TechRadar News

• Free file converters are scamming victims, law enforcement warns
• The FBI has warned against using untrusted the services
• Malware can put victims at risk of identity theft and fraud

Many of us have used file converters before, as when you need an MP3 but your recording is an M4A, free online file converters are a first port of call.

However the FBI has now warned some of these “free tools” are increasingly infecting victim’s devices with malware.

It says criminals are using the enticing offer of an easy and swift file transfer, like a .doc to a .pdf file, or combining files, like multiple .jpegs into one .pdf - useful when you need to upload something or send it in a particular format.

Risk of ransomware

AThe conversion tools will convert your files, but in the meantime, will infect the converted file with hidden malware, which it then hands over to the victim.

The malware can then exfiltrate personal information like names, social security numbers, banking information, crypto currency, and more - leaving the user at risk of identity theft or fraud.

s if that isn’t bad enough, some of these attacks also infect the victim’s device with ransomware, taking control of the computer.

Viruses and malware infections can have disruptive consequences for users, but there are key tools that can help.

“The best way to thwart these fraudsters is to educate people so they don’t fall victim to these fraudsters in the first place,” said FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek.

“If you or someone you know has been affected by this scheme, we encourage you to make a report and take actions to protect your assets. Every day, we are working to hold these scammers accountable and provide victims with the resources they need.”

If you think you may have accidentally downloaded malware or a virus, we have advice on how to remove malware from your device, but the best defense is being careful and never downloading anything from an untrusted source.

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I don’t think it is an understatement to say that Nvidia wants to be the company that powers the artificial intelligence universe we may one day live in permanently.

The opening keynote at Nvidia GTC 2025, colloquially referred to as the Woodstock of AI, saw CEO Jensen Huang extol the virtues of an AI ecosystem powered by hardware - and software - from the second most valuable company in the world.

We were re-introduced to the concept of AI factories, which are essentially gigantic data centers and where, Nvidia’s world, tokens generated are equivalent to revenue: the presentation mentioned a price, $1 trillion.

The cost of building data centers, like mega-farms, increases exponentially every generation as they get more complex, and require more power to house even more compute.

A prototype of the Newton robot in Nvidia's Isaac lab (Image credit: Nvidia)

The lofty Stargate project has a budget of $500 billion and Apple has already committed to spending $500 billion over the next few years, a large chunk of which will be on data centres.

Depending on what analysts you talk to, the global data centre capital expenditure is expected to reach $1 trillion either in 2027 (PWC) or 2029 (Dell’Oro).

So that gives you a measure of Nvidia’s extremely ambitious targets for itself and for humanity.

A big piece of that puzzle that Nvidia introduced at the keynote is its Photonics switch systems which will allow those AI factories to “scale to millions of GPUs”, seemingly within the same physical perimeter.

A Nvidia GB300 NVL72 server rack (Image credit: Nvidia) Big, huge numbers

The biggest number of them all in this presentation was when Rev Lebaredian Nvidia’s VP, Omniverse and Simulation Technology, presented a slide about how Physical AI is transforming $50 trillion industries.

These span across two billion cameras, 10 million factories, two billion vehicles and, Lebareian added ‘Future Billion humanoid robots’.

Yes, it’s not just about robots, but humanoid robots, millions of them. Robots, in general, have been around for decades in many shapes and forms.

Nvidia, however, envisions a world where billions of robots are built on what it calls, its “Three Computers”: Pre and post-training (done via DGX), simulation and synthetic data generation (done via Omniverse) and Runtime (done using AGX).

The world of the future may be home to “multiple types of humanoid robots” that will be able to post-train - while on the job so to speak - with real or synthetic data, allowing them to learn new skills or enhance their knowledgebase on the fly, literally at (or near) the speed of light.

And the first of them may well be based on its new GR00T N1 humanoid robot foundation model, developed in partnership with Google Deepmind and … Disney Research.

(Ed: One can not see the tie-in with GR00T from Guardians of the Galaxy and Wall-E, a potentially prescient movie about the impact of robotics and AI on humanity).

Where does this leave us? With a clear roadmap to a world where AI becomes an indispensable part of what it means to be human, perhaps the most important utility of them all. Never, in the history of humanity, will so many depend on so few.

Oh and the other acronym (AGI) was not mentioned during the presentation, not once.

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• Apple’s latest ad features Pedro Pascal and is directed by Spike Jonze
• It features Pascal dancing through icy landscapes and vibrant streets
• The purpose is to promote Apple’s AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation

If you’ve ever wanted to see Pedro Pascal dancing in a red and yellow dreamland, well, today is your lucky day. That’s because Apple has just released a new ad featuring the actor and directed by Spike Jonze, and the aim is to promote the company’s AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation.

The spot begins with Pascal leaving a café after seemingly getting his heart broken. As he walks down a snowy street, he puts in his AirPods and begins listening to El Conticinio by Spanish musician Guitarricadelafuente. As he turns on the active noise cancellation mode, his surroundings change to an icy landscape filled with dancers moving in time to the music.

He’s then snapped back to reality when a passerby asks him for directions, whereupon Pascal activates the AirPods’ transparency mode so that he can hear the person while still listening to his music.

He then spies a happier version of himself across the street. This incarnation of Pedro Pascal re-enables active noise cancellation on his AirPods and suddenly finds himself in a bright red and yellow world. As Perfect by Sam i & Tropkillaz begins playing, he joyfully dances through the flowery streets, seemingly restored to happiness.

By the end, he returns to the real world and sees his sadder self. The two exchange comforting glances with each other before the original Pascal walks away down the street.

Highlighting key features

The purpose of the ad is to highlight the active noise cancellation feature in Apple’s AirPods 4. This can cut out background noise, allowing you to focus on whatever it is you are listening to. These also feature a transparency mode that allows some external sounds to be heard so you can conduct a conversation and be more aware of your surroundings.

AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation also come with an Adaptive Audio feature that can automatically change between active noise cancellation and transparency mode without you having to do anything. It doesn’t look like that’s in use in the commercial, though, as Pascal reaches up to manually change the audio mode on his AirPods throughout the short film.

