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Intel and ARM, arguably two of the most important players in modern chipmaking, are joining forces. On Wednesday, the companies announced a “multigeneration” agreement to optimize Intel’s upcoming 18A fabrication process for use with ARM designs and intellectual property. The deal won’t see Intel’s Foundry Services division produce chipsets for ARM. Instead, it will make it easier for ARM licensees, including the likes of Qualcomm and MediaTek, to hire Intel to make chips in the future.

To start, the firms plan to focus on optimizing Intel 18A for mobile system-on-a-chip designs. In the future, Intel and ARM say their partnership could extend to silicon designed for use in cars, Internet of Things devices and data centers. Additionally, the support Intel will offer ARM licensees will extend beyond wafer production to include “packaging, software and chiplets,” suggesting Intel envisions itself acting as a one-stop shop for companies that want it to produce their ARM designs.

Naturally, Intel is also quick to allude to the geopolitical ramifications of the agreement. “This collaboration will enable a more balanced global supply chain for foundry customers working in mobile SoC design on Arm-based CPU cores,” the company said. According to an estimate Counterpoint Research published last July, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produces nearly 70 percent of all the chipsets that are critical to modern smartphones. On Monday, China concluded a three-day military exercise that involved the encirclement of Taiwan. The drills heightened fears of an impending war on the island. 

Sony has officially set its latest State of Play showcase for Thursday, April 13th. The stream will be available at 5PM ET on PlayStation’s various social media channels, including Twitch and YouTube. You can also check out the stream via the embedded video below, so keep this tab open.

The company announced that Final Fantasy XVI will be the guest of honor, with 20 minutes of new footage of the forthcoming Square Enix RPG. The game was announced back in 2020 and has suffered from a COVID-19 delay but it finally drops on June 22nd for PlayStation 5. So far, we’ve only seen trailers with minimal gameplay, so 20 minutes of footage is a real treat for anyone looking to get their Chocobo fix.

This is great news for action RPG fans, but it looks like Final Fantasy XVI will be the only game streamed during the event. Sony has given no mention of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Death Stranding 2 or even new titles for that just-released PlayStation VR 2. 

Though the actual gameplay of Final Fantasy XVI remains somewhat mysterious, trailers have highlighted the plot, which involves humans waking up massive monsters called Eikons and all of the fun that follows. The last mainline entry in the series was 2016’s Final Fantasy XV.

Don't expect a blistering frame rate on your Xbox when Redfall arrives on May 2nd. Arkane Studios has revealed that the vampire-slaying shooter will be limited to the 30 frames per second "Quality" mode on Xbox Series X and S at launch. You'll have to wait for an update at an unspecified point in time to use a 60 fps "Performance" option.

The developers haven't explained why the 60 fps mode will have to wait. We've asked Arkane and Bethesda for comment. The 30 fps mode runs at 4K on Xbox Series X, and 1440p on Series S. PC players' frame rates are dictated by their hardware.

Typically, 60 fps modes in games require compromises in visual detail. You may have to run a title at a lower resolution, accept lower-quality effects or settle for fewer on-screen characters. It's not necessarily a simple matter of changing a few parameters — developers may have to verify that they aren't breaking the experience.

Whatever the reasons, this isn't thrilling news for Xbox gamers. Redfall is a fast-paced game that can benefit from the added responsiveness of a 60 fps mode. Its temporary absence won't necessarily detract from the core gameplay, but might prove disappointing if you're the sort who happily sacrifices lush graphics in the name of a smoother experience.

After a week-long tussle with Twitter and owner Elon Musk over labels that the company applied to its accounts, NPR said it will no longer use the platform at all. The organization criticized Twitter over a "state-affiliated media" label that was placed on its main account last week. Twitter later updated the text to read “government-funded media.”

However, NPR said the latest incarnation of the label is "inaccurate and misleading," as it's "a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence." The organization pointed out that federal funding accounts for less than one percent of its $300 million annual budget.

