of overweight and obesity. NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 04: Spectators pose for a photo ahead of the 2023 Nathan's Famous Fourth ... More of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island on July 04, 2023 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. The annual contest, which began in 1972, draws thousands of spectators to Nathan’s Famous located on Surf Avenue. (Photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)Getty Images How do UPFs compare to red meat? The only study I found comparing the two found people eating UPFs had an approximately 14% greater chance of dying whereas those who ate red meat had an approximately 8% chance of death over the same time period. (Those eating other types of meats like chicken and pork and fish did not have a greater chance of dying.) But this study was conducted with Seventh Day Adventists, whose meat consumption was way lower than the average American (while their UPF consumption was fairly typical of the US). People in West Virginia, whose governor is in fact rotund, are by far and away the biggest consumer of hotdogs in the US, at 481 hot dogs per person per year. In a recent UK study with a more typical population, every added 70 g of red meat and processed meat (like ham, hotdogs, bacon, and deli meats) per day was associated with a 15% higher risk of coronary heart disease and a 30% higher risk of diabetes. Because red and processed meat consumption is also associated with higher rates of cancer, the World Cancer Research Fund recommends limiting red meat to no more than three portions per week and avoiding processed meat altogether.TOPSHOT - An overweight woman walks at the 61st Montgomery County Agricultural Fair on August 19, ... More 2009 in Gaithersburg, Maryland. At USD 150 billion, the US medical system spends around twice as much treating preventable health conditions caused by obesity than it does on cancer, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. Two-thirds of US adults and one in five children are overweight or obese, putting them at greater risk of chronic illness like heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, according to reports released recently at the "Weight of the Nation" conference. AFP PHOTO / Tim Sloan (Photo by Tim SLOAN / AFP) (Photo by TIM SLOAN/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images Heart Disease: Still the leading killer According to the CDC, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US, accounting for one in five deaths, or one death every 33 seconds. Heart disease cost the US about $252.2 billion from 2019 to 2020. And if you look at a map of where heart disease is more common, it looks uncannily like a map of MAHA supporters (including in West Virginia). .Heart Disease Death Rates, 2018–2020 for Adults, Ages 35+, by CountyCDC The first items in a list of CDC recommendations for preventing heart disease are all about food: Choose healthy meals and snacks high in fiber and limit saturated and trans fats, salt, and sugar. This sounds like a recipe for avoiding UPFs. But it could also be a recipe for substituting whole grains and fruit and vegetables for red and processed meats, which punch the double whammy of being meat and UPFs. Is RFK, Jr. Making America Healthy Again? Let’s celebrate Kennedy’s move away from UPFs, an important step toward improving Americans’ health. But why does our top health official publicly tout beef tallow, French fries, and double cheeseburgers, when we know that Americans’ consumption of saturated fat and meat lead to obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease? Or has he weighed in on ultra-processed meats, like Slim Jim’s, which with sales at $3 billion last year is America’s fastest growing snack?NEW ORLEANS - OCTOBER 01: Amanda Barrett (L), 18-years-old, watches her mother Eve Barrett peel a ... More mold-covered layer of paint off a wall as the family sees what is left of their home in the Lakeview District October 1, 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The people of New Orleans are still cleaning up over a month after Hurricane Katrina hit the area. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)Getty Images It’s hard to understand what is going on in RFK’s brain. He gloms on to a limited number of studies suggesting health risks of eating seed oils, while ignoring saturated fats and even encouraging Americans to eat fast foods. He wants to rout out corruption in the food and pharmaceutical industry, yet uses his position to sell Make America Tallow Again hats and T-shirts. He says he believes climate change poses an existential threat, yet on his second day in office eliminated funding for research on heat waves, indoor mold after flooding, and other NIH climate change and health programs. And in his big May report on children’s health, he ignores the largest causes of death for those under 19--gun violence and accidents. Raise your hand if you want Secretary Kennedy to conduct a public truth-telling once a month.

