You normally have to choose between fast refresh rates or OLED's vivid imagery when buying a laptop, but Razer claims it can offer both at once. The company plans to update the Blade 15 with an option for what it says is the first 240Hz OLED laptop display. You'll get the high responsiveness that can provide an edge in multiplayer games, but you'll still have a color-accurate 1440p panel (100 percent of the DCI-P3 space) with deep contrast. If the machine lives up to its billing, you could dominate the latest online shooter in one breath and edit video the next.

There will be a few compromises. The 240Hz panel isn't particularly bright at 400 nits. You won't want to work in bright sunlight, then. And while the risk of burn-in that comes with OLED isn't as high as it used to be, this might not be your best choice if you regularly work with static content like photos.

And if you thought a 240Hz OLED had to be expensive... you guessed correctly. The Blade 15 with this panel will arrive in the fourth quarter of the year at $3,500. You'll get 32GB of RAM, a 12th-gen Core i9-12800H processor, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics and a 1TB SSD as part of the package, but it's clear Razer is aiming this spec at well-heeled gamers who want a do-it-all screen.

SoundCloud wants to make it easier to find must-listen tunes buried deep in its catalog. TechCrunchnotes the company has bought Musiio, an AI music curation company. The firm's technology uses AI to "listen" to songs, tag them and slot them into playlists. Ideally, this improves the chances of discovering tracks you like, whether they're from an established artist or a new bedroom DJ.

The companies didn't disclose the terms of the deal, but said Musiio would "become core" to SoundCloud's discovery system. Musiio will still offer its technology to other companies.

The two haven't revealed their exact plans or an integration timeline. However, it's easy to see advantages for both SoundCloud and listeners. The company could use Musiio's AI to spot a breakthrough artist before a label or rival service poaches them. It might also increase play counts for many songs and convince indie performers to stick around. You, meanwhile, might listen to more varied playlists and discover a breakthrough song before it reaches the charts.

ViacomCBS has finally narrowed the timing for some of its international Paramount+ launches. As Varietyreports, Paramount Global announced during an earnings call that the streaming service will arrive in the UK and Ireland on June 22nd. South Korea will also have access sometime in June. You'll have to wait a while longer in other parts of the world, however. Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland will can start watching in the second half of 2022, while people in India will have to wait until 2023.

In the UK, you'll pay £7 per month or £70 per year. Sky Cinema customers will have Paramount+ included at no extra charge.

The expansion will be welcome if you've wanted to watch Halo and other shows that have remained exclusive to Paramount+ so far. However, this won't thrill everyone. Until late last year, ViacomCBS made shows like Star Trek: Discovery available outside of Paramount+ coverage areas through rivals like Netflix. You'll now have to subscribe to yet another service to follow affected shows.

If you've been coveting Samsung's 2022 The Frame TV lineup but felt the asking prices were a tad steep, you'll want to take notice — Amazon has put the art-centric 4K sets on sale for the first time. The 55-inch model is the best deal of the bunch, selling for $1,298 ($200 off). The 65-inch version is also a better bargain at $1,759 (down from $1,997). The 43-inch set has dipped to $879 (normally $997) if you want a smaller model for the bedroom, while the wall-filling 75-inch panel has received a $200 discount to $2,797.

The 2022 version of The Frame is, arguably, the one that fulfills Samsung's vision of an art-focused TV that blends into your home decor. Its namesake customizable frame is more welcoming than the usual plastic or metal, but the centerpiece is a matte-finish display that reduces glare and helps digital paintings stand out. This is a set you'll want to leave on around the clock, if just to bring some Van Gogh or Vermeer into your living room.

There are some compromises. This is a QLED screen, so you won't have the extra-deep contrast of OLED or mini-LED. You'll also need a subscription to the Art Store if you want full access to Samsung's virtual gallery. All the same, The Frame is easy to justify if you're tired of your TV being an imposing slab of technology when it's not in use.

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Your pool of potential FIFA 22 rivals will soon extend beyond your platform of choice. 9to5Googlenotes EA has confirmed plans for a FIFA 22 cross-play test on PlayStation 5, Stadia and Xbox Series X/S. Once the test is available, you can opt in to play against a wider range of gamers in Online Seasons and Online Friendlies. You'll have to add buddies to the in-game friends list if you want them to join in, but there otherwise won't be any associated headaches.