NPR CEO John Lansing said that, as a result of the label, the broadcaster is abandoning Twitter in order to protect its credibility. Until recently, Twitter typically reserved the "state-affiliated media" tag for government-run outlets like Russia's RT and Sputnik and China's Xinhua News Agency. 

"At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," Lansing said. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again." The NPR chief also said that "degradation in the culture of Twitter" also played a role in the organization's decision to pause its use of the platform.

Going forward, NPR will no longer "post fresh content" on any of its 52 official feeds. NPR is giving workers who handle its Twitter accounts a two-week grace period to rework their social media strategies. For one thing, they've directed NPR's Twitter followers toward the broadcaster's newsletters and accounts on other social media platforms. The company is leaving it up to staff to decide whether to keep using their personal Twitter accounts.

Twitter has also applied the "government-funded media" label to the BBC's Twitter account, a move that organization has also objected to. In a BBC interview on Wednesday, Musk said the company will tweak the BBC label so that it reads "publicly funded." That would be a more accurate description of how the BBC is funded. Still, Lansing claimed even if Twitter were to backtrack and remove the label from NPR's account, the organization won't start tweeting again right away.

Meanwhile, Musk has revealed how he decides which organizations should have the contentious labels. He's consulting Wikipedia's publicly-funded broadcasters category page. As it happens, several organizations listed on that page — including Canada's CBC, Japan's NHK and the UK's Channel 4 — do not have such labels on their Twitter accounts.

Microsoft is planning a change to the default function of the Print Screen button for Windows 11 users. Typically, pressing the button sends a snapshot of what's on your monitor to the clipboard. In the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview builds, however, pressing the button launches the more versatile Snipping Tool instead.

The Snipping Tool enables users to capture a section of their screen, rather than the entire display (although that's still an option). You can capture everything in a single window or just a portion of what you see, thanks to the rectangular and freeform modes.

While the Snipping Tool has more utility than Print Screen's traditional function, power users may not benefit much from the switch. The Print Screen button is out of the way on most keyboards and, for many people, it may be easier to continue using the existing Snipping Tool shortcut (Win key + Shift + S). The Xbox Game Bar app can instantly save a screenshot without any extra steps, though you'll still need to move your hand over to the Print Screen button (the shortcut combo is Win key + Alt + Print Screen). 

As BetaNews notes, those who aren't happy with the change will be able to revert the Print Screen button's role to the same thing it's been doing for decades through their system's accessibility settings. Moreover, if you've already assigned a custom function to the key, Windows 11 won't automatically change that.

Microsoft is testing the change at the minute and, depending on user feedback, it may reverse course and keep the Print Screen's function as is in retail builds of Windows 11. Still, expanding what the key can do may make it more useful for many folks.

Learning how to cook sous vide (which translates literally to “under vacuum” in French) can be intimidating. Not only do you need to have a sous vide machine (aka an immersion circulator), some people will also say you need additional equipment like a vacuum sealer, special plastic bags and more. And while those things do help, they’re not 100 percent necessary and they shouldn’t scare you off one of the best and most accurate ways of cooking, especially proteins like meat and fish.

The hard part, though, is choosing the right device for you, as sous vide machines are relatively recent newcomers to home kitchens. After all, the first immersion circulator priced under $500 went on sale in 2009. Prior to that, these devices were typically only found in high-end restaurants or as playthings for celebrity chefs. So if you want to see which sous vide machine can up your cooking game, take a look at our picks for the best devices you can buy right now.

What we look for

While they might have a fancy name, the main things we look for in a quality sous vide machine are quite straightforward: ease-of-use, reliability and a good design. It should be easy to clean and have clear, no-nonsense controls. It should also have some way of attaching to a tank or pot so it doesn’t become dislodged during use. And most importantly, it should have a strong heating element and motor that can deliver consistent water temperatures to ensure your food hits the correct level of doneness every time.