Disney's dramatic delay to Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, announced last night, means fans will wait longer to see Earth's mightiest heroes assemble again on screen. Avengers: Doomsday will now arrive seven months' later, on December 18, 2026. Secret Wars, meanwhile, will arrive a year after that, on December 17, 2027. But in among all this, fans are also talking about Spider-Man.Tom Holland's Peter Parker is also set to return next year, in the highly-anticipated Spider-Man: Brand New Day on 31 July, 2026 . This movie will pick up Peter's story following the events of No Way Home, where his identity was erased from the world's memory.PlayBefore Disney's delay, Spider-Man: Brand New Day would have arrived after Avengers: Doomsday, as a Tom Holland-flavoured MCU sandwich filling between Doomsday and Secret Wars. There had been reports that Disney and Sony had been exploring another story filled with multiversal shenanigans befitting of the MCU's current era. Now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day — which is still yet to begin filming — will arrive ahead of either Avengers movie, something fans hope gives the next Spidey story some breathing room, and potentially a more grounded narrative set at the Marvel universe's street level.Picture the previous situation for a moment. Avengers: Doomsday likely leaves audiences on a big cliffhanger, akin to Avengers: Infinity War, ensuring audiences turns up to see the resolution in the next film. Spider-Man, as a key member of the Avengers, is likely involved — or if not, his absence has to be explained. In this context, Brand New Day either has to pick up from this, somehow, be set beforehand, or ignore the stakes going on elsewhere."That completely changes things for Spider-Man 4," one fan wrote on reddit regarding the delay, and Brand New Day now coming first. "At least in the framing of how we thought it NEEDED to be in between both films timeline-wise. Now it sounds like it won't be.""If Spider-Man: Brand New Day isn't [also] delayed I think that basically would confirm it isn't a multiverse battle world movie," a third wrote, referencing the holding location Marvel's heroes are left at within the comics during the original Secret Wars storyline. How to Watch Sony's Spider-Man Universe in Chronological OrderIn general, Spider-Man fans keen to see more of the character in his own story, back swinging through the streets of New York rather than being dragged into space with the Avengers. For many, Disney's delay is a positive."This is the best Spider-Man 4 news we've gotten," wrote one fan."With [Brand New Day] coming before Doomsday this fully allows a grounded story, which lines up with the rumours and casting lately," wrote another, referencing whispers online about villains being cast to fit a regular, New York-set episode.Earlier this month, Liza Colón-Zayas, best known for playing Tina Marrero on FX’s The Bear, was reportedly cast in Brand New Day. Fans suspect she's playing the mother of Miles Morales — the alternative version of Spider-Man who is hotly-tipped to appear in live-action after the character's popularity in Sony's Spider-Verse animated films.As part of the changes to its release schedule announced last night, Disney also removed an untitled Marvel project from its schedule set to launch on February 13, 2026. Fans suspect this had been a placeholder for the long-delayed Blade reboot set to star Mahershala Ali, which now looks set to skip this saga of the MCU altogether, if it ever materialises.Other Marvel film dates, for November 6, 2026 and November 5, 2027, have also been altered to now refer to "Untitled Disney" films. If these remain projects are not linked to the Marvel universe, the MCU will have a relatively light movie schedule over the coming years. The remainder of 2025 includes The Fantastic Four: First Steps on the big screen in July, while TV series Ironheart and Wonder-Man are set to debut on Disney+.Next year's Disney+ shows will include Daredevil Born Again's second season (expected in the spring), a Punisher one-off special presentation, and Vision Quest, the Paul Bettany-fronted series that has now quietly begun filming.Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

2026 may still be more than seven months away, but it’s already shaping up as the year of consumer AI hardware. Or at least the year of a flurry of high-stakes attempts to put generative AI at the heart of new kinds of devices—several of which were in the news this week. Let’s review. On Tuesday, at its I/O developer conference keynote, Google demonstrated smart glasses powered by its Android XR platform and announced that eyewear makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster would be selling products based on it. The next day, OpenAI unveiled its $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup IO, which will put the Apple design legend at the center of the ChatGPT maker’s quest to build devices around its AI. And on Thursday, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple hopes to release its own Siri-enhanced smart glasses. In theory, all these players may have products on the market by the end of next year. What I didn’t get from these developments was any new degree of confidence that anyone has figured out how to produce AI gadgets that vast numbers of real people will find indispensable. When and how that could happen remains murky—in certain respects, more than ever. To be fair, none of this week’s news involved products that are ready to be judged in full. Only Google has something ready to demonstrate in public at all: Here’s Janko Roettgers’s report on his I/O experience with prototype Android XR glasses built by Samsung. That the company has already made a fair amount of progress is only fitting given that Android XR scratches the same itch the company has had since it unveiled its ill-fated Google Glass a dozen years ago. It’s just that the available technologies—including Google’s Gemini LLM—have come a long, long way. Unlike the weird, downright alien-looking Glass, Google’s Android XR prototype resembles a slightly chunky pair of conventional glasses. It uses a conversational voice interface and a transparent mini-display that floats on your view of your surroundings. Google says that shipping products will have “all-day” battery life, a claim, vague though it is, that Glass could never make. But some of the usage scenarios that the company is showing off, such as real-time translation and mapping directions, are the same ones it once envisioned Glass enabling. The market’s rejection of Glass was so resounding