The ad might feel familiar to fans of Apple’s original iPod commercials, which featured silhouetted figures dancing while listening to music on the device.

It’s also not the first time Jonze has directed an Apple ad – in 2018, he worked with the company on a short film titled Welcome Home that was made to promote the HomePod.

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Better and more accurate weather forecasts could soon be a more common occurrence for all of us thanks to a new upgrade from Nvidia.

At its Nvidia GTC 2025 event, the company unveiled the next step along in its plan of using a digital twin of planet Earth to help forecasters build more accurate forecasting models.

The NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint for Earth-2 weather analytics model provide a significant update on the original iteration, announced at GTC 2024, providing more accurate and powerful tools to make forecasts even better.

Better forecasts, faster

Nvidia says severe weather-related events have caused a $2 trillion impact on the global economy over the last decade, and better forecasts could be one way of mitigating this.

It says the NVIDIA Omniverse Blueprint for Earth-2 offers a number of useful tools, including Nvidia GPU acceleration libraries, a physics-AI framework, development tools and microservices to help speed up the process of going from prototyping to production with weather forecast models.

In effect, Nvidia says this should all help developers build solutions that deliver warnings and updated forecasts in seconds, rather than the minutes or hours needed with traditional CPU-driven modeling.

“We’re seeing more extreme weather events and natural disasters than ever, threatening lives and property,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

“The NVIDIA Omiverse Blueprint for Earth-2 will help industries around the world prepare for — and mitigate — climate change and weather-related disasters.”

The platform has already signed up several major climate tech companies including AI company G42, JBA Risk Management, Spire and others.

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• Sennheiser has announced a new premium set of headphones called the HD 550
• It's aimed squarely at audiophiles and gamers
• You can pre-order it now for $299.95 / £249.99

Sennheiser has announced a brand new headphone model specifically geared toward gaming and audiophiles.

The Sennheiser HD 550 open-back headphones are pitched as bringing "a compelling new choice to audiophiles and gamers seeking next-level capability". Sennheiser is talking a big game for the HD 550 too saying that the headphones will boast "sprawling stereo imaging and an ultra-light build, the HD 550 is an open invitation to unpack the lush layers of today’s music and games for hours on end."

In terms of what's under the hood, the HD 550 headphones will feature a custom 38mm transducer, that will offer "exceptional clarity" from 6Hz to 39.5kHz.

And for gaming specifically, Sennheiser says that players will get "superb, lag-free spatial awareness and immersion" from the HD 550. Punchy bass, crystal-clear transients, and neutral mids without straying from the truthful voicing that audiophiles prefer, will also be at the core of the audio the HD 550 can give you in games.

Describing the HD 550s, Sennheiser Audiophile Product Manager Klas Hanselmann says in the official press release: "Audiophiles looking for featherlight headphones with honest voicing and deep bass extension are in for a treat."

Elsewhere, practically speaking, the HD 550 will share the 500 series characteristic of having a modular design, allowing users to swap out cables and earpads easily. It's a wired set of headphones, and comes with a 6ft/1.8m cable, with a 3.5mm jack connection, but also offers extra compatibility by coming with a 6.35mm adapter.

It also only weighs 8.36oz / 237g so comes in lighter than a DualSense Wireless controller, for example, and way lighter than my personal premium gaming headset pick, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless.

The HD 550 comes hot on the heels of the new Sennheiser HD 505 headphones too which we really rated in our full review.

(Image credit: Sennheiser)

It might be obvious, but it's worth noting that these are Sennheiser headphones through and through - not a dip back into full-fledged gaming headsets from the premium audio brand. There's no microphone here, for example, and they are geared toward folks who are after, simply, top-tier audio for their games - as well as the flexibility to choose their own microphone.

Nonetheless, I'm excited about the HD 550 set of headphones. I was a huge fan of some of the last gaming headset models the brand made in the GSP 670s, 370s, and 300s.

While the HD 550s are a very distant relation to such headsets, I'm enormously looking forward to trying something from the brand that is definitively geared towards gaming. Plus, with the HD 550 being wired, it could be an audiophile's dream PS5 headset, Xbox Series X headset, or Nintendo Switch headset.

The Sennheiser HD 550 headphones are available to pre-order at Sennheiser Hearing right now for $299.95 or £249.99.

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• Perplexity AI has launched an ad campaign starring Squid Game actor Lee Jung-jae
• The ad mocks Google, renamed Poogle, as useless compared to Perplexity
• The ad showcases how important AI assistant reliability is to consumers

AI conversational search engine Perplexity is getting as ruthless in its marketing as the judges in Squid Game's eponymous game show. The company has introduced a major celebrity-driven ad campaign featuring Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae and some jabs at Google.

The 90-second spot above portrays Jung-jae playing a game very similar to the Squid Game. First, he must figure out how to get coffee stains out of a white shirt. When he opens the very obvious Google parody Poogle, it responds in typical search engine fashion with a list of blue links.

Realizing that sifting through articles for answers isn’t going to cut it, he panics and asks Perplexity instead. Using its voice model, the AI chatbot provides him with clear, step-by-step guidance.

He next has to ask Perplexity how to make cheese stick to pizza. Perplexity provides the right answer before quipping, “Don’t use glue,” a direct nod to the infamous mistake Google’s AI made in suggesting Elmer’s glue as a potential pizza ingredient.

The ad concludes with Jung-jae being asked to name the first Korean to win an Emmy award, which he doesn't need any help with as he is that actor.

Perplexity pokes at Google

The timing of the ad campaign is no accident, as Netflix’s third and final season of Squid Game is expected to drop in June. The campaign is also part of a yearlong partnership between Perplexity and Artist United, which Jung-jae co-owns. Artist United has also integrated Perplexity into its daily research and content creation operations.

The ad begins running today in the U.S. before rolling out to Korea, Japan, and Europe over the next ten days. Each region will get a localized version of the text and voiceovers, though Jung-jae’s dialogue will remain in Korean.