The best overall: Anova Precision Cooker

Anova is one of the oldest names in the game. I’ve personally been using one of their older models for almost seven years and it’s still going strong. However, on the latest version of the Anova Precision Cooker you get a number of handy upgrades like digital touch controls, a longer power cord, a water-resistant IPX7 design and even Wi-Fi connectivity. And with a flow rate of eight liters per minute, it can heat up water faster than less expensive competitors.

But perhaps the best part is that, thanks to a collaboration with chef J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, the Anova app has one of the largest collections of tried and tested sous vide recipes from any manufacturer. So not only is it easy to use, the Anova Precision Cooker can help you find a ton of tasty dishes to try

Alternatively, if you like Anova’s devices but want something a bit more compact, consider the Precision Cooker Nano 3.0. Priced at $149, it’s a bit more expensive than the standard model but you still get all the most important features including dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity, a two-line touchscreen and onboard controls so you don’t need to ever pair your phone to the Nano if you don’t want to.

Our upgrade pick: Breville Joule Sous Vide

If you want a more sophisticated immersion circulator, Breville’s Joule Sous Vide is a great choice. It has a slick, compact design, which is great for people with smaller kitchens, and because its motor is located at the very base of the device, you don’t need to use as much water to cook. So instead of requiring a huge dedicated tank, you can simply fill a three or four-quart pot with water and go from there. On top of that, because it has a magnetic base, it can clamp to the bottom of a pot without needing a separate clip or stand. It also supports both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. The one downside is that because it doesn’t have onboard temperature controls, you need to pair it with your phone and use Breville’s free companion app every time you want to use it.

The best budget immersion circulator: Inkbird Sous Vide Precision Cooker (ISV-200W)

For those who want to try out sous vide cooking without dropping a bunch of money, Inkbird’s Precision Cooker is a great entry-level choice. While it’s not quite as powerful or fancy as more expensive rivals, it covers all the bases for just under $90 (and it’s often on sale for even less). Not only do you get a built-in screen with Wi-Fi connectivity, the Inkbird has a powerful heating element with a 0.1-degree Celsius accuracy. Cooking temps range from 77 degrees Fahrenheit to 210 degrees and with a timer setting that goes up to 99 hours, you can try to recreate some of those super long, multi-day recipes like you’ve seen on YouTube in your own kitchen.

Don't worry if you were put off by the initially high price of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Amazon is running a sale on Samsung's latest flagship phones, and the base S23 Ultra with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is down to $1,000, or $200 off. You'll find a comparable discount for the upgraded version with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, too, and the savings apply regardless of color.

You don't have to buy the Ultra to find some good bargains. The 512GB Galaxy S23+ has dropped to $970 (normally $1,120), while the standard S23 with 256GB is available for $760. Lower-capacity editions are also on sale. The discounts may be very helpful if you're planning to take plenty of springtime photos, or just need extra space for your apps and media.

The Galaxy S23 Ultra is ultimately a refinement of its predecessor, but the improvements are in areas that count — this remains the best Android phone you can buy. The 200MP main sensor allows for exceptional detail in some scenarios, and there are upgrades to selfies and video recording. The customized Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is speedier, and the battery life is strong enough to last all day even in heavy use. While $1,000 still isn't trivial, you're getting a lot for your money.

The Galaxy S23+ and S23 are subtler updates, but that still makes them fine choices if you're replacing a years-old phone. They boast improved battery life and tangibly faster performance than their predecessors. They just don't offer major camera upgrades — the Ultra and rivals like the Pixel 7 series are better at low-light photography, for instance. If you're just looking for Samsung's fastest hardware at the lowest possible price, you'll be happy.

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LinkedIn is making it easier to prove you are who you say you are on your profile. The platform is adding new identity verification features that will allow users to confirm their name and employer, and it doesn’t involve paid subscriptions or blue checkmarks.

With the update, LinkedIn is rolling out three ways its members can confirm their identity. The company is partnering with CLEAR — yes, the same CLEAR that can get you to the front of security lines at airports and other venues — to check that the name on your ID is the same as the one on your profile. The process is free but does require sharing a U.S phone number and government-issued I.D.