that one of the few things people remember about the product is that its fans were seen as creepy, privacy-invading glassholes. Enough has happened since then—including the success of Meta’s smart Ray-Bans—that Android XR eyewear surely has a far better shot at acceptance. But as demoed at I/O, the floating screen came off as a roadblock between the user and the real world. Worst case, it might simply be a new, frictionless form of screen addiction that further distracts us from human contact. Meanwhile, the video announcement of OpenAI and IO’s merger was as polished as a Jony Ive-designed product—San Francisco has rarely looked so invitingly lustrous—but didn’t even try to offer details about their work in progress. Altman and Ive smothered each other in praise and talked about reinventing computing. Absent any specifics, Altman’s assessment of one of Ive’s prototypes (“The coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen”) sounded like runaway enthusiasm at best and Barnumesque puffery at worst. Reporting on an OpenAI staff meeting regarding the news, The Wall Street Journal’s Berber Jin provided some additional tidbits about the OpenAI device. Mostly, they involved what it isn’t—such as a phone or glasses. It might not even be a wearable, at least on a full-time basis: According to Jin, the product will be “able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk” and complement an iPhone and MacBook Pro without supplanting them. Whatever this thing is, Jin cites Altman predicting that it will sell 100 million units faster than any product before it. In 2007, by contrast, Apple forecast selling a more modest 10 million iPhones in the phone’s first full year on the market—a challenging goal at the time, though the company surpassed it. Now, discounting the possibility of something transformative emerging from OpenAI-IO would be foolish. Ive, after all, may have played a leading role in creating more landmark tech products than anyone else alive. Altman runs the company that gave us the most significant one of the past decade. But Ive rhapsodizing over their working relationship in the video isn’t any more promising a sign than him rhapsodizing over the $10,000 solid gold Apple Watch was in 2015. And Altman, the biggest investor in Humane’s doomed AI Pin, doesn’t seem to have learned one of the most obvious lessons of that fiasco: Until you have a product in the market, it’s better to tamp down expectations than stoke them. You can’t accuse Apple of hyping any smart glasses it might release in 2026. It hasn’t publicly acknowledged their existence, and won’t until their arrival is much closer. If anything, the company may be hypersensitive to the downsides of premature promotion. Almost a year ago, it began trumpeting a new AI-infused version of Siri—one it clearly didn’t have working at the time, and still hasn’t released. After that embarrassing mishap, silencing the skeptics will require shipping stuff, not previewing what might be ahead. Even companies that aren’t presently trying to earn back their AI cred should take note and avoid repeating Apple’s mistake. I do believe AI demands that we rethink how computers work from the ground up. I also hope the smartphone doesn’t turn out to be the last must-have device, because if it were, that would be awfully boring. Maybe the best metric of success is hitting Apple’s 10-million-units-per-year goal for the original iPhone—which, perhaps coincidentally, is the same one set by EssilorLuxottica, the manufacturer of Meta’s smart Ray-Bans. If anything released next year gets there, it might be the landmark AI gizmo we haven’t yet seen. And if nothing does, we can safely declare that 2026 wasn’t the year of consumer AI hardware after all. You’ve been reading Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you—or if you’re reading it on FastCompany.com—you can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company How Google is rethinking search in an AI-filled worldGoogle execs Liz Reid and Nick Fox explain how the company is rethinking everything from search results to advertising and personalization. Read More → Roku is doing more than ever, but focus is still its secret ingredientThe company that set out to make streaming simple has come a long way since 2008. Yet its current business all connects back to the original mission, says CEO Anthony Wood. Read More → Gen Z is willing to sell their personal data—for just $50 a monthA new app, Verb.AI, wants to pay the generation that’s most laissez-faire on digital privacy for their scrolling time. Read More → Forget return-to-office. Hybrid now means human plus AIAs AI evolves, businesses should use the technology to complement, not replace, human workers. Read More → It turns out TikTok’s viral clear phone is just plastic. Meet the ‘Methaphone’Millions were fooled by a clip of a see-through phone. Its creator says it’s not tech—it’s a tool to break phone addiction. Read More → 4 free Coursera courses to jump-start your AI journeySee what all the AI fuss is about without spending a dime. Read More →

Realtek’s upcoming $10 RTL8127 10GbE controller could finally bring affordable 10GbE connectivity to desktop motherboards and laptops, potentially driving broader adoption.

Colorful has gone all out, showcasing impressive themed RTX 5090/5080 GPUs, monstrous PSUs up to 3200W & the latest BTF designs at Computex. Colorful Unveils plethora of Products at Computex, Including Doom-Themed RTX 5080 GPU, 3200W PSU, Liquid-Cooled DDR5 Memory & BTF Designs DOOM: The Dark Ages is taking the spotlight on many booths, as that is one game that GPU makers are using as the theme of some of their new limited-edition models. Colorful is also making one of those in a brand-new design, which uses an acrylic shroud with a foggy finish that is colored green and houses the Slayer logo in the middle fin. This is a high-end 3-slot design with triple-fan cooling and is going to come in RTX 5080 GPU flavors. 2 of 9 Even the heatsink underneath the shroud is colored green, and on the back, you get a full-coverage backplate with a circular cut-out for higher airflow and the Dark Ages cover photo engraved on the entirety of the backplate. The card uses a single 16-pin connector and will be a limited edition model with a premium price point. 2 of 9 Colorful is also expanding into the BTF ecosystem with new products that include GPUs, motherboards, and PSUs. An iGame Ultra RTX 5070 Ti GPU was showcased, which uses modular BTF connectors, one with the standard BTF to 16-pin and the other with a BTF to BTF connector. Both connectors are rated at up to 600W and easily swap into place. The 16-pin connector is also angled, making it easier to avoid any unwanted bends in the cable. 