In the ongoing war of AI investment, OpenAI has secured itself a new ally: AMD. The chip maker will trade millions of its upcoming Instinct MI450 GPUs for an investment by the AI company, worth up to 10 percent of its stock. The numbers, though, remain vague. The deal hinges on AMD’s ability to deliver “6 gigawatts” worth of Instinct MI450 GPUs, a rack-scale enterprise GPU chip that the chip manufacturer hasn’t begun shipping yet. If it begins shipping the MI450 by an undisclosed milestone and in undisclosed amounts, then OpenAI has warrants to buy the company’s stock, worth up to 160 million shares. That would be about 10 percent of its current outstanding shares, according to CNBC. AMD must deliver its first tranche, or shipment, of MI450 GPUs by the second half of 2026, worth one gigawatt. The total deal encompasses six gigawatts, though the company’s announcement of the deal didn’t put a timetable to the final shipments. It also includes “multiple generations” of Instinct chips. Since AMD hasn’t formally announced the MI450 yet, it’s unclear how six gigawatts’ worth translates to in actual chips. Assuming that the MI350X draws a kilowatt of power apiece, and that the older MI300X drew a board power of 750 watts, I asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT for a projection. It returned a range of between three to six million GPUs, with a likelier target of between four and five million. That also assumes that the upcoming MI355X draws 1,400W, which hasn’t been confirmed. In the technology space, there’s one surefire domestic source of nearly unlimited cash — and no, it’s not the Trump administration. That administration has already agreed to convert its CHIPS Act investment into Intel and transfer it into a nearly 10 percent stake. OpenAI’s cash reserves aren’t publicly known, but it’s in the process of raising a $40 billion funding round this year, and CNBC reports that the AI company is already pulling in between $10 billion and $13 billion per year. Is AMD headed for the cloud, and not the PC? But there’s a very uneasy subtext in all this, too. AMD chief executive Lisa Su now has a very loud, dynamic, and persuasive voice telling her to invest in high-end GPUs for the cloud, and not the PC. Every business, from Intel to Nvidia to AMD, has to decide how to spend their capital allotment and negotiate for production output inside TSMC and other fabs. “We are thrilled to partner with OpenAI to deliver AI compute at massive scale,” Su said in a statement. “This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win enabling the world’s most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem.” When a report was published last week that AMD might use Intel as a production partner, no one from Intel would comment. Charlie Demerjian at SemiAccurate reported that the rumor was simply not true. It most likely isn’t, but the problem in the breakneck world of AI, where truckloads of money are backed up to anyone who can use “AI” in a press release, is that most anything is somewhat plausible these days. Intel has already built tiles inside its Core Ultra PC processors at both its own fabs as well as at TSMC, of course. The second half of 2026 is far away, but enthusiasts do have to grumble and worry. With more and more emphasis being placed on GPU training and inferencing in the cloud, how much will be left for PCs? Nvidia already controls more than 90 percent of all PC GPU shipments, even after AMD had made waves about trying to aim at the mainstream PC market instead of the high end. If it can’t succeed in PCs, why wouldn’t it simply turn to the more lucrative enterprise market instead? Sure, Nvidia GeForce 5000-series GPUs may be near MSRP once again. But remove a source of competition, and who knows how long that will last? Read...