LinkedIn is also offering a feature for verifying where you work that’s a slightly less involved process. To confirm your employer, you’ll need to enter a verification code sent to your company email address. In both cases, once the verification is complete, a “verification” field will appear on your LinkedIn profile that states what details have been verified.

Alternatively, some users will be able to verify both their identity and employer at once via a partnership with Microsoft Entra, which creates workplace IDs for companies that enroll its program. LinkedIn says the Entra partnership will be rolling out at the end of the month to employees of the “dozens” of companies currently in the program.

LinkedIn previously added phone number and email verification features last year, but those checks were only visible if you tapped into a slightly hidden “about this profile” field. The latest changes add a prominent “verifications” section that will appear directly under a user’s profile details.

Notably, the company is orienting its verification around confirming its members identities, rather than checkmarks or other specialized features. And, unlike Meta and Twitter, LinkedIn is opting to keep verification separate from its paid subscriptions. That also means that having a verified profile doesn’t come with any additional advantages, at least for now. But it could offer an extra layer of protection for those wary of fake accounts, impersonators or other scammers.

Slowly, but surely, NVIDIA is making its 40-series GPUs more affordable. Now it's down to $599 with the new RTX 4070, a mid-range card focused on 1440p gaming. While it's $100 more than its predecessor's launch price, the fabulous RTX 3070, that card typically sold for more than $1,000 due to the supply chain crunch, scalpers and insatiable crypto bros. Based on what we've seen from the 4070 Ti, NVIDIA's new cards are actually staying close to their retail price, which is great news for anyone itching for an upgrade.

Judging from Valve's Steam hardware statistics, I'd wager many gamers are waiting on the eventual RTX 4060 before giving up their old cards, especially if it ends up selling closer to $400. But based on my testing, the 4070 is still a solid choice for practical gamers who may wan to splurge a bit. It's fast enough to deliver excellent 1440p performance with ray tracing enabled, and it can even deliver solid 4K gaming in a pinch too. Even though it's noticeably slower than the $799 RTX 4070 Ti in most benchmarks, that may not matter much when you're actually in the heat of battle. (Just think of all you could do with that extra $200!)

The RTX 4070 features NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace architecture, sporting 5,888 CUDA cores, a base clock speed of 1,920 MHz (boost to 2,475 MHz) and 16GB of GDDR6X RAM. The 3070, meanwhile, had the same amount of CUDA cores, but it was based on NVIDIA's older Ampere architecture. It could only reach up to 1,725 MHz and had 8GB of slower GDDR6 memory. Despite those differences, the 3070 still holds up well, so I wouldn't rush out to replace it anytime soon. But if you're still holding onto an RTX 20-series GPU or something older, the 4070 may be the GPU you've been waiting for.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

We received the RTX 4070 Founder's Edition card from NVIDIA, which basically looks like a shrunken down version of the 4080 and 4090. It feels like a premium card, with a sleek metal case, a bevy of heatsink fins and two large fans to deal with heat. It's also a two-slot GPU, like the 4070 Ti, allowing it to fit inside of smaller cases far better than the enormous 4080 and 4090. Port-wise, there are three DisplayPort connections and a single HDMI. As with all of NVIDIA's recent cards, it also includes an adapter to connect two 8-pin PCIe power cables (a single PCIe Gen 5 cable will also work).

Once I started benching and playing games with the RTX 4070, it performed just as I expected: Somewhere between the RTX 3080 (which launched at $699) and the 3080 Ti ($1,119). The difference, though, is that it supports NVIDIA's DLSS 3 technology, which can help speed up ray tracing performance by inserting AI-generated frames. I was particularly impressed by how well it handled Cyberpunk 2077: in 1440p with maxed out graphics and "ultra" ray tracing settings, it delivered a smooth 120 fps. The RTX 3070, in comparison, struggled to hold 75 fps with the same settings using the older DLSS 2, which doesn't use frame generation.