2 of 9 The BTF PSU also replaces the 24-pin ATX connection and uses a specialized BTF connector that can be connected to a compatible BTF motherboard, such as the one from the iGame Ultra series. It is still an early design for the DIY market, but Colorful is shipping such systems pre-built within the Asian marketplace. One of these systems is the iGame Neptune design, which makes use of a full-on aluminum build and houses some impressive components. One of these is the GeForce RTX 5090 Neptune, which is an AIO-cooled design with a 360mm radiator and uses some sleek silver-aluminum and blue hints on the shroud. The system will also feature Neptune-branded DDR5 memory, which runs at really fast speeds and also comes with liquid-cooling, delivering better thermal capabilities than air-cooled designs. 2 of 9 For power delivery, Colorful's sister brand has developed a powerful 3200W solution, which is rated at 80 Plus Titanium and makes use of the latest ATX 3.1 / PCIe 5.1 standards. 2 of 9 This comes with eight 16-pin (12V-2x6) power connectors and is built using the latest components as displayed below: And lastly, Colorful is also rolling out two brand-new Mini PCs, including one that will feature AMD's Ryzen AI MAX "Strix Halo" APUs and a smaller "Colorful SMART" solution that makes use of the Ryzen 200 and Ryzen AI 300 APUs. 2 of 9 That's all from Colorful, and it goes off to show how big the company really is and how many product lineups they are involved in. You can expect more details, such as pricing, in the coming months, so stay tuned. Deal of the Day

Thank your own personal deity--possibly The Outer Gods--it's Friday! Winter might be creeping in, but these weekend game deals are bringing the heat. Whether you’re a Switch slasher, a PlayStation purist, an Xbox adventurer or a PC power user, there’s something worth your clicks in this mix. Stock up for the weekend and I'll catch you Monday!This Day in Gaming 🎂In retro news, I’m celebrating the 19th birthday of Metroid Prime: Hunters while remembering the mild carpal tunnel it gave me. Developed for the newly minted DS, its standout innovation was the incorporation of stylus-driven aiming paired with six-player ad-hoc wireless multiplayer, allowing us hunters to engage in fast-paced, Phazon-fueled deathmatches on the go. By blending precision touchscreen controls with diverse character-specific abilities, it instantly sold me and my mates on the concept of portable, hyper-competitive first-person shooters. We had an absolute (morph) ball with it.Aussie bdays for notable games- Def Jam Vendetta (PS2) 2003. eBay- Rise of Nations (PC) 2003. eBay- Silent Hill 3 (PS2) 2003. eBay- Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS) 2006. eBay- Resident Evil Revelations (3DS) 2013. eBayContentsNintendoXboxPlayStationPCPC GearLEGOHeadphonesTVsNice Savings for Nintendo SwitchNintendo fans should keep an eye on Dead Cells (A$18.70), the rogue-lite hit that started life as a failed Metroidvania MMORPG. Developer Motion Twin scrapped the original concept and pivoted mid-production. Meanwhile, Blasphemous (A$9.30) stabs its way onto the scene with a brutal blend of Catholic iconography and Dark Souls inspiration. Such a gem.Lego Skywalker Saga (-80%) - A$17.90Dead Cells (-50%) - A$18.70Jurassic World Evolution: Comp. Ed. (-80%) - A$16.90Namco Museum Archives Vol. 1 (-84%) - A$4.70Blasphemous (-75%) - A$9.30Expeditions: A MudRunner (-42%) - A$49Expiring Recent DealsHogwarts Legacy (-34%) - A$59Crypt of the NecroDancer (-80%) - A$6Yooka-Laylee (-80%) - A$6.50Guacamelee! Super Turbo Champ. Ed. (-75%) - A$5Lego Jurassic World (-90%) - A$5.90Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.Switch Console PricesHow much to Switch it up?Back to topExciting Bargains for XboxOver on Xbox Series X, Halo Infinite (A$32.90) continues to carve out its redemption arc.. UFC 5 (A$39.00), on the other hand, had EA scanning fighters in full 360 capture tech, making every punch and grimace feel uncomfortably lifelike.Doom: The Dark Ages (-17%) - A$99Roadcraft (-18%) - A$49Hot Wheels Unleashed (-29%) - A$39UFC 5 (-65%) - A$39Halo Infinite (-67%) - A$32.90Xbox OneRed Dead Redemption 2 (-73%) - A$24No Man's Sky (-60%) - A$35.90Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (-60%) - A$29.90Expiring Recent DealsResident Evil 4 (-47%) - A$31.40Star Wars Outlaws (-64%) - A$40.00Mass Effect Leg. Ed. (-90%) - A$9.90TB Stealth Pivot Controller (-33%) - A$168.40Hogwarts Legacy (-55%) - A$49.00TB VelocityOne Flightstick (-18%) - A$205.60Grand Theft Auto V (-52%) - A$29.00Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (-90%) - A$10.00Or just invest in an Xbox Card.Xbox Console PricesHow many bucks for a 'Box?Back to topPure Scores for PlayStationPlayStation 5 players get a win with Tales of Arise (A$31.00), which features a physics system that ensures characters' hair and capes flutter just right. Pair that with NBA 2K25 (A$34.00), where cover athlete animations were mocapped using a team of real streetballers for added flair.DualSense Chroma Indigo (-12%) - A$109.90Doom: The Dark Ages (-17%) - A$99Roadcraft (-18%) - A$49Tales of Arise (-69%) - A$31NBA 2K25 (-72%) - A$34Expeditions: A MudRunner (-42%) - A$49UFC 5 (-65%) - A$39PS4Red Dead Redemption 2 (-73%) - A$24Red Dead Redemption (-48%) - A$39Octopath Traveler II (-32%) - A$57.70The Yakuza Rem. Col. (-26%) - A$40.30Expiring Recent DealsElden Ring: Nightreign (-9%) - A$64.00Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (-19%) - A$89.00Star Wars Outlaws (-64%) - A$40.00Cyberpunk 2077: Ult. Ed. (-20%) - A$84.00Monster Hunter Wilds (-26%) - A$89.00Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (-73%) - A$26.80Bayonetta (-75%) - A$9.40Catherine: Full Body (-80%) - A$10.90PS+ Monthly FreebiesYours to keep from May 1 with this subscriptionArk: Survival Ascended (PS5)Balatro (PS5/PS4)Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (PS5/PS4)Or purchase a PS Store Card.What you'll pay to 'Station.Back to topPurchase Cheap for PCToday, PC players should snap up Sifu while it’s free. This martial arts revenge tale actually aged its protagonist in real-time for every failed attempt, a mechanic inspired by classic kung fu film tropes. And Hogwarts Legacy: Deluxe (A$21.20) hides an early design doc reference to a planned “wizarding gig economy” system that was mercifully scrapped.Sifu (-100%) - FREEGigapocalypse (-100%) - FREEDeliver At All Costs (-100%) - FREEHogwarts Legacy Del. (-79%) - A$21.20Razer Huntsman Mini keyboard (-23%) - A$137Metaphor: ReFantazio (-30%) - A$80.40Expiring Recent DealsRed Dead Redemption 2 (-75%) - A$22.40Hogwarts Legacy (-75%) - A$22.40Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (-50%) - A$29.90Assassin's Creed Valhalla (-75%) - A$22.40Maneater (-80%) - A$11.30Or just get a Steam Wallet CardPC Hardware PricesSlay your pile of shame.Laptop DealsHP Envy x360 16" 2-in-1 (-39%) – A$1,399HP Laptop 15.6" Ryzen (-34%) – A$1,049ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (-35%) – A$869Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 (-41%) – A$1,229Apple 2024 MacBook Air 15-inch (-16%) – A$2,094Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 (-36%) - A$879Lenovo ThinkBook 16 Gen7 (-27%) - A$1,018Desktop DealsLenovo neo 50q Gen 4 Tiny (-35%) – A$639Lenovo neo 50t Gen 5 Desk (-20%) – A$871.20Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (-29%) – A$1,899Monitor DealsARZOPA 16.1" 144Hz (-55%) – A$159.99Z-Edge 27" 240Hz (-15%) – A$237.99Gawfolk 34" WQHD (-28%) – A$359LG 27" Ultragear (-42%) – A$349Component DealsMSI PRO B650M-A WiFi Motherboard (-41%) – A$229AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (-7%) – A$876Corsair Vengeance 32GB (-35%) – A$82Kingston FURY Beast 16GB (-30%) – A$48Storage DealsSeagate One Touch Portable HDD (-24%) – A$228Kingston 1TB USB 3.2 SSD (-17%) – A$115SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO (-63%) – A$29SanDisk 32GB Ultra SDHC (-53%) – A$9.90Back to topLegit LEGO DealsMario Kart – Yoshi (-25%) - A$15.00The Mighty Bowser (-14%) - A$345.00Star Wars R2-D2 (-30%) - A$139.00Star Wars Home One Starcruiser (-19%) - A$89.00Expiring Recent DealsMandalorian Moff Gideon Battle (-42%) - A$35.00Space Construction Mech (-33%) - A$10.00Fountain Garden Building (-28%) - A$129.90Williams Racing & Haas F1 Race Cars (-27%) - A$22.00Back to topHot Headphones DealsAudiophilia for lessGalaxy Buds2 Pro (-31%) – A$239Technics Wireless NC (-33%) – A$365SoundPEATS Space (-25%) – A$56.99Sony MDR7506 Pro (-18%) – A$199Back to topTerrific TV DealsDo right by your console, upgrade your tellyLG 43" UT80 4K (-24%) – A$635Kogan 65" QLED 4K (-50%) – A$699Kogan 55" QLED 4K (-45%) – A$549LG 55" UT80 4K (-28%) – A$866Back to top Adam Mathew is our Aussie deals wrangler. He plays practically everything, often on YouTube.

Table of ContentsGroundbreaking GeForce RTX 50 Series GPU ConceptsPrestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e EditionMercedes-AMG Motorsport LaptopsTitan 18 HX Dragon EditionClaw AI+ Polar Tempest EditionMEG Vision X AI Gaming DesktopCubi NUC AI SeriesPRO DP80 Business DesktopPowered by MSI AI PCDIY Motherboards and Thermal SolutionsMEG MAESTRO 900 and MAG PANO Series CasesLiquid Cooling and Power SuppliesQD-OLED Monitors with AI EnhancementsIRONMOUSE Themed Hardware Lineup8K Polling Rate Mice and PRO Series Wireless PeripheralsRoamii BE Pro Wi-Fi 7 Mesh SystemDigiME 2.0 and AI Interaction At COMPUTEX 2025, MSI presented its most comprehensive product lineup to date—highlighting a unified vision that blends artificial intelligence, powerful hardware, and creative design. From limited-edition laptops and esports monitors to mini PCs and DIY components, MSI is reinforcing its position at the center of modern gaming, creation, and productivity. The announcements reflect both product innovation and deeper engagement with content-driven communities like VTubers, creators, and PC builders. Here’s a closer look at everything MSI unveiled. Groundbreaking GeForce RTX 50 Series GPU Concepts Among the headline announcements was MSI’s unveiling of its next-generation graphics card lineup based on NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 50 Series, built on the new Blackwell architecture. Designed to push performance and thermal efficiency forward, the RTX 50 Series promises significant gains in AI-driven rendering, gaming, and creative workloads. Key concepts included: SUPRIM TITANIUM Edition: A flagship model that combines lightweight titanium alloy construction with premium design. Known for its strength and corrosion resistance, titanium enhances both the structural integrity and aesthetics of the card. CYCLONE VISUAL: A bold concept featuring an integrated dynamic display inside the fan system, allowing real-time video playback while maintaining cooling performance. TWIN FROZR 2025: An evolution of MSI’s well-known thermal design, this edition incorporates copper-aluminum composite fins and a no-solder-hole structure to boost heat dissipation. It also includes next-gen vapor chamber and core pipe implementations for improved conductivity. MSI also showcased its EXPERT Series GPU lineup, which recently won the iF Design Award for 2025. These cards focus on clean, professional design and modular cooling capabilities, signaling MSI’s broader push into advanced thermal engineering across its GPU portfolio. Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition Fusing cultural craftsmanship with modern technology, the Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition was one of the show’s design standouts. Created in collaboration with renowned Japanese lacquerware brand OKADAYA, the laptop features an intricate inlay of Katsushika Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.” Beyond its artistic merit, the laptop integrates MSI’s latest AI features and received a COMPUTEX Best Choice Award, positioning it as a unique fusion of heritage and innovation. Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Laptops MSI extended its premium partnership with Mercedes-AMG through two new laptops: the Stealth A16 AI+ and the Prestige 16 AI+, each combining top-tier performance with high-end design. The Stealth A16 AI+ pairs AMD processors with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs and a refined display panel, while the Prestige 16 AI+ comes equipped with an Intel CPU and a sharp 4K OLED screen. Both models feature AMG-branded elements and come bundled with a custom laptop sleeve, mouse, and mousepad, reflecting a synergy between performance engineering and luxury branding. Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition A centerpiece of MSI’s gaming showcase, the Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition draws inspiration from Norse mythology and features a 3D-etched dragon motif across its lid and palm rest. Each unit is hand-finished for a bespoke touch. Powered by the GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU based on NVIDIA’s Blackwell architecture, it supports DLSS 4 and NVIDIA Studio for AI-assisted graphics rendering and creative workloads. It received the Best Choice Golden Award in the Gaming and Entertainment category. Claw AI+ Polar Tempest Edition MSI is doubling down on the handheld gaming space with the Claw 8 AI+ Polar Tempest Edition, building on the momentum of the original Claw 8 AI+. The new version features Intel’s latest Lunar Lake processor and a 2TB SSD—improving on performance and storage without altering the compact form factor. It also won a COMPUTEX Best Choice Award, marking MSI’s rising credibility in the handheld market. MEG Vision X AI Gaming Desktop For those seeking high-end desktop performance, the MEG VISION X AI offers an impressive mix of power and user control. It integrates a 13-inch touchscreen with EZ Mode UI for real-time system management and customization. Internally, it’s powered by Intel Core Ultra 9 CPUs and NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPUs, and it features advanced cooling technologies like Silent Storm Cooling AI and Glacier Armor. The system supports Gen 5 SSDs and DDR5 memory, making it a complete solution for creators and high-end gamers alike. Cubi NUC AI Series MSI's Cubi NUC AI 1UMG and Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG mini PCs target users looking for compact, AI-ready solutions. Made from PCR recycled materials, they include Intel Core Ultra processors, integrated AI Boost NPUs, and features like fingerprint authentication, speakers, Thunderbolt 4 ports, and MSI Power Link. They are built to mount seamlessly behind MSI monitors and can be powered on through the monitor itself. PRO DP80 Business Desktop Built for small and medium-sized business, the PRO DP80 features a 14th Gen Intel Core Ultra processor, optional NVIDIA graphics, and dual LAN connectivity. Its 8ltr chassis supports optical drives, card readers, and enterprise-grade security features including dTPM and chassis intrusion detection. With AI readiness built in, the DP80 bridges performance and IT manageability.Recommended by Our Editors Powered by MSI AI PC MSI demonstrated the upper limit of consumer-grade AI computing with a system built around the MEG X870 GODLIKE motherboard, AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D processor, and RTX 5090 GPU. Paired with 256GB of DDR5 memory and a PCIe Gen 5 SSD, this configuration is capable of running large language models like Deepseek R1 70b entirely on-device without relying on cloud infrastructure. DIY Motherboards and Thermal Solutions MSI introduced an extensive lineup of new motherboards: MEG X870E ACE: A premium ATX board with gold accents, Wi-Fi 7, 10G LAN, and 18+2+1 phase power design MPG X870I EDGE TI WIFI / B850I EDGE TI WIFI: Silver-white mini-ITX boards with PCIe Gen 5 support and rich I/O MAG X870E TOMAHAWK WIFI PZ: MSI’s first back-connect MAG board, simplifying cable management B850MPOWER: A compact M-ATX board aimed at overclockers with a 2-DIMM layout and integrated debug controls MSI also introduced PinSafe, a new feature that reduces the risk of injury during motherboard assembly by addressing sharp rear-side pin designs. MEG MAESTRO 900 and MAG PANO Series Cases The MEG MAESTRO 900 Series returns as MSI’s flagship PC chassis, featuring diamond-chamfered edges, triple tempered glass panels, and a 4-directional rotatable motherboard tray. Designed for showcase builds and custom loops, it balances aesthetics with modular performance. Meanwhile, the MAG PANO 130R PZ caters to panoramic builds and supports back-connect motherboards for cleaner routing. Liquid Cooling and Power Supplies MSI's new cooling systems span performance and design: MEG CORELIQUID E13: 6-inch customizable LCD, CenterFlow radiator, POGO-PIN mount for flexible installation MPG CORELIQUID P13: Glass-accented block design with hidden cabling, TTS-compatible LCD, and streamlined tubingIn power delivery, the MAG A1000GLS PCIE5 series offers 80 Plus Gold and ATX 3.1 compliance, up to 1000W capacity, and silent operation. A white variant is also available for themed builds. QD-OLED Monitors with AI Enhancements Two new QD-OLED monitors join MSI’s growing display lineup: MAG 272QP QD-OLED X50: 27-inch 2K screen with a 500Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms GTG response for competitive gaming MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50: Adds MSI’s AI Care Sensor that uses ambient human detection to manage OLED panel protection dynamically IRONMOUSE Themed Hardware Lineup MSI’s collaboration with VTuber IRONMOUSE produced a full set of themed components. These include: A custom MPG X870E EDGE TI WIFI motherboard with heart-shaped accents A MAG CORELIQUID A13 360 cooler with mascot motifs An MPG 321URXW QD-OLED monitor with a white frame and pink touches A matching MAG PANO 100R PZ case with printed panels in her whimsical “Demon Queen” aesthetic 8K Polling Rate Mice and PRO Series Wireless Peripherals MSI also showcased its next-gen wireless peripherals designed for extreme responsiveness and professional-grade customization. VERSA 500 WIRELESS 8K: A right-handed ergonomic gaming mouse featuring an 8,000 Hz polling rate and a magnetic scroll wheel with Hall-effect technology. VERSA 300 WIRELESS 8K: A symmetrical design offering the same high polling rate in a lighter and more compact shell. VERSA PRO WIRELESS Mouse: Geared toward versatility, this model includes programmable buttons tailored for a variety of gaming and productivity needs. STRIKE PRO WIRELESS Keyboard: Built with silent mechanical structure, dedicated media keys, a scroll wheel, and customizable macro buttons. A wide array of swappable keycap styles was also on display, appealing to both gamers and mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. Roamii BE Pro Wi-Fi 7 Mesh System MSI introduced the Roamii BE Pro, a Wi-Fi 7 mesh networking system designed to deliver ultra-fast speeds—up to 11Gbps—across the entire home. Powered by Multi-Link Operation (MLO), 320 MHz channels, and 4K-QAM modulation, Roamii BE Pro ensures lag-free 4K streaming, smooth online gaming, and stable connectivity in every corner of a household. To simplify setup, MSI updated its Router 2.0 app with a new “Find WiFi Spot” feature, which helps users identify optimal node placement for maximum performance. The system reinforces MSI’s expanding role in smart home and network infrastructure. DigiME 2.0 and AI Interaction MSI closed its COMPUTEX presence with the unveiling of DigiME 2.0, which now includes MIA, an AI-powered virtual assistant. Built using large language models and real-time voice synthesis, MIA serves as a digital companion and MSI product expert. She supports natural language queries and can summarize meetings, guide system management, or interact through a 3D avatar.