Perplexity’s strategy with the ad is notable beyond just having a world-famous actor poke fun at the search industry’s biggest player. It suggests that Perplexity grasps that accuracy and reliability are what people care most about when it comes to AI assistants.

If Perplexity can overtake Google's reputation as the go-to online information authority, it would be a major coup. Even seizing on small cracks in Google's place at the top could propel Perplexity above many of its rivals.

Whether Google has the glue to fill in those cracks after making pizza is an open question.

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I love The Simpsons. Even if I criticized the show's decision to keep churning out seasons, I'm a sucker for the classics, and I endured two hours of pain to get Blinky the Fish tattooed on me.

You could say it's a big part of my life, so I am actually quite thrilled by the news that Disney+ is getting a Stream channel that will play non-stop Simpsons episodes.

Considering one of the best Disney+ shows has so many episodes now, 768 – you want to be precise – choosing which one I want to revisit can sometimes take a very long time.

Even when I look at my self-appointed "golden era" between seasons 1 and 12, there are still so many I enjoy revisiting. Now, Disney+ is doing the hard work for me, and I consider that a huge win. I'm excited to tune in and be surprised by whatever episode is showing at the time, ready to relive some iconic moments.

Unfortunately, Streams is only available in the US for now, so UK and Australian subscribers will have to wait for this fun new feature.

How does the Simpsons Stream work?

A post shared by Disney+ (@disneyplus)

A photo posted by on

Instead of navigating The Simpsons library, this stream will continuously play episodes 24/7, and at launch, it's kicking off from season 1 all the way up to new episodes. However, the press release has suggested that the "programming lineup of the stream will be refreshed monthly," implying it will continue to show random episodes or perhaps opt for themed line-ups. (I'd love to see a Treehouse of Horror one, personally!).

Still, it's important to note that season 3, episode 1, Stark Raving Dad, will be omitted from the stream, as Polygon has reported this is per the wishes of Matt Groening and others behind the episode, which the publication has explained in their previous coverage.

This is an exciting addition to one of the best streaming services, and it definitely simplifies the viewing experience by doing the hard work for us. Hopefully putting an end to wasting precious free time scrolling through all the episodes.

Of course, if you'd rather choose for yourself, the episode library will be there on demand as normal.

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• Apple’s first foldable device could have impressive battery life
• That’s according to a new rumor that details Apple’s latest efforts
• It would compete with Samsung’s best foldable on battery life

Apple’s first foldable device appears to be on the way – we got another rumor seemingly confirming that just today – and now a new detail has emerged that could help Apple compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.

According to a Chinese leaker known as Phone Chip Expert (via MacRumors), Apple has been pulling out all the stops to increase the efficiency of its foldable display. That could give it an edge against the best foldable phones in what is a highly competitive market.

To achieve this, Phone Chip Expert claims that Apple has reduced the display driver integrated circuit from 28nm to 16nm. That’s a massive reduction and could significantly impact battery life.

Apple likes to promise that its devices come with “all day battery life,” and when you’re dealing with a large screen like on a foldable product, battery life is key. That makes Phone Chip Expert’s claim seem believable at first glance.

All day battery life

(Image credit: Future)

A move like this makes a lot of sense. After all, a foldable iPhone or MacBook will have a much larger display than its non-foldable siblings, and all that screen real estate can get awfully power-hungry. That’s something we’ve seen in other foldable devices like the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold, which have failed to impress us with their mediocre battery life.

Apple is thought to be building both a foldable iPhone and a MacBook-iPad hybrid with a foldable display. In the case of the former, it’s likely to directly compete with the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, which is rumored to get the same battery capacity as the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

That said, Samsung is apparently working on making its foldable screen more efficient, so it will be fascinating to see which device comes out on top here.

At the moment, most of this is confined to the land of rumors, but it is worth noting that Phone Chip Expert has a reasonably solid track record regarding Apple rumors.

They correctly predicted that Apple would build its own servers to run Apple Intelligence and that the iPhone 15 would continue to use the A15 Bionic chip instead of the newer A16 chip, among other claims.

That doesn’t mean that this latest rumor is nailed on to happen, though. Various sources have claimed that Apple’s first foldable device could arrive in either 2026 or 2027, so we’ll have to wait until then to judge the efficiency and battery life of Apple’s first foldable product.

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• HP Threat Insights Report reveals new malware campaigns
• Victims have their data exfiltrated by a remote access trojan
• Attackers have been observed using fake CAPTCHA verification pages

New research has claimed victims are increasingly infecting themselves with malware thanks to a surge in fake CAPTCHA verification tests - taking advantage of a growing ‘click tolerance’ as users are increasingly accustomed to ‘jumping through hoops to authenticate themselves online.’

This isn’t the first report to flag this attack, with security researchers identifying fake CAPTCHA pages spreading infostealer malware in late 2024, but HP’s latest Threat Insights Report now warns this is on the rise.

Users were commonly directed to attacker-controlled websites, and then pushed to complete convincing but fake authentication challenges.

More campaigns identified

These false CAPTCHAs usually trick users into running malicious PowerShell commands on their device that install a Lumma Stealer remote access trojan - a popular infostealer capable of exfiltrating a wide range of sensitive information, like browser details, email credentials, client data, and even cryptocurrency wallets.

Fake CAPTCHA spreading wasn’t the only threat uncovered, with attackers also able to access end-users webcams and microphones in concerning attacks spread via social engineering attacks, primarily using open source RAT and XenoRat to control devices, exfiltrate data, and log keystrokes.

Alongside this, attackers were observed delivering malicious JavaScript code “inside Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) images to evade detection”. These images are opened “by default” in browsers, and the embedded code is executed, “offering redundancy and monetization opportunities for the attacker” thanks to the remote access tools.

"A common thread across these campaigns is the use of obfuscation and anti-analysis techniques to slow down investigations," said Patrick Schläpfer, Principal Threat Researcher in the HP Security Lab.

“Even simple but effective defence evasion techniques can delay the detection and response of security operations teams, making it harder to contain an intrusion. By using methods like direct system calls, attackers make it tougher for security tools to catch malicious activity, giving them more time to operate undetected – and compromise victims endpoints."