In the ongoing war of AI investment, OpenAI has secured itself a new ally: AMD. The chip maker will trade millions of its upcoming Instinct MI450 GPUs for an investment by the AI company, worth up to 10 percent of its stock. The numbers, though, remain vague. The deal hinges on AMD’s ability to deliver “6 gigawatts” worth of Instinct MI450 GPUs, a rack-scale enterprise GPU chip that the chip manufacturer hasn’t begun shipping yet. If it begins shipping the MI450 by an undisclosed milestone and in undisclosed amounts, then OpenAI has warrants to buy the company’s stock, worth up to 160 million shares. That would be about 10 percent of its current outstanding shares, according to CNBC. AMD must deliver its first tranche, or shipment, of MI450 GPUs by the second half of 2026, worth one gigawatt. The total deal encompasses six gigawatts, though the company’s announcement of the deal didn’t put a timetable to the final shipments. It also includes “multiple generations” of Instinct chips. Since AMD hasn’t formally announced the MI450 yet, it’s unclear how six gigawatts’ worth translates to in actual chips. Assuming that the MI350X draws a kilowatt of power apiece, and that the older MI300X drew a board power of 750 watts, I asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT for a projection. It returned a range of between three to six million GPUs, with a likelier target of between four and five million. That also assumes that the upcoming MI355X draws 1,400W, which hasn’t been confirmed. In the technology space, there’s one surefire domestic source of nearly unlimited cash — and no, it’s not the Trump administration. That administration has already agreed to convert its CHIPS Act investment into Intel and transfer it into a nearly 10 percent stake. OpenAI’s cash reserves aren’t publicly known, but it’s in the process of raising a $40 billion funding round this year, and CNBC reports that the AI company is already pulling in between $10 billion and $13 billion per year. Is AMD headed for the cloud, and not the PC? But there’s a very uneasy subtext in all this, too. AMD chief executive Lisa Su now has a very loud, dynamic, and persuasive voice telling her to invest in high-end GPUs for the cloud, and not the PC. Every business, from Intel to Nvidia to AMD, has to decide how to spend their capital allotment and negotiate for production output inside TSMC and other fabs. “We are thrilled to partner with OpenAI to deliver AI compute at massive scale,” Su said in a statement. “This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win enabling the world’s most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem.” When a report was published last week that AMD might use Intel as a production partner, no one from Intel would comment. Charlie Demerjian at SemiAccurate reported that the rumor was simply not true. It most likely isn’t, but the problem in the breakneck world of AI, where truckloads of money are backed up to anyone who can use “AI” in a press release, is that most anything is somewhat plausible these days. Intel has already built tiles inside its Core Ultra PC processors at both its own fabs as well as at TSMC, of course. The second half of 2026 is far away, but enthusiasts do have to grumble and worry. With more and more emphasis being placed on GPU training and inferencing in the cloud, how much will be left for PCs? Nvidia already controls more than 90 percent of all PC GPU shipments, even after AMD had made waves about trying to aim at the mainstream PC market instead of the high end. If it can’t succeed in PCs, why wouldn’t it simply turn to the more lucrative enterprise market instead? Sure, Nvidia GeForce 5000-series GPUs may be near MSRP once again. But remove a source of competition, and who knows how long that will last? Read...

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TL;DR: Get lifetime licenses for Microsoft Visio Pro 2024 and Microsoft Project Pro 2024 for Windows — both $49.97 until October 19 — to simplify workflows and manage projects with confidence. Professionals need tools that make complexity manageable, and Microsoft’s 2024 lineup delivers just that. With lifetime licenses for Visio Professional and Project Professional for $49.97 each until October 19, you’ll have two powerhouse programs that simplify workflows from start to finish. Visualize complex ideas with Visio Visio helps you turn messy ideas into clear visuals, whether it’s IT networks, business processes, or floor plans. Diagrams can also pull real-time data from sources like Excel to stay up to date, while enhanced collaboration and Microsoft 365 integration make sharing effortless. Wide range of professional