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We did the math to figure out how much your monthly student loan payments could increase after the federal forbearance ends.

Battle Nations is a hybrid base builder and grid-based combat game that feels just as fresh now as it did 10 years ago.

• Sphotonix’s 5D optical storage media has appeared on the latest installment of Mission Impossible
• A rare feat for a new product, its appearance is central to the movie plot
• Like Microsoft Silica, it uses silica based material to store up to 360TB per glass platter

Storage startup Sphotonix has landed itself a money-can’t-buy starring role in the big-budget Hollywood movie "Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning," where it ended up being part of the actual scenario rather than a disposable, forgettable prop.

(No spoiler alerts) In it, its core product, a 5D optical storage media is used to store a critical element of the movie plot, potentially for billions of years.

Having been used to back up the full human genome in January 2025, we know that it can store up to 360TB on a 5-inch rectangular glass platter and uses a proprietary laser-based nano etching technology called FemtoEtch.

That's far more than the largest SSD (the 122.88TB Solidigm P5-5336) or HDD (36TB models from Seagate or WD) currently on the market – more about how the technology works is in the promotional video below.

Other exotic storage competitors that want to rival cold storage, archiving media such as LTO tape, include ceramic (Cerabyte), Silicium (Microsoft Silica), DNA (Biomemory, Catalog), optical disc (Folio photonics, Optera Data).

This is a tough market as witnessed through the demise of Sony's legacy 5.5TB ODA media, but experts agree: the rapacious appetite of AI for bytes, at rest or on the move, has changed the dynamics of the ecosystem.

The worldwide enterprise information archiving market will balloon to more than $17 billion by 2031, according to research published by Verified Market Research in 2024.

SPhotonix expects that by 2028, the world will produce almost 400 Zettabytes of data, with thousands of data centres globally gobbling more than 1000TWh of power.

The storage startup was founded upon over 30 years of research by its Chief Science Officer, Prof. Kazansky, at the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Center.

I reached out to SPhotonix to find out more about the performance and other related specs of the media, as well as any meaningful time frames and prices.

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You used to have to opt in to see AI summaries of your messages, but now it will be turned on in certain instances.

• Echo Hunter is a new, fully AI-generated sci-fi short film created using Arcana AI
• The cast is SAG-AFTRA actors led by Breckin Meyer
• The film blends traditional voice performances with AI-rendered visuals

There’s a memorable moment in the new sci-fi short film Echo Hunter where a clone hunter starts questioning his place in a morally bankrupt world with blurred lines between man and machine. It feels particularly pointed since AI models generate all of the footage for Echo Hunter.

Echo Hunter was created by Arcana Labs and written and directed by filmmaker Kavan Cardoza (better known as “Kavan the Kid”). However, unlike any other major AI-produced film, it features a fully unionized cast of SAG-AFTRA actors. You can see a bit of how it came together in the behind-the-scenes video below, but there are a few key things to know about Echo Hunter and its AI origins.

Real film with real actors

Clocking in at under 30 minutes, Echo Hunter isn’t just a tech demo; it's an actual story with a narrative, cohesive visual style, and directorial control. The plot isn't exactly unique; shades of Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and The Matrix are hard to avoid in a story about a clone hunter in a dystopian future who begins to unravel when memories of a forgotten life start surfacing. Existential thrillers with sci-fi flavor and a moody synth score are familiar, but the entire thing being generated using AI models is not.

Arcana Labs developed the eponymous AI model behind the film. The idea was to demonstrate that a high-quality movie could be made without hundreds of millions of dollars and a year in Atlanta. The director and his team fed performance data, audio, and prompts into the system, and Arcana AI did the heavy lifting of designing visuals, rendering scenes, and creating a coherent movie.

Echo Hunter's producers are keen to say they aren't trying to replace actors or sidestep their union. Breckin Meyer leads a fully paid-up group of union performers, including Taylor John Smith, Danielle Bisutti, Gedeon Burkhard, Hanna Balicki, and Xander Bailey. Their voices, performances, and likenesses are central to the experience. Their voices are attached to AI-generated virtual versions of themselves.