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Nvidia has unveiled a dozen new GPUs at its GTC 2025 event, the company's biggest launch in two years.

Based on the Blackwell architecture, the newcomers use the RTX Pro moniker to differentiate themselves from the previous generations (Ada Lovelace, Ampere, and Turing) and, from their consumer breathens.

The flagship models are three RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPU variants with 96GB ECC GDDR7 memory and up to 4000 AI TOPS performance - twice the amount of memory in its former performance champion, the RTX 6000 and a staggering 4x the RTX 5090, the best GPU on the consumer market has to offer.

Nvidia GPU launches

Alongside the standard Workstation Edition, Nvidia also introduced the Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition and the Server Edition.

The latter is the successor to the L40 Data Center GPU series, bringing some much-needed consistency to the GPU nomenclature.

As for the Max-Q Workstation Edition, it remains a bit of a mystery. Nvidia launched Max-Q technology back in 2017 and this is usually associated with laptop GPUs trying to achieve maximum efficiency.

However, workstation PCs rarely aim for optimal energy consumption except perhaps in power-constrained environments like small form factor mini PCs.

Three other professional desktop GPUs were also introduced: the Pro 5000, Pro 4500 and Pro 4000, which will be available starting May 2025.

Given past product launch cycles, I expect more models focusing on the entry-level and mainstream parts of the market, to be launched by the end of 2025.

Six new laptop GPUs were also launched, all of them carrying the RTX Pro naming convention and, confusingly enough, some having the same name as their desktop counterparts.

The RTX Pro 5000 Blackwell is the new laptop flagship GPU with 24GB ECC GDDR7 memory; other models include the 4000, 3000, 2000, 1000, and 500 series and should directly replace their respective “Ada Generation” part.

All these parts will be available from OEM partners in mobile workstations starting in June 2025.

We’ll strive to update this article when further details of the cards (including pricing) are published.

Nvidia’s GTC Keynote also saw the formal launch of DGX Spark, formerly known as Project Digits, the DGX station and Blackwell Ultra (or GB300), Nvidia’s most powerful GPU ever.

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A surprising announcement at Nvidia GTC 2025 was the launch of the DGX station, a powerful supercomputer-class workstation PC that looks a lot like a traditional tower computer but with an Arm-based CPU inside.

This is not the first workstation Nvidia launched; it famously partnered with AMD to launch the precursor to the 2025 DGX Station called the DGX Station A100.

That one didn't have a Nvidia Arm CPU and needed separate PCIe AI accelerators (A100); the 2025 iteration doesn't. It also carried a price of more than $100,000 at launch.

Nvidia DGX Station

Nvidia confirmed that Asus, Boxx, Dell, HP, Lambda and Supermicro will sell their own versions of the DGX Station: the big name missing out is Lenovo.

The GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip that powers it delivers up to “20 PFlops of AI performance” which is likely to be measured using FP4 with sparsity.

That would also infer that it is half the performance of GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, so something’s not clear here and I wonder whether there’s more than one version of the GB300.

Nvidia hasn’t said how many or what type of (Arm) CPU cores the GB300 uses; ditto for the GPU subsystem.

Its predecessor, GH200, had 72 Arm Neoverse 2 CPU cores clocked at 3.1GHz, up to 144GB HBMe memory and 480GB LPDDR5x memory.

What we do know is that it has 784GB of unified system memory, which one can assume means HBM (288GB HBM3e) plus what Nvidia calls Fast Memory (496GB LPDDR5x most probably).

The original DGX Station (Image credit: Nvidia) Fastest NIC in a computer

Nvidia also disclosed the DGX Station will use its proprietary ConnectX-8 SuperNIC, a network technology that can deliver up to a staggering data center-class 800Gb/s connectivity.

A close-up of the opened chassis shows the workstation has three forward-facing 120mm fans, a motherboard with three PCIe slots, an Nvidia-branded soldered chip (perhaps the SuperNic), and two large uncovered dies.

One of which is the Grace GPU and the other with eight distinct tiles, the Blackwell GPU.

No details about expansion or storage capabilities, the PSU capacity, the cooling solution used or the price have been revealed.

Additionally, we do not know whether you will be able to plug in accelerator cards like the H200 NVL (or a theoretical B300 NVL) to significantly improve the performance of the DGX Station.

The DGX station is expected to compete with the likes of the Camino Grando, an EPYC-powered tower workstation that packs two AMD CPUs and up to eight GPUs.

We’ll strive to update this article when further details of this workstation PC (including pricing and availability) are published.

Nvidia’s GTC Keynote also saw the formal launch of DGX Spark, formerly known as Project Digits, 12 new professional GPUs and Blackwell Ultra (or GB300), Nvidia’s most powerful GPU ever.

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We're at that stage in the month where we're having to prepare ourselves for the next wave of movies that Hulu will be removing from its catalog.

But it looks like April is shaping up to be frightfully different compared to Hulu's previous lists. It's almost impossible to say but, I think this is the shortest 'leaving' list I've ever seen – and that's across all the best streaming services, not just Hulu.

A mere nine titles are getting the chop from Hulu this month, including seven movies and two documentaries, so it's a pleasure for me to say that Hulu's best movies and best TV shows have gained an extra life with their time on the platform. Have I heard of any of them? Never in my life – that's when you know you're not missing out on much.

But what's more exciting are the brand new movies and shows that are being added to Hulu in April – indeed, we're most excited for the arrival of the sixth and final season of The Handmaid's Tale, even if we must say our final goodbyes.

Everything leaving Hulu in April 2025

Leaving on April 6

Agnes (movie)

Leaving on April 13

She Will (movie)

Leaving on April 16

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (documentary)

Leaving on April 20

Totally Under Control (documentary)

Leaving on April 24

The Good Neighbor (movie)

Leaving on April 27

Resurrection (movie)

Leaving on April 30

After Everything (movie)
Code Name Banshee (movie)
Stars Fell Again (movie)

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• Nvidia unveils Blackwell Ultra at GTC 2025
• New flagship GPU offers more power and efficiency than previous generations
• There's also a new Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition designed for enterprise workloads

Nvidia has taken the wraps off its latest Blackwell Ultra flagship GPU hardware as it looks to assert its place as the global leader in AI computing.