diagram types Real-time data linking for live updates Cloud and mobile access for edits anywhere Smooth integration with Microsoft 365 250,000+ templates and shapes to choose from Microsoft Visio Professional 2024: Lifetime License for WindowsSee Deal Manage tasks seamlessly with Project Project Pro makes managing deadlines and resources far less stressful. Pre-built templates get you started quickly, while built-in reports and multiple timelines provide clear insights. Templates and reports for faster planning Teams integration and intuitive baselines What-if scenarios for smarter resource use Timeline and task visualization tools Timesheet submissions and collaboration support Microsoft Project Professional 2024: Lifetime License for WindowsSee Deal Microsoft Visio and Project Pro 2024 give professionals the clarity to plan and the structure to execute. Each license is available now for $49.97 each until October 19. StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

Amazon’s fall hardware events can usually be counted on for a couple of things: an avalanche of new devices, and at least one new product that’s genuinely nuts.  Take the Amazon Astro, a two-wheeled Alexa-powered robot that was rolled out—literally—during Amazon’s fall 2021 hardware event. A year prior, there was the Ring Always Home Cam, an indoor airborne drone that could patrol your home in a preset flight pattern.   Other gems from yesteryear include the Echo Loop, an early stab at a smart ring that put Alexa on your finger, while the Echo Look was a camera that allowed Alexa to give you a morning fashion check.  Even the introduction of the newly AI-enhanced Alexa—the first unveiling was back in 2023, mind you—was delightfully unhinged, with the “supercharged” Alexa channeling HAL-9000 during its spirited back-and-forth conversations. (In contrast, the February 2025 Alexa+ announcement focused on more prosaic applications such as shopping and smart home control.)  So for Amazon’s big hardware reveal in New York City earlier this week—the first one in two years, as well as the first to be hosted by ex-Microsoft executive Panos Panay, now the head of Amazon’s hardware division—I was ready for a firehose of new products, as well as something crazy. Personally, I was betting on a new, Alexa+-tinged take on the third-generation Echo Show 10, an Echo smart display with a motorized screen that could follow you around the room, perfect for allowing the new AI Alexa to scan your kitchen and guide you as you toiled over dinner prep.  Amazon showed off plenty of pratical upgrades at its fall hardware event, but nothing genuinely nuts.Ben Patterson/Foundry Or, how about this: a new generation of Echo Frames that would compete with Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, complete with tiny integrated cameras that would let you take Alexa+ out into the world. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?  Well, it turns out I was only half-right about Amazon’s fall hardware event this year. There was a truckload of new products, including four new Echo devices, more than a half-dozen Ring cameras, a couple of Kindles and a series of new Fire TV sets, plus a budget Fire TV 4K stick.  Disappointingly, though, there was no crazy—no Echo robots, no Echo Show displays with autonomous rotating screens, no flying Ring drones, nothing to wear with Alexa+ on board. What gives?  Well, one answer could be that Amazon’s become much more practical about its devices in the past couple of years, with a renewed focus on profitability as Panay took the reins from longtime Amazon hardware chief David Limb in fall 2023—which was, incidentally, the year Amazon uncharacteristically skipped its regular hardware event.  Previously, Amazon seemed to take a throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks approach with its hardware, which led to a lot of wild pitches—and, consequently, a lot of abandoned products. That Ring Always Home Cam drone? Never left its early “Day One Edition” status. Same for the Echo Loop, while the Amazon Astro bot was briefly repurposed into a business-oriented guard dog before being summarily ditched. The Echo Look camera? Deactivated long ago.  Instead, we got a lineup of sensibly refreshed products, including spiffy new Echo speakers and displays with beefed-up internals, the first 4K-capable Ring cameras, and revamped Fire TVs with AI-enhanced search.  The upgrades all appear quite solid and practical, with reasonable price tags and no need to sign up for an early access ticket. In short, Amazon played it safe with this year’s new hardware—a smart move, from a business perspective.   Me, I miss the crazy. Read...