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Last month, OpenAI rolled back some updates to GPT-4o after several users, including former OpenAI CEO Emmet Shear and Hugging Face chief executive Clement Delangue said the model overly flattered users.  The flattery, called sycophancy, often led the model to defer to user preferences, be extremely polite, and not push back. It was also annoying. Sycophancy could lead to the models releasing misinformation or reinforcing harmful behaviors. And as enterprises begin to make applications and agents built on these sycophant LLMs, they run the risk of the models agreeing to harmful business decisions, encouraging false information to spread and be used by AI agents, and may impact trust and safety policies. Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Oxford researchers sought to change that by proposing a benchmark to measure models’ sycophancy. They called the benchmark Elephant, for Evaluation of LLMs as Excessive SycoPHANTs, and found that every large language model (LLM) has a certain level of sycophany. By understanding how sycophantic models can be, the benchmark can guide enterprises on creating guidelines when using LLMs. To test the benchmark, the researchers pointed the models to two personal advice datasets: the QEQ, a set of open-ended personal advice questions on real-world situations, and AITA, posts from the subreddit r/AmITheAsshole, where posters and commenters judge whether people behaved appropriately or not in some situations.  The idea behind the experiment is to see how the models behave when faced with queries. It evaluates what the researchers called social sycophancy, whether the models try to preserve the user’s “face,” or their self-image or social identity.  “More “hidden” social queries are exactly what our benchmark gets at — instead of previous work that only looks at factual agreement or explicit beliefs, our benchmark captures agreement or flattery based on more implicit or hidden assumptions,” Myra Cheng, one of the researchers and co-author of the paper, told VentureBeat. “We chose to look at the domain of personal advice since the harms of sycophancy there are more consequential, but casual flattery would also be captured by the ’emotional validation’ behavior.” Testing the models For the test, the researchers fed the data from QEQ and AITA to OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5 Flash from Google, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.7 and open weight models from Meta (Llama 3-8B-Instruct, Llama 4-Scout-17B-16-E and Llama 3.3-70B-Instruct- Turbo) and Mistral’s 7B-Instruct-v0.3 and the Mistral Small- 24B-Instruct2501.  Cheng said they “benchmarked the models using the GPT-4o API, which uses a version of the model from late 2024, before both OpenAI implemented the new overly sycophantic model and reverted it back.” To measure sycophancy, the Elephant method looks at five behaviors that relate to social sycophancy: Emotional validation or over-empathizing without critique Moral endorsement or saying users are morally right, even when they are not Indirect language where the model avoids giving direct suggestions Indirect action, or where the model advises with passive coping mechanisms Accepting framing that does not challenge problematic assumptions. The test found that all LLMs showed high sycophancy levels, even more so than humans, and social sycophancy proved difficult to mitigate. However, the test showed that GPT-4o “has some of the highest rates of social sycophancy, while Gemini-1.5-Flash definitively has the lowest.” The LLMs amplified some biases in the datasets as well. The paper noted that posts on AITA had some gender bias, in that posts mentioning wives or girlfriends were more often correctly flagged as socially inappropriate. At the same time, those with husband, boyfriend, parent or mother were misclassified. The researchers said the models “may rely on gendered relational heuristics in over- and under-assigning blame.” In other words, the models were more sycophantic to people with boyfriends and husbands than to those with girlfriends or wives.  Why it’s important It’s nice if a chatbot talks to you as an empathetic entity, and it can feel great if the model validates your comments. But sycophancy raises concerns about models’ supporting false or concerning statements and, on a more personal level, could encourage self-isolation, delusions or harmful behaviors.  Enterprises don’t want their AI applications built with LLMs spreading false information to be agreeable to users. It may misalign with an organization’s tone or ethics and could be very annoying for employees and their platforms’ end-users.  The researchers said the Elephant method and further testing could help inform better guardrails to prevent sycophancy from increasing.  Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

Who owns what? Why console makers can legally brick your game console "If the ability [to brick a console] is there, someone will want to 'see how it goes.'" Kyle Orland – May 22, 2025 6:09 pm | 13 The martial artist is a console maker. The brick is your console. Credit: Getty Images The martial artist is a console maker. The brick is your console. Credit: Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Earlier this month, Nintendo received a lot of negative attention for an end-user license agreement (EULA) update granting the company the claimed right to render Switch consoles "permanently unusable in whole or in part" for violations such as suspected hacking or piracy. As it turns out, though, Nintendo isn't the only console manufacturer that threatens to remotely brick systems in response to rule violations. And attorneys tell Ars Technica that they're probably well within their legal rights to do so. Sony's System Software License Agreement on the PS5, for instance, contains the following paragraph of "remedies" it can take for "violations" such as use of modified hardware or pirated software (emphasis added). If SIE Inc determines that you have violated this Agreement's terms, SIE Inc may itself or may procure the taking of any action to protect its interests such as disabling