The new Pixel 10 series of smartphones were formally debuted this week at the Made by Google event. The four new models — the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 XL and Pixel 10 Pro Fold — all run on the new Tensor G5 chipset, which is 34 percent faster than the G4 used with the Pixel 9s and integrates the first image processor designed by Google. Gemini Nano powers on-device AI features including Magic Cue, a contextual suggestion system underpinning native apps. The Pixel 10s are the first to have magnetic Qi2 fast wireless charging. Sales begin August 28. The company also unveiled the Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Buds 2a, both shipping October 9. Continue reading Google’s Pixel 10 Smartphone Line Packs AI-Driven Features

The ESPN mobile app has been revamped to coincide with today’s debut of the ESPN DTC streaming service, which offers the sports network’s 12 program outlets together for the first time. The ESPN app has added a vertical feed of video shorts accessible through a “Verts” tab and the homepage carousel. The Verts feed includes game highlights and analytics as well as user-generated content. A vertically delivered “SportsCenter” called “SC for You” delivers daily updates personalized for favorite teams, leagues and sports, available on the app, ESPN.com and some smart TVs. Continue reading ESPN Updates Mobile App with Vertical Video for DTC Launch

Yahoo Sports has teamed with C15 Studio to launch the Yahoo Sports Network, a FAST channel offering more than 60 hours per week of original reporting on gameplay from the NFL, NBA, MLB and more. Included are live series such as “The Ariel Helwani Show,” “Yahoo Sports Daily,” “Inside Coverage” and “Yahoo Fantasy Forecast,” mixed in with recorded programming including “The Kevin O’Connor Show,” “Football 301” and others. Initially available on LG Channels and Sling Freestream, Yahoo Sports Network plans availability on Samsung TV Plus, Amazon Fire TV, Fubo, Plex, Prime Video and The Roku Channel in the weeks ahead. Continue reading Yahoo and C15 Launch FAST Channel: Yahoo Sports Network

This week, DeepSeek-V3.1 dropped on Hugging Face. Media outlets immediately began citing benchmark scores that rival proprietary systems from OpenAI and Anthropic for a system that is available via a permissive license, facilitating wide access. The 685-billion parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model has 37 billion active parameters and is designed for efficiency. It builds on DeepSeek-pioneered processes like multi-head latent attention (MLA) and multi-token prediction (MTP) to optimize inference, enabling high-performance computing on both enterprise servers loaded with H100 GPUs and consumer hardware like a Mac Studio or comparably powered PC. Continue reading DeepSeek-V3.1 Offered with Improvements in Speed, Context

In a major local television group consolidation move, Nexstar Media Group of Texas has reached an agreement to acquire a rival, Virginia-based Tegna, in a $22 per share cash transaction valued at $6.2 billion. The boards of both Nexstar and Tegna unanimously signed off on the deal, which is expected to close by the end of next year subject to FCC regulatory approval. The price includes Tegna debt and estimated transaction expenses and fees. Nexstar has more than 200 owned or partner stations while Tegna has 64. As a result of the consolidation, the combined company will have TV stations in nine of the top 10 U.S. markets. Continue reading Nexstar to Acquire Tegna in $6.2 Billion TV Consolidation Deal

Japan’s SoftBank has committed to investing $2 billion in U.S. chipmaker Intel as the company struggles to gain traction in the exploding artificial intelligence space and catch up in the mobile market. SoftBank has agreed to purchase roughly 87 million Intel shares at $23 per share to become the company’s fifth or sixth-largest shareholder. The move comes as the Trump administration deliberates converting the U.S. government’s CHIPS Act grants into a 10 percent equity stake in the company as part of its effort to revive American semiconductor manufacturing. Such a deal would make the government Intel’s largest stakeholder. Continue reading SoftBank Invests $2 Billion in Intel as Government Mulls Stake

Meta Platforms has two headset prototypes that caused a stir at SIGGRAPH 2025 last week in Vancouver. Boba 3 features an ultrawide 180- degree horizontal by 120-degree vertical field of view, with 4K LCDs achieving 30 pixels per degree (PPD). Human vision is approximately 200×135 degrees, while the Quest 3 offers less than 110×96. The other device, Tiramisu, touts 90 PPD — 3.6x the pixel density of the Meta Quest 3 — and aims for “a new milestone for realism in VR.” The prototypes are the latest steps on Meta Reality Labs’ “mission to pass the visual Turing test” by creating “virtual experiences that are indistinguishable from the physical world.” Continue reading Meta Reveals Its Latest VR Headset Prototypes at SIGGRAPH