EA didn't say just when the test would launch, or when it might become a regular feature of the game. The publisher is expecting feedback in its community forum when the test launches, however.

The test will no doubt frustrate you if you're an PS4 or Xbox One owner. All the same, this may be one of the more influential cross-play additions in recent memory. The FIFA series remains one of the most popular sports games worldwide, and that has typically made your choice of console important — you didn't want to get an Xbox if all your friends would play the latest FIFA title on PlayStations. Cross-play support will let virtual soccer fans use the platform they want without fear of being cut off from their social circles.

Facebook's podcast offerings are vanishing just a year after they launched. Parent company Meta has confirmed to Bloomberg that it will wind down podcasting, Soundbites and its general audio hub. It will no longer let podcasters add shows to Facebook as of this week, and will remove them entirely on June 3rd. The hub and Soundbites will close sometime in the "coming weeks," while Live Audio Rooms will fold into Facebook Live. 

A Meta spokesperson characterized the move as a matter of concentration. The move will help Meta "focus on the most meaningful experiences," according to the representative.

There were hints in recent weeks that Meta was losing interest in podcasts and shifting attention to hotter products like Facebook's main feed and Instagram's Reels. There was a good response to audio services, a Meta spokesperson told Bloomberg in mid-April, but the news outlet's sources said the social media firm was more interested in highlighting the metaverse and shopping when talking to podcast partners. Simply speaking, Meta's interests in conquering AR, VR and rivals like TikTok may have pulled its attention away from audio.

Facebook also has fiercer competition in the sound-only realm. Podcast app operators like Apple and Spotify were already major threats, but there was also a flood of efforts to mimic Clubhouse in 2021. Meta had to pit Facebook's services against the likes of Twitter Spaces and Reddit Talk. There was no guarantee Facebook would stand out in this market, even with a well-known name and massive resources at its disposal.

VW and BP know they'll both have to embrace electric vehicles, and they're ready to work together to ease some of the transitional pain. Autoweekreports the two companies are teaming up to install thousands of VW's Flexpole 150kW fast EV chargers at gas stations in Germany and the UK. Within two years, there will be as many as 2,000 charging units (4,000 charge points) in place at BP stations in the UK and Aral locations in Germany.

The expansion should help BP expand its charging network to 8,000 connections by the end of 2024. Not surprisingly, the locations of the new chargers will be available through both in-car apps in VW group cars (including Seat and Skoda) as well as VW's Elli charging app. The two firms also promise to explore "further opportunities" in eco-friendly transportation.

While the Flexpole chargers are quick and can deliver nearly 100 miles of charging in 10 minutes, their true appeal might be their flexibility. As they use battery storage, they can operate on low-voltage grids — it's easier to install them at gas stations and other sites where high voltage might not be an option.

This isn't an altruistic move, of course. VW has been ramping up its electrification plans and now expects 70 percent of its sales to be EVs by 2030 — it needs an extensive charging network if customers are going to buy these vehicles in droves. BP, meanwhile, is trying to shed its reputation as an oil and gas giant in favor of becoming an "integrated energy company." A partnership like this could help BP transition gas stations to EV charging more gracefully than it might on its own.

Sony has divulged the pricing for its 2022 Bravia 4K and 8K TVs, and it won't surprise you to hear that the cutting-edge models will command a premium. Most notably, the Quantum Dot OLED-based Bravia XR Master A95K series (pictured above) will start at $3,000 for a 55-inch model, and climb to $4,000 for a 65-inch set. Both 4K screens will be available to pre-order in June. They certainly aren't the most expensive TVs you can buy, but you're clearly paying extra for the larger QD-OLED color range, the flexible stand setup and bundled video chat camera.

Most of the remaining TVs are decidedly more affordable. If you prefer mini-LED to OLED, the X95K series will begin at $2,800 for a 65-inch 4K panel and climb to $5,500 for the 85-inch variant. They'll be available to pre-order this summer. You also have lower-priced conventional OLED options. The compact, gaming-friendly A90K (with pre-orders in July) will cost $1,400 for a 42-inch display and $1,500 for its 48-inch counterpart (June). Opt for the larger A80K and you'll pay between $2,000 and $3,800 for sets ranging from 55 to 77 inches, with most pre-orders beginning this month. The 'entry' LED-based X90K will cost $1,400 for a 55-inch model and top out at $3,300 for 85 inches, with most pre-orders also starting in May.