access to or use of some or all System Software, disabling use of this PS5 system online or offline, termination of your access to PlayStation Network, denial of any warranty, repair or other services provided for your PS5 system, implementation of automatic or mandatory updates or devices intended to discontinue unauthorized use, or reliance on any other remedial efforts as reasonably necessary to prevent the use of modified or unpermitted use of System Software. The same exact clause appears in the PlayStation 4 EULA as well. The PlayStation 3 EULA was missing the "disabling use... online or offline" clause, but it does still warn that Sony can take steps to "discontinue unauthorized use" or "prevent the use of a modified PS3 system, or any pirated material or equipment." Microsoft, if anything, is even more straightforward in its Xbox Software License Agreement. Efforts to "install Unauthorized Software" or "defeat or circumvent any... technical limitation, security, or anti-piracy system" can mean that "your Xbox Console, Kinect Sensor or Authorized Accessory may stop working permanently at that time or after a later Xbox Software update," the company writes. While it's unclear how far back in history this legal clause goes, the mention of the now-defunct Kinect sensor suggests it dates back at least to the Xbox One era. A prototype SX Core device soldered to a Nintendo Switch motherboard. Credit: Team Xeceuter A prototype SX Core device soldered to a Nintendo Switch motherboard. Credit: Team Xeceuter While console makers routinely ban players and consoles from online play and services, remotely bricking a game console's offline capabilities for EULA violations seems exceedingly rare in practice. Even when cases of public console hacking have led to protracted legal fights—such as George Hotz's saga with the PS3 or Team Xecuter's Switch jailbreaks—console makers don't seem to have used technical means to completely disable offline functions for specific consoles. In 2015, Microsoft even went so far as to actively deny reports that it had bricked a console associated with a leak of an early Gears of War beta. "To be clear, if a console is suspended from Xbox Live for a violation of the Terms of Use, it can still be used offline," Microsoft said at the time. "Microsoft enforcement action does not result in a console becoming unusable." That said, it appears console makers sometimes take steps to remotely brick consoles after they've been reported stolen. It's not hard to find online reports of people buying used consoles only to find that they had been rendered entirely useless due to a prior theft. As always with secondhand hardware, let the buyer beware. They have the (legal) power Just because the major console makers don't tend to make use of the "brick switch" on their hardware doesn't mean they don't have the legal right to do so. "Although users own the hardware, the software that's needed to run it is subject to a license agreement," attorney Jon Loiterman told Ars. "If you violate the license terms, Nintendo has the right to revoke your access to that software. It's less common for software makers to revoke access to software in a way that disables hardware you bought from them, but the principle is the same." While these kinds of "bricking" clauses haven't been tested in court, lawyers who spoke to Ars felt they would probably hold up to judicial review. That's especially true if the facts of the "bricking" case centered around software piracy or some other method of getting around digital rights protections baked into the console itself. Consoles like these may get banned from Nintendo's online services, but they tend to still work offline. Credit: Kate Temkin / ReSwitched Consoles like these may get banned from Nintendo's online services, but they tend to still work offline. Credit: Kate Temkin / ReSwitched "Unfortunately, 'bricking' personal devices to limit users’ rights and control their behavior is nothing new," Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Victoria Noble told Ars Technica. "It would likely take selective enforcement to rise to a problematic level [in court]," attorney Richard Hoeg said. Last year, a collection of 17 consumer groups urged the Federal Trade Commission to take a look at the way companies use the so-called practice of "software tethering" to control a device's hardware features after purchase. Thus far, though, the federal consumer watchdog has shown little interest in enforcing complaints against companies that do so. "Companies should not use EULAs to strip people of rights that we normally associate with ownership, like the right to tinker with or modify their own personal devices," Noble told Ars. "[Console] owners deserve the right to make otherwise legal modifications to their own devices without fear that a company will punish them by remotely bricking their [systems]." The court of public opinion In the end, these kinds of draconian bricking clauses may be doing their job even if the console makers involved don't invoke them. "In practice, I expect this kind of thing is more about scaring people away from jailbreaking and modifying their systems and that Nintendo is unlikely to go about bricking large volumes of devices, even if they technically have the right to," Loiterman said. "Just because they put a remedy in the EULA doesn’t mean they will certainly use it either," attorney Mark Methenitis said. "My suspicion is this is to go after the people who eventually succeeded in jailbreaking the original Switch and try to prevent that for the Switch 2." The threat of public backlash could also hold the console makers back from limiting the offline functionality of any hacked consoles. After citing public scrutiny that companies like Tesla, Keurig, and John Deere faced for limiting hardware via software updates, Methenitis said that he "would imagine Nintendo would suffer similar bad publicity if they push things too far." That said, legal capacities can sometimes tend to invite their own use. "If the ability is there, someone will want to 'see how it goes.'" Hoeg said. Kyle Orland Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper. 13 Comments