Revealed at its Nvidia GTC event in San Jose, the new Blackwell Ultra hardware offers more power and efficiency in the data center than previous generations as the company looks to establish itself as the backbone of future AI development and deployment.

Declaring it to be "built for the age of AI reasoning", Nvidia says Blackwell Ultra can help democratize AI adoption across the world, making it possible for more organizations to enjoy the benefits such compute can bring.

Nvidia Blackwell Ultra

Nvidia noted that the rapid growth of AI use cases around the world in the past few years has led for a huge demand for compute, as businesses and consumers alike clamour for more.

“AI has made a giant leap — reasoning and agentic AI demand orders of magnitude more computing performance,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

“We designed Blackwell Ultra for this moment — it’s a single versatile platform that can easily and efficiently do pretraining, post-training and reasoning AI inference.”

The increase in reasoning models in particular has led for a boom in requirements for a full-stack offering that is cost-effective but also gets the job done.

Built on the initial Blackwell architecture unveiled at GTC 2024, Blackwell Ultra will offer 1.5x more FP4 inference, and are set to be available ind evices built by Nvidia partners in the second half of 2025.

It will be present in a host of new offerings from Nvidia, including the upgraded GB300 NVL72 rack, which it says offers improved energy efficiency and serviceability, with bandwidth speeds of up to 130Tb/s.

Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition

However that wasn't all when it comes to new Blackwell hardware, as the company also revealed the Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition, designed for enterprise workloads such as multimodal AI inference, immersive content creation and scientific computing.

Nvidia says the new release offers huge advances on the previous-generation Ada Lovelace architecture L40S GPU, providing up to 5x higher LLM inference throughput for agentic AI applications, nearly 7x faster genomics sequencing, 3.3x speedups for text-to-video generation, nearly 2x faster inference for recommender systems and over 2x speedups for rendering.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Each RTX PRO 6000 can also be partitioned into as many as four fully isolated instances with 24GB each to run simultaneous AI and graphics workloads, with 96GB of ultrafast GDDR7 memory and support for multi-instance GPU.

They can also be configured in high-density accelerated computing platforms for distributed inference workloads — or used to deliver virtual workstations using Nvidia vGPU software, for graphics-intensive applications or to power AI development.

"With the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition, enterprises across various sectors —including architecture, automotive, cloud services, financial services, game development, healthcare, manufacturing, media and entertainment and retail — can enable breakthrough performance for workloads such as multimodal generative AI, data analytics, engineering simulation, and visual computing," noted Nvidia's Sandeep Gupte.

Nvidia has taken the world a step closer to smart, humanoid robots with the launch of its latest advanced AI model.

At its Nvidia GTC 2025 event, the company revealed Isaac GROOT N1, which it says is, "the world’s first open Humanoid Robot foundation model", alongside several other important development tools.

Nvidia says its tools, which are available now, will make developing smarter and more functional robots easier than ever, along with allowing them to have more humanoid reasoning and skills - which doesn't sound terrifying at all.

Isaac GROOT N1

“The age of generalist robotics is here,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “With NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1 and new data-generation and robot-learning frameworks, robotics developers everywhere will open the next frontier in the age of AI.”

The company says its robotics work can help fill a shortfall of more than 50 million caused by a global labor shortage.

Nvidia says Isaac GROOT N1, which can be trained on real or synthetic data, can "easily" master tasks such as grasping, moving objects with either a single or multiple arms, and moving items from one arm to the other - but can also carry out multi-step tasks which combine a number of general skills.

The model is built across a dual-system architecture inspired by the principles of human cognition, with “System 1” is a fast-thinking action model, mirroring human reflexes or intuition, whereas “System 2” is a slow-thinking model for "deliberate, methodical decision-making."

Powered by a vision language model, System 2 is able to consider and analyze its environment, and the instructions it was given, to plan actions - which are then translated by System 1 into precise, continuous robot movements.

Among the other tools being released are a range of simulation frameworks and blueprints such as the NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Blueprint for generating synthetic data, which help generate large, detailed synthetic data sets needed for robot development which would be prohibitively expensive to gather in real life.

There is also Newton, an open source physics engine, created alongside Google DeepMind and Disney Research, which Nvidia says is purpose-built for developing robots.

Huang was joined on stage by Star Wars-inspired BDX droids during his GTC keynote, showing the possibilities of the technology in theme parks or other entertainment locations.

Nvidia first launched Project GROOT ("Generalist Robot 00 Technology") at GTC 2024, primarily focusing on industrial use cases, which could learn and become smarter by watching human behaviour, understanding natural language and emulating movements, allowing them to quickly learn coordination, dexterity and other skills in order to navigate, adapt and interact with the real world.

Amazon is turning off the ability to process voice requests locally. It's a seemingly major privacy pivot and one that some Alexa users might not appreciate. However, this change affects exactly three Echo devices and only if you actively enabled Do Not Send Voice Recordings in the Alexa app settings.

Right. It's potentially not that big of a deal and, to be fair, the level of artificial intelligence Alexa+ is promising, let alone the models it'll be using, all but precludes local processing. It's pretty much what Daniel Rausch, Amazon's VP of Alexa and Echo, told us when he explained that these queries would be encrypted, sent to the cloud, and then processed by Amazon's and partner Antrhopic's AI models at servers far, far away.

That's what's happening, but let's unpack the general freakout.

After Amazon sent an email to customers, actually only those it seems who own an Echo Dot 4, Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen), and Echo Show 15, that the option to have Alexa voice queries processed on device would end on March 28, some in the media cried foul.

They had a point: Amazon didn't have the best track record when it comes to protecting your privacy. In 2019, there were reports of Amazon employees listening to customer recordings. Later, there were concerns that Amazon might hold onto recordings of, say, you yelling at Alexa because it didn't play the right song.

Amazon has since cleaned up its data act with encryption and, with this latest update, promises to delete your recordings from its servers.