And yes, 8K is still expensive at Sony. You'll pay $7,000 for a 75-inch Z9K, and $10,000 for the 85-inch equivalent. Both are mini-LED TVs and will include the camera from the A95K when pre-orders open in the summer.

There's no doubt Sony's OLED sets will seem pricey compared to some LG and Samsung models. However, it's evident Sony is betting its image quality and design touches will motivate you to spend more. We'd add that it's one of the few high-end brands to base its lineups around Android TV and Google TV. If you're not fond of webOS (LG) or Tizen (Samsung), this may be your best bet.

Grindr's past willingness to share sensitive data may have been more problematic than previously thought. The Wall Street Journalunderstands precise Grindr user location data was collected from the online ad network MoPub (once owned by Twitter) and put on sale through its partner company UberMedia (now UM) since "at least" 2017. The LGBTQ dating app curbed the practice when it limited location data collection in early 2020, but there's a possibility that legacy information might still be available.

An anonymous former senior employee speaking to the Journal claims Grindr initially didn't believe sharing location data with marketers posed privacy issues. Ad execs reportedly told the company that real-time bidding, or displaying ads based on a user's immediate location, was transforming the industry.

Grindr told the Journal in a statement that its 2020 policy change meant it shared less data with advertisers than "any of the big tech platforms" and most dating app rivals, although it didn't address historical info. Twitter said UberMedia was held to MoPub's data use restrictions at the time, while UberMedia's current owner Near said "thousands of entities" have access to data shared in the real-time bidding system. It challenged concerns that location data without direct personal information could help trace individuals.

Near's claim isn't necessarily true, however. Catholic publication The Pillarsaid it used sold Grindr data to track usage and ultimately oust a senior church official. There are also fears that countries with anti-LGBTQ laws could use Grindr locations to arrest the app's users — Grindr restricted location features during the Beijing Winter Olympics precisely to prevent this kind of abuse with athletes. The US forced Grindr's Chinese owner Kunlun to sell the company by mid-2020, in part over worries China's government might misuse personal info for American citizens.

The company's own practices were also under scrutiny at the time. It reportedly shared HIV statuses with app optimization firms, and Kunlun's Chinese engineers had access to a database of sensitive info for months. Security was also an issue. One vulnerability permitted an outside app to collect exact locations, while another let intruders hijack accounts using only an email address. Simply put, Grindr wasn't as conscious of its data handling as it apparently is now.

Google is still firing AI researchers amid criticism of its work. The New York Times has learned Google fired machine learning scientist Satrajit Chatterjee in March, soon after it refused to publish a paper Chatterjee and others wrote challenging earlier findings that computers could design some chip components more effectively than humans. The scientist was reportedly allowed to collaborate on a paper disputing those claims after he and fellow authors expressed reservations, but was dismissed after a resolution committee rejected the paper and the researchers hoped to bring the issue to CEO Sundar Pichai and Alphabet's board of directors.

The company hasn't detailed why it fired Chatterjee, but told the Times he'd been "terminated with cause." It also maintained that the original paper had been "thoroughly vetted" and peer-reviewed, and that the study challenging the claims "did not meet our standards."

Whether or not the science holds up, the exit underscores the ongoing clash between Google's management and the AI teams that drive many of its projects. The problems began in earnest when Google fired ethicist Timnit Gebru in 2020 following a dispute over a paper, with two others following suit. The matter escalated when the internet giant terminated Margaret Mitchell in early 2021. While Google claimed Mitchell violated data confidentiality policies, she also publicly criticized executives and the decision to fire Gebru. These firings led veteran engineers to leave the firm and demand reforms, and that's not including company-wide protests over military contracts. Google investigated Gebru's firing and promised changes, but the Chatterjee firing might not ease tensions.

It's no secret that Google is proud of its AI research. It's keen to tout algorithms that can outperform humans in fields like chip design and cancer detection, and its flagship Pixel 6 phones are built around a custom AI-focused processor. Any flaws could significantly hinder Google's business, not to mention tarnish its reputation as a leader in AI development.