Kavan collaboration

If Kavan the Kid rings any bells, you may be familiar with his pioneering experiments with AI-produced short films. He's gone viral with very unauthorized but still impressive-looking shorts like Star Wars: The Ghost Apprentice and Batman: A Face of Clay, each seen by millions of people and propelling him to notoriety for AI-based filmmaking, for better or worse. Echo Hunter fits well with both his style and technical expertise, which makes sense since he both directed and wrote the film.

But it's far from a one-man show this time. Arcana produced Echo Hunter in collaboration with Phantom X, with Arcana co-founder Jonathan Yunger as executive producer. Counting them and the cast, it's still a fraction of the hundreds of people necessary for an equivalent production without AI. Arcana argues this is a positive as it reduces the amount of money and resources that prevent filmmakers from making the kinds of movies they want to make.

But, while it's good that the cast is unionized and paid and treated accordingly, it raises questions about the future of the many other hard-working and talented people who make epic, large-scale films. That's something to consider, even if AI flawlessly executed filmmaking requests every time without plenty of the finessing and fine-tuning that made Echo Hunter look as good as it does.

Future films

And Echo Hunter, flaws and all, shows that this isn't a far-off theoretical question to consider. Studios won't shut down all their productions in favor of AI-created films (with or without human actors) tomorrow or even in the next few years, but there's no way meetings about doing so aren't happening. The ethical implications are real and worth wrestling with, but on the optimistic side, smaller, independent creators now have a lot more options for making films without spending half a million dollars for a five-second shot of a futuristic skyline. And lack of corporate coffers doesn't have to stop a Phoenix-based director from adding rain-slicked streets to their noir film.

Including real actors in the union does show that synthetic productions aren't automatically soulless. The human performances, writing, and direction are what make the film engaging. Some might argue that AI just helps fill in the blanks between the dream and the budget. And no AI could perfectly mimic how one of the stars from Franklin & Bash delivers an emotional monologue about lost identity in a clone apocalypse.

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The extreme sport of ultrarunning is known for seemingly impossible feats. But Stephanie Case's recent performance — six months after giving birth — is making waves far beyond the running community.

(Image credit: Rich Gill)

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Existing evidence on the safety and efficacy of getting a COVID vaccine in pregnancy all points the same way: the shot is important for maternal and fetal health.

Food aid is moldering in warehouses in Jordan, the main hub for humanitarian aid to Gaza. Other foods and medicines are loaded on trucks that have waited for months at Israeli border crossings.

(Image credit: Abed Rahim)

The company anticipates 170 orbital launches for the rest of the year, shooting past its record-setting 134 launches in 2024.

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• Silicon Motion SM2324 9mm chip powers external SSDs with up to 32TB and
• It promises true USB4 speeds of 4,000MB/s
• Built for filmmakers and backup warriors, this chip supports Apple Pro workflows

Silicon Motion has revealed a potentially transformative piece of storage tech at Computex 2025: the SM2324, a single-chip USB4 SSD controller aimed at powering external drives with up to 32TB of storage and read speeds of 4,000MB/s.

The company says the SM2324 combines native USB4 support with an integrated Power Delivery controller, meaning fewer parts, reduced costs for OEMs, and more compact SSD enclosures.

This could, in theory, usher in a new class of ultra-high-capacity portable drives -though affordability and availability are still big questions.

A compact controller built for scale and cross-platform use

Unlike multi-chip designs, it’s built to simplify production without compromising on performance, thanks to sequential write speeds that can reach 3,809MB/s -assuming cooling is adequate.

It also offers full support for 3D TLC and QLC NAND, as well as compatibility with Power Delivery 3.1, and is built using TSMC’s 12nm low-power node to keep power demands reasonable.

With support for up to 32TB and compatibility with Windows, macOS, Linux, and even Apple ProRes workflows on iPhones, the controller clearly targets a wide market -everyone from mobile filmmakers to enterprise backup users.

Whether it ends up in the drives competing for best portable hard drive or best SSD status depends not just on its specs, but on how it's implemented.

Still, there are caveats. While single-chip simplicity lowers BOM costs, there's no promise that 32TB USB4 SSDs based on the SM2324 will be priced for mainstream users.