A change for the few

(Image credit: Future)

This latest change, though, sounded like a step back because it takes away a consumer control, one that some might've been using to keep their voice data off Amazon's servers.

However, the vast majority of Echo devices out there aren't even capable of on-device voice processing, which is why most of them didn't even have this control.

A few years ago, Amazon published a technical paper on its efforts to bring "On-device speech processing" to Echo devices. They were doing so to put "processing on the edge," and reduce latency and bandwidth consumption.

Turns out it wasn't easy – Amazon described it as a massive undertaking. The goal was to put automatic speech recognition, whisper detection, and speech identification locally on a tiny, relatively low-powered smart speaker system. Quite a trick, considering that in the cloud, each process ran "on separate server nodes with their own powerful processors."

The paper goes into significant detail, but suffice it to say that Amazon developers used a lot of compression to get Alexa's relatively small AI models to work on local hardware.

It was always the cloud

In the end, the on-device audio processing was only available on those three Echo models, but there is a wrinkle here.

The specific feature Amazon is disabling, "Do Not Send Voice Recordings," never precluded your prompts from being handled in the Amazon cloud.

The processing power that these few Echos had was not to handle the full Alexa query locally. Instead, the silicon was used to recognize the wake word ("Alexa"), record the voice prompt, use voice recognition to make a text transcription of the prompt, and send that text to Amazon's cloud, where the AI acts on it and sends a response.

The local audio is then deleted.

Big models need cloud-based power

(Image credit: Amazon)

Granted, this is likely how everyone would want their Echo and Alexa experience to work. Amazon gets the text it needs but not the audio.

But that's not how the Alexa experience works for most Echo owners. I don't know how many people own those particular Echo models, but there are almost two dozen different Echo devices, and this affects just three of them.

Even if those are the most popular Echos, the change only affects people who dug into Alexa settings to enable "Do Not Send Voice Recordings." Most consumers are not making those kinds of adjustments.

This brings us back to why Amazon is doing this. Alexa+ is a far smarter and more powerful AI with generative, conversational capabilities. Its ability to understand your intentions may hinge not only on what you say, but your tone of voice.

It's true that even though your voice data will be encrypted in transit, it surely has to be decrypted in the cloud for Alexa's various models to interpret and act on it. Amazon is promising safety and security, and to be fair, when you talk to ChatGPT Voice and Gemini Live, their cloud systems are listening to your voice, too.

When we asked Amazon about the change, here's what they told us:

“The Alexa experience is designed to protect our customers’ privacy and keep their data secure, and that’s not changing. We’re focusing on the privacy tools and controls that our customers use most and work well with generative AI experiences that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud. Customers can continue to choose from a robust set of tools and controls, including the option to not save their voice recordings at all. We’ll continue learning from customer feedback, and building privacy features on their behalf.”

For as long as the most impactful models remain too big for local hardware, this will be the reality of our Generative AI experience. Amazon is simply falling into line in preparation for Alexa+.

It's not great news, but also not the disaster and privacy and data safety nightmare it's made out to be.

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• Write-once memory card offers tamper-proof, long-term data storage
• TeamGroup’s 256GB D500R WORM SD card can store up to 374 CDs’ worth of data
• Built-in protection features guard against power loss, damage and tampering

CDs and DVDs are (or rather were) great for storage, but they can be affected by disc rot, a form of physical deterioration that affects optical discs, causing them to become unreadable over time due to corrosion or damage to the reflective layer. If you have a lot of important data stored on discs and are worried about losing it, TeamGroup has a solution to your fears – the D500R ISD WORM SD card.

Shown off at Embedded World 2025 (where it won the Embedded Vision category's top honor and the 2025 Community Choice Award), the D500R WORM card uses Write Once, Read Many technology for non-erasable, tamper-proof, long-term data retention storage.

The D500R ISD uses MLC NAND Flash, which offers better durability and steady performance, and promises read and write speeds of up to 70MB/s and 65MB/s. It supports capacities from 8GB to 256GB. That largest card is big enough to store data from around 374 CDs, so it can likely back up all your discs easily.

Seals the data in place

As you can tell from the description, the card can be read many times, but only written to once. Via a combination of hardware design and firmware control, the D500R ISD seals the data in place and ensures it can’t be deleted, overwritten, or updated. This makes it useful for users who require lasting data protection without the risk of accidental changes or even malicious tampering from ransomware.

The card includes features like Power Fail Management, which helps preserve data in the event of an unexpected power cut, and Bad Block Management, which detects and isolates faulty storage sectors, helping extend the product’s lifespan.

It also has a built-in S.M.A.R.T system that tracks usage and sends alerts if an attempt is made to alter or delete the data in some way.

Built to withstand demanding environments, it meets multiple military-grade shock and vibration standards and is rated IP58 for dust and water resistance.

TeamGroup suggests it could be useful for law enforcement footage, medical records, or financial archives, but it could be used for backing up family photos and videos or company data.

While it’s clearly a great solution for long-term archival storage, it’s probably worth noting that the D500R WORM card is a lot easier to lose than a box of CDs or DVDs, so you might want to think about where you’ll keep it. There’s also no word on pricing yet, but it's fair to assume it won’t be cheap.

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Saturday Night Live is one of the most iconic pieces of programming in TV history, and it’s currently in its 50th season. To celebrate that achievement, NBC and showrunners, including Lorne Michaels, planned, produced, and executed well – all live – the SNL 50th Anniversary Special, which aired a few weeks back on February 16, 2025.

Rather than firing up a classic TV antenna or opting for my Hulu live TV subscription, I decided to open up Peacock, using an Apple TV 4K – one of the best streaming devices – to ultimately watch the anniversary special. It’s not the first time I’ve turned to the NBC-owned streaming service to watch a live event, that honor goes to the Summer 2024 Paris Olympics, in which I also used the multiview functionality to watch multiple competitions at once.

This time around, I was greeted with an SNL 50 overlay and could jump right into the live broadcast of the show with a single click. For those wondering, I hopped in about midway through the opening with Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter on one of the best streaming services.

