Astronomers have detected a massive, lonely world drifting through the darkness without a star to call home. This Saturn-sized rogue planet was discovered by an international team of scientists using the gravitational microlensing technique. Free-floating planet gravitationally microlensing a distant star in the Galactic center. (Credit:

Reflecting back on a year of gaming, Steam's final hardware and software survey of 2025 indicates a couple of interesting trends as 2026 gets underway. One of this is AMD's ability to continue chipping away at Intel's lead, and on the software side, Windows 11 is adding even more distance between itself and Windows 10, at least among Steam

China has completed construction of the world’s most powerful hypergravity machine, a device designed to compress space and time to simulate extreme events like dam and earthquake disasters. The machine, officially known as CHIEF1900, was delivered to Zhejiang University on December 22. Built by the Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group,

LG is getting ready to launch an updated line of lightweight Gram laptops at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next week, and the upcoming models will debut a new Aerominum material that promises to meld ultra-light construction with premium aesthetics and military-grade durability. This paves the the way for what LG claims is the world's

One of the most iconic gaming consoles of all time is the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) that released in the United States way back in 1985. Now a little over 40 years later, Acemagic is using the original NES as inspiration for its Retro X5, a powerful mini PC "designed for players who love the charm of classic games and thrill

Security researchers at Koi have uncovered a massive, coordinated spyware campaign that spans 100+ Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla FireFox extensions, which seem to function legitimately, but (eventually) exhibit malicious behavior tied to a threat actor called DarkSpectre. This behavior includes stripping security protections,

The PlayStation 5 has essentially been cracked, just in time for 2026, and it would appear that short of releasing a new hardware revision, there's not much Sony can do about it. This is because PlayStation 5 hackers have found the BootROM (Level 0) keys for the PlayStation 5, which enables decryption of the bootloader and, from there, allows

Instagram head Adam Mosseri dropped a telling Threads post suggesting that we're approaching a tipping point where AI will be so deeply integrated into media creation that distinguishing fake content from the real thing will be impossibly difficult. Instead of chasing the infinite tide of AI-generated pixels, the future of digital trust may

If you're not feeling the whole 'New year, new me' thing, then how about, 'New year, new laptop' instead? It's an opportune time to buy a new gaming laptop because (A) the future is murky with RAM and storage prices trending in the wrong direction, and (B) there are a bunch of models with GeForce RTX 50 series firepower that are on sale right

Color us not surprised that the Trump Phone (a.k.a. T1) has been delayed yet again, with delivery now slated for sometime this year (happy New Year, btw). The phone, which has been promised as a golden bastion of free speech and high-end luxury, was first slated for an August 2025 release, then rescheduled for the end of the year. Trump blames

MSI is touting some significant image quality enhancements to its next round of QD-OLED gaming monitors that promise to deliver even inkier black levels, more uniform luminance, and a tougher screen surface that is more scratch resistance than its existing models. Not that you should be scratching your monitor, but if you own cats who like

After all the chatter about a follow-up version of Apple's Vision Pro headset, as well as a possible cheaper variant, it's suddenly looking like the company's VR headset could end up as little more than a footnote. We're not there yet, though Apple is reportedly pulling back on its efforts to procure more shipments and market its pricey gadget

Dell raised its prices by roughly 10-30% on December 17th, and ASUS will be following suit on January 5th, per a report from TrendForce. As the report notes, this is not an unexpected move—and previous statements from Acer and ASUS indicate that "passing on soaring memory costs has become an industry-wide consensus". It's not just PC makers,

Amazon has been dominant in the e-ink tablet space for ages and further bolstered its position with the introduction of updated Kindle Scribes earlier this year. That dominance is about to be tested, with TCL jumping into the fray with an e-ink tablet of its own, the Note A1 NXTPAPER. The device seems to deliver a strong feature set that includes

Coming from the early days of computing when we had half-a-dozen interfaces on a standard PC, none of which were compatible and few of which carried power, USB is a revelation. You can plug almost anything into a USB port and most of it will "just work". However, we feel that most users aren't really getting the full value out of their PC's

Have you been wanting to make the leap to OLED for your gaming setup? Let 2026 be the year that you ditch your old display and start gaming on OLED, which is now more attainable than ever. Driving the point home are some fantastic discounts on LG's UltraGear OLED lineup, including a 32-inch display that is on clearance for $699 off the MSRP. LG

ASRock is getting ready to blitz the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with a whole bunch of new products, and among them will be the company's first foray into the all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooling market. It's a crowded field for sure that keeps attracting new participants, though ASRock is an established brand with a fleshed out

NASA has released a new composite image of two spiral galaxies, NGC 2207 and IC 2163, as they begin a multi-billion-year process of merging into a single celestial entity. This event was captured with the combined power of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The two galaxies, located approximately 120

If your New Year's resolution to be more thrifty with your device purchases in 2026, then you'll be happy to know that Samsung is rolling out a couple of affordable new products. One is a $199.99 smartphone, the Galaxy A17 5G, and the other is a the Galaxy Tab A11+ tablet priced at $249.99. What's more, both are being released in the United

It's easy to think of Cinebench as a purely synthetic benchmark given the way it works: you download a dedicated benchmark application, you run it from whatever folder, and it does its thing before spitting out a number that vaguely tells you how your system performs. That feels similar to synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark, which aren't directly

There has been a spate of retro gaming projects lately that try to nail every little detail of beloved classic game consoles and computers for the ultimate hit of nostalgia. The experienced team at Epilogue is taking a different approach with the upcoming release of the SN Operator, though, which should make revisiting Super Nintendo (SNES)

For as long as cameras have existed, they've had a fundamental limitation: they can only focus on one depth plane at a time, and everything in front of or behind that plane gets blurred. That's simply the way lenses work, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University just demonstrated a camera system that breaks that rule entirely. The new

No one is safe from RAMmageddon, including gaming console manufacturers. According to a recent report, console manufacturers are debating whether next-gen devices should be delayed to post 2027-2028, breaking the common 7-year cadence between console generations. If the rumors circulating about next-generation consoles and their gratuitous

Talk about a *ahem* timely deal! We're about to embark on a new year and if your resolution for 2026 is to fashion yourself into a new YOU with a focus on fitness, than a smartwatch can be a wise and useful investment to help reach your goals. And if you've been thinking about getting the latest-generation Apple Watch, you can save some money