NAND prices, thermal management requirements, and power delivery constraints could all push the final product into specialist territory.

So while it might eventually sit alongside the best external SSD options in performance, it may not do so in price.

This device comes with security features which include support for AES 128/256-bit encryption, hardware SHA-384, a TRNG, and full TCG Opal 2.0 compliance.

There’s even optional support for fingerprint-based authentication, though integration details are vague.

It also integrates Silicon Motion’s NANDXtend LDPC ECC engine, improving endurance and reliability for both TLC and QLC memory.

In terms of design, the chip is compact, just 9mm by 9mm, and includes an aluminum heat spreader, making it viable for slim external enclosures.

"At Silicon Motion, we're focused on delivering SSD controller solutions that lead in both performance and power efficiency," said Nelson Duann, Senior VP of Client & Automotive Storage Business at Silicon Motion.

"…the SM2324 redefines portable storage with a fully integrated single-chip USB4 solution. These technologies reflect our commitment to helping customers build faster, smaller, and more efficient SSDs for next-generation applications."

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• Dummy loads burn up to 45% of energy just to keep power levels stable
• Skeleton’s GrapheneGPU delivers up to 40% more computing with the same hardware
• AI workloads are killing energy efficiency, GrapheneGPU smooths power draw in real time

As artificial intelligence systems grow more demanding, many data centers have found themselves consuming nearly twice the energy they technically need.

This overuse isn’t due to system flaws or outdated hardware, it’s rooted in how GPUs behave, as their power demand can swing drastically within seconds, from full throttle to idle.

To cope, operators often deploy dummy loads, deliberate energy wasters, to maintain a stable power draw - but these data centers deliberately slow the performance of tens of thousands of GPUs to prevent power outages

Dummy loads mean massive wastage of energy

While this avoids damage and blackouts, it means up to 45% of energy is lost as heat, performing no useful computation.

Skeleton Technologies now claims it may have a more efficient alternative, one that allows GPUs to run at full capacity without overwhelming the grid.

The Estonian company developed GrapheneGPU, a peak-shaving system using proprietary Curved Graphene supercapacitors.

Unlike lithium-based systems, these capacitors can respond in just 10 microseconds, absorbing energy during idle periods and discharging it instantly when GPU loads spike.

The result, according to Skeleton, is the ability to maintain consistent GPU performance without stressing the grid or resorting to throttling.

Their tests suggest the system can deliver up to 40% more FLOPS - floating point operations per second - using the same GPUs, simply by removing the performance penalties associated with thermal de-rating and power instability.

“GrapheneGPU delivers up to 40% more computing with the same energy footprint, while cutting both capital and operating costs by reducing grid upgrade needs, energy waste, and cooling,” said Taavi Madiberk, CEO of Skeleton Technologies.

“Powered by our patented Curved Graphene, this is a fundamental shift in how AI infrastructure can scale - sustainably and economically”.

The company also reports up to a 44% reduction in the power capacity that data centers must reserve from the grid.

The core unit, the GrapheneGPU PCS 50, delivers up to 80 kW of peak power in a standard 1OU form factor, compatible with existing infrastructure and cooled by air or liquid.

Importantly, it avoids lithium entirely, using Skeleton’s patented graphene-based material instead.

According to Skeleton, this technology has been tested under rigorous hyperscaler-grade GPU workloads with positive results. However, it has not been independently tested for real-world performance and durability.

The first shipment of this technology will commence in Germany by June 2025. The company also has a U.S. production site planned for early 2026.

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PBS and Lakeland PBS in rural Minnesota are suing President Trump over his executive order demanding that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting kill all funding for the public television network.

(Image credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images, Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Russians remember the longtime artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, who died recently. Yuri Grigorovich held the position for the last three decades of the Soviet Union and staged productions that were wildly popular at home and projected soft power overseas.

And in Nepal, people have complained of monkey's stealing food from their property for years. Now, the government is holding its first-ever monkey census to understand exactly how bad the problem is.

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President Trump nominated Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency that enforces ethics law and protects whistleblowers, despite Ingrassia's links to extremists.

(Image credit: Tia Dufour)