(Image credit: Peacock)

The stream began without a hitch and looked pretty sharp if I do say so myself. I also didn’t encounter stutters or a stoppage in the stream, and I didn’t even see commercials either – rather, I was presented with a text along the lines of “the SNL 50th Anniversary would resume soon” with the theme song playing on a loop and various glam shoots of the acclaimed 8H studio where the show tapes.

It was a nice experience for a live-stream event, an easy way to watch the 50th special without the need for a linear TV experience, and it went off pretty much without a hitch. Something that the linear broadcast for some didn’t as the special ran over. Even so, 14.8 million viewers across Peacock and NBC (linear TV) watched the special either live or within the same day. That makes it NBC’s most primetime event in the last five years, besting the Golden Globes.

Peacock has a sort of special sauce in the streaming service sector – yes, it’s a new offering since its premiere in 2020, but it’s backed by NBC, which has been in the business of live TV and events rolling in real time for years. The streaming service also knows how to curate its backlog of content with other elements and live events. We saw back with the Paris Olympics the ability to watch each individual category, a few of them together in multiview, and a trove of new content, including Snoop Dog at the games and a show hosted by Alex Cooper.

The SNL 50 takeover was a similar feat, which had a goal of letting fans reach the content they wanted – be it all the episodes from the 50th season or previous ones, specially-released documentaries, or even the SNL 50 Homecoming Concert, which also streamed live on Peacock. We’ll also see a similar takeover come March 21, 2025, when Wicked hits Peacock and begins streaming for all subscribers of the service.

Building a platform that supports the highest levels of performance

Speaking to TechRadar, Patrick Miceli, CTO of global streaming and the NBCU Media Group, said that since Peacock’s inception, “we’ve invested in building a platform and technical infrastructure that supports the highest levels of performance, security, and reliability to deliver a seamless and incomparable experience for our customers.”

(Image credit: Theo Wargo/NBC)

Miceli further noted that even with the complexities of live-streaming, Peacock has “achieved a 100% success rate in video quality and reliability on our NFL and Olympics coverage last year”. This comes as other services, including Netflix with the Logan Paul vs Mike Tyson fight, have struggled to keep streams afloat with heavy audience demand.

Suffice to say, Peacock and NBC at large felt confident going into the weekend with the Olympics, NFL games, and other events, including the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the history books. Still, Miceli shared, “we do still spend a lot of time preparing for each event, accounting for a variety of different scenarios to ensure we’re ready for anything”.

I was impressed with Peacock’s performance, and countless others shared that the stream was a top performer on social media using the hashtag #SNL50. Given the performance here, I’m keen to see what kind of package Peacock curates for future specials, live events like the next Olympics, and NBA games, which will hit the streaming service in 2025.

Of course, even though it’s not live, I’ll still head to Peacock whenever I need my Bravo fix like Summer House, reruns of Vanderpump Rules, or a rewatch of a timeless classic with SNL alums Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation).

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• A teaser for Severance season 2's final episode has been released online
• The clip shows a white goat being transported down one of Lumon's hallways in a trolley
• Apple's most popular TV Original hasn't revealed what they're being used for

We're nearly there, folks. The final episode of Severance season 2 is almost upon us – and, to celebrate (or should that be commiserate?), Apple has released an incredibly brief teaser for the forthcoming finale.

And when I say brief, I really mean it. The teaser, if it can even be called that, is a five-second clip that shows a white goat being wheeled down one of Lumon's sterile hallways via a trolley. The little guy bleats a couple of times while they're being taken... somewhere, too, and they don't sound like happy bleats to me. If anything happens to him, Lumon, my 'innie' and 'outie' will come for you!

Season finale Friday.#Severance pic.twitter.com/yf0wGtZTYsMarch 18, 2025

The 10th and final installment of Severance's second season is one of the most hotly anticipated episodes of the year so far. Indeed, the sci-fi mystery thriller series is now considered to be an even more popular Apple TV Original than its sibling Ted Lasso. Understandably, then, excitement is slowly building ahead of its debut on Apple TV+ later this week.

Many fans, myself included, will be hoping that season 2 episode 10 finally answers some of our biggest questions about the show, too. I've spent the last nine weeks poring over every one of season 2's episodes, coming up with new theories about this engrossing alternate reality to our own, and speculating on where the story will go next.

While I don't agree with some viewers that season 2's pacing has been off, then, I am ready for the show's creative team to pull back the veil on some of Severance's biggest mysteries. That includes why Lumon's Mammalian Nurturables division has been hand-rearing goats and what the nefarious buitech company is going to use them for. Fans have come up with plenty of theories about the goats and Im curious to see if any of these five intriguing theories about the goats will be proven correct.

Our last check-in with Lumon's goats took place in season 2 episode 3 (Image credit: Apple TV+)

Anyway, with the next episode of one of the best Apple TV+ shows set to arrive on March 20 (US) and March 21 (UK and Australia), we've got a few more days – at the time of publication – to wait for its release.

While we do so, read up on my latest Severance theories in my season 2 episode 9 recap piece, or read the section below for more of my coverage around the show in general.

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• Quantum computers could crack encryption, putting even printers at risk
• HP’s new models include chips to resist quantum-level firmware attacks
• They also support Zero Trust and early-stage BIOS protection

Quantum computing is widely seen as the next major leap in technology, but also poses a security threat, as it could break the encryption systems which protect everything from online banking to government data.

The idea that vast amounts of sensitive information could be cracked in seconds by a future quantum machine is understandably a big concern, and even printers could be at risk - and to address this issue, HP has announced what it calls the world’s first printers designed to protect against such attacks.

The new 8000 Series of A3 printers, including the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise MFP 8801, Mono MFP 8601, and LaserJet Pro Mono SFP 8501 (which can output up to 70ppm), include updated ASIC chips designed with quantum-resistant cryptography, which HP says also allow digital signature verification for firmware protection.

Updated ASIC chips

“Without quantum resilience, a printer facing a quantum attack at the firmware level would be fully exposed through malicious firmware updates, giving the attacker stealthy, persistent and total control of the device," the company said.