Control, an older title that only supports DLSS 2, had a less dramatic performance bump with the 4070. While playing in 1440p with maxed graphics and all of its ray tracing settings flipped on, it reached 106 fps, compared to 90 fps with the 3070. Still, it's a bit of a shock to see a mid-range card scoring triple digit frame rates with all of the game's ray tracing features enabled (which includes reflections, shadows and debris). Not too long ago, Control used to humble the mightiest video cards.

NVIDIA is clearly positioning the 4070 as a 1440p-focused card, but it can still handle some 4K scenarios, so long as you're not too demanding. It hovered at 70 fps in Cyberpunk with maxed graphics and "ultra" ray tracing settings — that's certainly better than you'd see on any modern game console. Control, meanwhile, hit 56 fps on average. If you're only dabbling in 4K occasionally, perhaps for a lazy Sunday session on your TV, that's not too bad. 

As with all of NVIDIA's new hardware, the RTX 4070 is also a useful tool for streamers and media creators thanks to its hardware-based AV1 encoder. The company claims it's around 40 percent more efficient than the previous generation H.264 encoder — that means it'll take less bandwidth to deliver clear streams, a boon for anyone who wants to show off 1440p or 4K streams. The popular broadcast software OBS will soon be updated to support AV1 streaming to YouTube, which offers some dramatic clarity boons, according to PCWorld. When it comes to typical H.264 encoding, the 4070 converted 4K test clip to 1080p in 33 seconds, three seconds longer than the 4070 Ti.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Thanks to the 4070's excellent cooling setup and relatively modest power demands (it requires a 650W PSU), its temperature never climb above 70 Celsius during my testing. I could only hear its two fans when I spent more than 30 minutes in a game using ray tracing. But really, it's not anything that'll distract you during gameplay.

Now that we've seen NVIDIA's RTX 4070 in action, is it actually worth $599? For anyone with a GPU older than the RTX 30-series, I'd say so. (Though if you can spare an extra $200, the 4070 Ti is noticeably better.) A few years ago, we were hoping and praying for GPU prices to come back down to Earth. We've seen 4070 Ti cards stick close to its initial $799 launch price, so there's a good chance you'll actually be able to find a 4070 this year without overpaying too much. To be smart, it's worth waiting a few months for the 4060 to drop before you make any decisions. 

But if you've been hankering for better framerates and playable ray tracing, go with the gaming gods. The RTX 4070 is the new king of mid-range GPUs.

True to the leaks, NVIDIA has unveiled the standard GeForce RTX 4070 — and it might hit the sweet spot, provided you're willing to accept the price hikes that have defined the RTX 40 lineup. The $599 desktop GPU is considered a successor to the RTX 3070 Ti and offers a similar 5,888 CUDA cores, but adds more RAM (12GB instead of 8GB), higher clock speeds (1.92GHz base versus 1.58GHz), more level 2 cache (36MB compared to 4MB) and greater floating point computing power (29 teraflops versus 22). At the same time, it reduces the typical gaming power consumption from 290W to 200W. Some games quickly ran into the 8GB ceiling of RTX 3070 variants, so the extra memory alone may have a significant effect.

NVIDIA pitches the RTX 4070 as ideal for 1440p gaming at over 100 frames per second with ray tracing turned on, although you'll have to enable DLSS3 upscaling to hit that target. While many games don't support the feature yet (over 50 do so far), this might make it feasible to play big titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Spider-Man: Miles Morales at maximum visual detail without compromising on frame rates.

The RTX 4070 will be available tomorrow, April 13th, and will include a Founders Edition card from NVIDIA itself. In other words, the $599 price is more likely to reflect what you can actually buy. You might not have to pay extra for a vendor's factory-overclocked board or otherwise accept artificial markups.

Whether or not the new GPU is a good deal depends on your perspective. NVIDIA sees the RTX 4070 as an upgrade path for users coming from a GTX 1080 or RTX 2070. You're paying similar money for a major leap in performance. It's also decidedly more affordable than the $799 RTX 4070 Ti. However, the new model still costs $100 more than the base 3070. Like it or not, the days of sub-$500 upper mid-range cards appear to be over in NVIDIA's world.