What’s the first thing you do when you start a fresh Windows install? For myself and many others, it’s installing Chrome (usually using Ninite). I throw Brave and Firefox on there after, but Chrome comes first. It’s part of the ritual. But as useful as Chrome is for downloading drivers and the Steam launcher, you can make it far more capable with the right extensions. After I’ve downloaded it, there are always a handful I install right away. If you’re staring at a fresh—starkly white—Chrome install and would like a few tips about how to make it that bit better, here are some of my favorites. DarkReader: Dark mode for Chrome Give your eyes a break with the Dark Reader extension for Chrome. Jon Martindale Argh my eyes! I don’t know whether I’m just getting older or my laser eye surgery is wearing off, but the stark whiteness of most modern websites feels blinding. I find working in dark mode much more comfortable, but unfortunately there are only so many websites that have a proper dark mode, and even then it’s not always uniformly applied. Pop open a private tab and watch how all your personalized dark modes disappear just as fast. With DarkReader you don’t have to worry about that. Regardless of the kind of blanched-white backdrops a website wants to shine your way, DarkReader nips that in the bud and forces a dark mode that it creates on the fly, inverting brighter colors and whites and making the web a more comfortable place to explore. Grammarly/Prowritingaid: Stop making typos (as much) Listen, I do this for a living typing out thousands of words every single day and I still make use of smart extensions like Grammarly and ProWritingAid to make my writing that extra bit better. Even if you use ChatGPT or other AI to craft emails or longer-form content for you, having a writing assistant like these give it a once over is a real help. Both are better in their paid versions, but they work well enough in the free edition too. And you can even enjoy them outside of Chrome if you like. StayFocusd: Block or limit time wasting sites StayFocusd will hit you with a pithy statement and engaging picture if and when you try to test its capabilities. If you’ve followed my coverage at PCWorld at all, you’ll know I struggle with procrastination and a big part of that is staying on task. If you, like me, find that you can’t quite stay away from Reddit when you’re supposed to be writing a guide on Chrome extensions, then StayFocusd is a great tool. It lets you block websites outright, or time limit your access to them by time or date. It won’t stop you going to another browser for your fix, but it does block you just enough to make you question whether you should get back to work instead. Various password managers: Pick your favorite I’m a big fan of low-fi password managers that keep everything decidedly offline, but I’m not the only one in my family and not everyone feels the same. Other people prefer cloud-based options, so when I install Chrome on a fresh PC, I usually install their password manager too so they can readily access it. Which password you use is down to your personal preferences (though we have a few of our own). Regardless of which one you prefer, though, you can find a Chrome extension for it on the Chrome store. Adguard: Block ads, limit socials     Adguard is an incredibly useful tool to more pleasantly browse the web. Blocking adverts online is a tricky business as sites often don’t like you doing it because it impacts their revenue. That’s why unfortunately, tools like Adguard—which are effective at blocking ads—will often make certain platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and similar unusable. They just don’t want to serve content if they can’t sell it to you. Outside of social media, though, Adguard is an effective way to block some of the more nefarious tracking adverts. It won’t get them all, and some sites might not like it, but if you want a cleaner web experience, Adguard does a great job. It’s particularly useful for YouTube. Raindrop.io: Save to read/watch later Another effective way I’ve found to beat procrastination is to lean into it: I’ll do it later. But instead of that being the work I’m supposed to be doing, I try to do the things I shouldn’t be doing at a more convenient time. Raindrop.io is a really useful tool for that, as it lets you save articles, web pages, videos, and more to look at later. It saves it all in a handy wallet that you can tag in collections for later filtering and you can even sync it up with your phone. Perfect for reading something later on the toilet. Ghostery: A simpler tracker blocker Ghostery is another useful ad blocking tool that might work better for you than AdGuard, depending on your preferences. Although it does block ads, Ghostery’s main function is to go beyond that and remove your personal information from trackers, making it harder for websites to find out about you—whether there’s an advert involved or not. This is particularly useful for stopping behavioral tracking on websites that might monitor what you do across the web. This can actually improve page load times in some cases as all the content that would otherwise need to load is simply blocked at the source. It also helps you make more informed choices about the sites you click through to by showcasing tracking information within search result pages. Onetab: Save memory, reduce clutter Are you spotting a theme here? I’m a messy worker too and as I work on multiple articles throughout the day my tab list can get extremely busy. Multiple browser windows with dozens of tabs in each; not only is it hard to parse through it’s also unnecessarily resource intensive. That’s where OneTab comes in to save the day. By collecting tabs together under a single header tab, you can streamline what you’re working on and better organize them together. This makes it easier to find what you’re looking for, come back to something you were working on earlier, and categorize tabs so that you save time not clicking through them all. Memory use drops by up to 95% with it enabled, too, helping your system respond better. Google Keep: Great for note taking Google Keep lets you save all of those notes you’ll need later—even if they’re just about cats. If you’re researching for a personal or professional project, saving notes for later can be a godsend in retaining the context of what you’re looking at, or helping to craft a narrative from all your research sources. Google’s Keep extension works just like the app on your phone. Along with your personal notes, though, you can also save page links, text, and images, add labels, and sink it up with your phone to work on later. VolumeMaster: Make it LOUD Watching an old YouTube video and the volume’s too low? Find that new Netflix show dialogue is just too quiet to make out what they’re saying? Time to give it a boost. VolumeMaster lets you increase the stock Chrome tab volume by up to 600%. That’s enough to give your ears a beating and your speakers a workout, so be careful with already-load videos. But for anything that’s just too quiet to make out, VolumeMaster is a great way to regain control of your audio. Hive AI Detector: Spot AI images if you aren’t sure Hive AI Detector can even detect what LLM was used in its creation in some cases. Did you try that test out a few months ago to see if you could spot AI images? I figured I was pretty well situated to ace it and barely scraped by with a 60% success rate. That felt like an embarrassing failure, but I’m far from alone. Spotting AI images can be hard, but Hive’s AI Detector can make it a little easier. Don’t let yourself get duped by fake AI generated images. Just run this free extension as a litmus test for what’s real and what’s not. Want even more tips? Here’s how to spot AI images yourself. Read...