Comcast NBCUniversal continues to lay the groundwork to spin most of its cable television assets off into a new publicly traded entity called Versant, announcing Monday that MSNBC will by year’s end be rebranded as MS NOW — short for “My Source for News Opinion and the World.” The channel’s new logo will no longer include the iconic Peacock, which remains part of the parent company’s NBC branding. The plans were shared in an internal memo from Mark Lazarus, the NBCUniversal Media Group chairman who has been chosen to run Versant as founding CEO. Continue reading MSNBC to Become MS NOW as Part of Versant Cable Spinoff

Hisense Channels is a new FAST service launched by TV manufacturer Hisense and Xumo, the streaming joint venture between Charter Communications and Comcast. Boasting in excess of 200 premium channels from content providers including Scripps, Stingray and Radial Entertainment, Hisense Channels is debuting on Hisense smart TVs, where viewers can access it from the TV’s homepage screen — no need for a subscription or download. The move is an expansion of the existing partnership between Xumo and Hisense, which is interested in simplifying content discovery with built-in streaming access. Continue reading Xumo Powers Hisense Channels’ 200 FAST Content Offerings

Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 now have the discrete ability to end “abusive” or “harmful” conversations in consumer chat interfaces. Anthropic says the feature was developed as part of its exploratory work on the protection and well-being of its AI models. The company also envisions broader safety uses, although it does point out that having a model defensively terminate a chat is an extreme measure, intended for use in rare cases. “We’re working to identify and implement low-cost interventions to mitigate risks to model welfare,” Anthropic explains, qualifying it is unsure “such welfare is possible.” Continue reading New Anthropic Safety Updates Focus on Claude’s Well-Being

Netflix says it has more than doubled overall Upfront ad sales commitments, with year-over-year growth across all categories including retail, CPG, telco, health and wellness, entertainment and tech. It marks a strong showing for the streaming company, which launched its ad-supported tier in November 2022. For the 2025-2026 season, Netflix has once again sold out its Christmas Day NFL double-header, including sponsorships with Accenture, FanDuel, Google and Verizon for in-game and broadcast inventory. Netflix also reports robust response to the final season of “Stranger Things” and returning series “Bridgerton” and “Emily in Paris.” Continue reading Latest Netflix Upfront Ad Commitments Double from Last Year

Google has introduced a new ultra-light model called Gemma 3 270M ideal for smartphones and other on-device use cases. The open-source model is power-efficient and small enough to run locally in the absence of an Internet connection, as Google demonstrated in internal tests using a Pixel 9 Pro SoC. With just 270 million parameters, Gemma 3 270M is a fraction of the size of flagship LLMs, which typically have billions of parameters. While Google’s new model was not made for complex conversational use, it is “designed from the ground up for task-specific fine-tuning with strong instruction-following.” Continue reading Google Says New Gemma 3 Is Ideal for Mobile, Edge Devices

HTC has entered the smart glasses space with its new Vive Eagle AI-powered eyewear. Since launching in 2016, HTC’s Vive VR headset has accrued an estimated 10 percent global market share — not nearly as much as Meta Quest MR and VR headsets (at 50 percent), Sony PlayStation or even the Apple Vision Pro, but a respectable berth from which to expand to everyday wearables. The Vive Eagle is fully voice controllable and lets users listen to music as well as capture photos and videos with a 12MP ultra-wide camera. The product is available for preorder in Taiwan for the equivalent of about $520. Continue reading HTC Enters Wearables Market with Vive Eagle Smart Glasses

Entertainment studio Cineverse has joined forces with Banyan Ventures, the venture arm of former ABC Entertainment Group and WME Chairman Lloyd Braun, on MicroCo, a native AI platform that will generate micro-dramas and micro-series — “serialized, short-form, mobile-first content” that has become a craze in China. Launching in 2026, the platform has drawn comparisons to Quibi, the short-form content company founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg in 2018 and shuttered two years later, burdened by production costs. MicroCo plans to use AI to keep costs down. The company is aiming for a “freemium” model combining some free access along with paid subscriptions. Continue reading Cineverse, Banyan to Launch Platform for GenAI Micro-Series

Google DeepMind has unveiled Genie 3, a world-building model that uses text and image prompts to generate 3D environments in real time. Still in research preview, Genie 3 can output “several minutes” of video that can be navigated in real time at 24fps and a resolution of 720p. Because it remembers the rules of the world it creates, Genie 3 allows agents to predict how the environment evolves and how actions affect it. Google says world models are “a key steppingstone” to artificial general intelligence, or AGI, since they can train AI agents in “an unlimited curriculum of rich simulation.” Continue reading Genie 3 World Model Produces Minutes of Video in Real Time