HP also claims the hardware is designed to secure BIOS and early-stage firmware, limiting the risk of manipulation through fake updates. The new models take zero trust security approaches too, helping companies manage their print fleets more securely.

There's no word on pricing or availability of the new printers yet, but this move follows HP’s earlier introduction of business PCs with firmware protection against quantum threats. The company said it plans to apply quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms across both its PC and printer product lines.

HP also notes because many print contracts run for several years, businesses should consider this timeline in their next purchasing decisions to avoid future compliance gaps.

While quantum computing it’s still some way off achieving its full potential, the likes of Google and Microsoft have made a number of breakthroughs in this field.

Most recently, Microsoft took the wraps off Majorana 1, its first-of-its-kind quantum chip with topological core architecture.

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After years of leaks, occasional singles and rare live appearances, rap phenomenon Playboi Carti has released his third studio album. Simply titled MUSIC, the record set the internet and fan circles ablaze when it appeared on streaming services on March 14 – but less than a week on, keen-eared fans suspect something’s not quite right.

To say the impact of MUSIC has been massive so far would be an understatement. Opening track POP OUT has already racked up more than 10 million streams on Spotify, and the album ropes in collaborators from the scene’s highest echelon – legends from Carti’s hometown of Atlanta including Future and Young Thug, pop superstars such as The Weeknd, plus of course rap heavyweight Kendrick Lamar, who checks in for not one, but three guest appearances.

This didn’t stop fans from scrutinizing every second of the album, though – quite the opposite. With so few releases and appearances in the past few years, Carti’s massive fanbase took to the new record like fresh water in the desert, ripping through its 30 tracks and immediately posting reactions and discussions to online platforms like Reddit.

Carti – real name Jordan Carter – is no stranger to controversy, but the release of MUSIC sparked an altogether new debate. Fans began to suspect the presence of AI vocals throughout the long-awaited album; specifically alleging Carti used AI to mimic his own voice, with some suggesting that The Weeknd’s feature verses may have been altered too.

To clarify, I mostly found Reddit threads debating whether two tracks on the album (RATHER LIE and FINE ****), utilize AI, with commenters sitting on both sides of the argument. “Genuinely pathetic” says user dat_grue, while user whatsongisdat says “who cares it’s mid either way”.

Whatever you make of it, using AI is a pretty stark allegation for an artist whose only instrument is his voice. With so much of rap music’s history based in the authenticity and honesty of individual MCs and with Carti taking so long to supposedly work on this new record, any suggestion of using AI to take a shortcut was bound to cause an uproar.

Playboi Carti has been a mainstream staple for almost a decade (Image credit: Wojciech Pędzich / Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution / Cropped and resized) RATHER LIE?

Now, I’ve been pretty vocal about my distaste for AI, especially generative AI. I find it totally backwards to hand creative work – perhaps the defining ability of humanity – to totally automated processes.

I’m not saying AI can’t be used as a tool for legitimate artistry. Stem separation, where songs are split into their instrument parts with extremely reactive and sophisticated EQ and volume changes for more streamlined sampling, is one great example. But as a replacement? No thanks. If these rumors turn out to be true, I’d feel let down that one of the most popular artists in the world, one with major label backing, has been allowed to take the easy route.

With that all said, it’s not really the potential inclusion of AI that truly unsettles me in this case – it’s that I don’t think I’d be able to tell the difference.

And right now, no artist (or producer) is obliged to disclose whether what we're hearing was ever actually uttered from our beloved artist's mouths, or played by their hands.

AI text, image, and video generators have worked their way into public view over the past few years – Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion and DALL.E are fairly well known examples. However, the presence of AI in music is increasingly part of the conversation – and part of production – even if the technologies behind it are substantially less well known.

In August 2024, I came across a new single from dance music producer Dan Snaith under his Caribou alias titled Volume, a rework of the iconic house track Pump Up The Volume by MARRS. What I didn’t know beforehand, or indeed realise until I read it elsewhere, was that the female vocal that glides through the background of Caribou’s version is, in fact, Dan Snaith singing into an AI processor.

I was stunned – firstly by how natural everything sounded, and then by the fact that, despite considering myself a tech-savvy music lover, I hadn’t sensed something was even different about this vocal.

It’s a similar story with MUSIC. When I first came across these AI accusations, I did a mental scan of the album and found… nothing. Even now, nothing seems particularly out of place against Carti’s characteristically chaotic delivery and already machinic production. I just wouldn’t be able to tell.

Caribou's Dan Snaith on stage with the project's live band (Image credit: Shutterstock / Christian Bertrand) GOOD CREDIT

At this point, you may be asking why people should care – whether or not AI is used on MUSIC, the end result probably sounds the same. However, I think forgiving its use so easily could set a dangerous precedent.

As my TechRadar colleague Rowan Davies recently reported, a coalition of more than 1,000 musicians recently released an album consisting of silence and studio ambience to protest the growing threat AI poses to music and the music industry.

The silent album, titled Is This What We Want?, protests proposed UK legislation that would allow AI developers to appropriate copyrighted music for the sake of training AI, effectively bypassing the rights of the musicians to be reimbursed and recognized for their contribution to the eventual output.

Enmeshing AI with the music itself would make it a whole lot harder to make for the music industry to resist the rising tide of consumption and redistribution that happens when AI takes from existing material. If you ask me, AI cannot be inspired – it lacks the human capacity to create and therefore cannot be considered to make anything legitimately new. As such, involving AI in the creation of music is damaging not only to musicians’ already tight pockets, but their role in society too.

At the very least, I’d like to see some kind of mandatory warning label on streaming services, like the “E” icon that marks songs with explicit language, to denote the use of AI in a track. This would still require self-reporting from artists and labels, but it’s the best I can imagine platforms like Spotify and Apple Music having the capacity to implement.

I’m expecting Playboi Carti to scoop up plenty of great reviews and possibly some awards for MUSIC. To myself and others raised on SoundCloud rap and the mid-pandemic hyperpop explosion, it’s the first genuinely monolithic record of the year. I just hope these rumors of using AI vocals are proven to be just that, rumors and nothing more, for the sake of the music industry at large.

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