Whether you’re a small business trying to promote your services, a content creator looking to polish your latest YouTube post, or simply someone who wants to experiment with making cool home videos, using the right software is essential. If it’s too complex, then it can get in the way of your creativity. Alternatively, not having enough tools to fully realise your vision is a very frustrating experience.  Adobe understands this and provides a variety of solutions so you can get just what you need. Plus, the incorporation of the latest AI technology means you can easily do a lot more than you might have thought possible. So, which is the right package for you? Adobe Firefly makes dreams a reality Thanks to its powerful generative AI capabilities, Adobe Firefly is the perfect tool for creating short videos that can boost a presentation or social media post. Using ordinary language prompts or an existing image, you can quickly transform your ideas into professional-looking clips with just a few words. There’s even a built-in prompt enhancer to help produce the results you’re after with the minimum of fuss.  Adobe You don’t need any pro video skills, as Adobe Firefly takes care of everything, but you do get a great level of creative control over aspects such as lighting, camera motion, animation timings, cinematic effects, and video style. There’s also the ability to instantly translate the audio or text in the video to another language and open up the global appeal of your content. Adobe Firefly is one of the fastest ways to generate video ideas, making it perfect for B-roll, storyboards, or just to bring a bit of sparkle to your work. Videos run for 5 seconds, all in high-fidelity 1080p, are designed to be safe for commercial use and can be downloaded as MP4 files that are easy to share or import to other software. Adobe Express brings AI power to your existing videos If you already have video you’ve shot, then Adobe Express is a great platform on which to assemble, polish and output your finished mini-masterpiece. That doesn’t mean it’s old-school though, as Adobe Express is enriched with AI-powered tools that make editing smarter, faster and more inventive. At the heart of the software are one-click tools that streamline edits such as trimming, splitting, and adjusting the speed of footage. These are joined by the option to enhance speech, add captions automatically, or record vocals over the video – all directly within the app. Clip Maker is an amazingly useful new tool that goes through an existing video and pulls out the key moments to create short-clips for sharing on social media. Something that would have taken hours before is now done in minutes. Adobe As Firefly is baked into Adobe Express, you can also use the generative AI capabilities to convert a static scene into animated video, again without the need for any expert skills. When you’re done, there are templates available to format and post videos to social media platforms, with outputs available as GIFs or MP4. Invent new worlds without astronomical prices You might think that the vast array of creative and editing options on offer in Adobe Express and Adobe Firefly would make them out of reach for normal people, but that’s far from the truth. Adobe Firefly has a free tier where you can experiment with its amazing capabilities, and if you want to create more videos then there’s the Standard plan that costs only $9.99/£9.98 p/m. Sign up to Adobe Firefly today! Adobe Express also has a free tier that includes many of the editing tools mentioned above, with a Premium plan that adds advanced features and generative AI capabilities for $9.99/£9.98p/m. If you’re still not sure, then there’s a 30-day free trial so you can get to grips with all it has to offer before you sign up to a subscription. Try Adobe Express for Free Video is the communication method of the modern internet, so make yours the best they can be, all without having to learn loads of editing commands or investing in expensive software. Let Adobe Firefly and Adobe Express take care of the hard work so you can concentrate on being creative. Read...

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It’s hard for people in these areas to bounce back because the odds of being able to find another job that values your skills is limited, an economist says. Read...