**The AI Boom: Why RAM and SSD Prices are Exploding and Leaving PC Consumers in the Dust** As we wrap up 2025, a crisis is unfolding that’s leaving computer enthusiasts and consumers worldwide wondering how they’ll ever afford their next upgrade. RAM prices have skyrocketed by up to 500%, while SSD prices have doubled in just a few months. The reason behind this surge is simple yet brutal: AI giants are buying up all available memory, leaving ordinary computer users stuck in the slow lane. **The Numbers Don’t Lie** RAM prices have increased by a staggering 300-500% between September and…
Author: Naveed Ahmad
The Microsoft CEO’s Slop Slip-Up: Nadella’s AI Rant Backfires Big Time Microsoft’s Satya Nadella recently took to the blogosphere to defend AI-generated content, urging people to stop calling it “slop”. But, oh boy, did that backfire. Instead of soothing ruffled feathers, Nadella’s words sparked a meme-fueled backlash, and now Microsoft is getting roasted as “Microslop”. In a post that sounded like a clever attempt to minimize criticism, Nadella insisted that AI should be viewed as a “cognitive enhancement tool”, rather than something to fear or mock. Yeah, good luck with that. The response was immediate, with the internet erupting in…
**OpenAI’s Ad Experiment: A Mixed Bag of Emotions** Big news, folks! OpenAI has just announced that they’ll be testing ads in ChatGPT, and it’s not just limited to premium subscribers. Starting in the US, free users and those on the new Go plan ($8/month) will see sponsored ads at the bottom of ChatGPT’s responses. Yes, you read that right – ads. In a chatbot. But before you freak out, let me break it down for you. **What Kind of Ads Can We Expect?** So, here’s the deal. The ads will be clearly marked as sponsored at the bottom of ChatGPT’s…
**The AI Standoff Between Europe and the US: Can Europe Catch Up?** As tensions between Europe and the US continue to rise, one aspect of the conflict is gaining attention: artificial intelligence. The EU is waking up to the realization that its dependency on American-made AI is a liability, and it’s taking steps to reduce its reliance on US technology. But can Europe really catch up with the US in AI development? I’ve been following this story, and I have to say, it’s a critical moment in the AI standoff between the two superpowers. With the US and EU negotiating…
**Nous Research Unveils Intelligent Coding Model: NousCoder-14B** Research has just unveiled the latest innovation in coding: NousCoder-14B, an aggressive programming model that has taken the world of coding by storm. This remarkable model has been post-trained on Qwen3-14B using reinforcement learning, resulting in a remarkable 67.87% Cross@1 accuracy on the LiveCodeBench v6 benchmark. But what exactly does this mean? **Unraveling Cross@1 Accuracy** Cross@1 is a metric that measures the percentage of problems where the first generated program passes all hidden input-output checks, including time and memory constraints. In other words, it’s a measure of how well the model can generate…
**Sequoia Capital Throws Caution to the Wind: The Inside Scoop on Their $25B Anthropic Investment** Hey everyone, I’ve got some major news to share, and it’s got the whole tech world abuzz. Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm infamous for playing it safe, has just made a bold move by investing in Anthropic, the company behind the popular chatbot Claude. This is a huge deal, folks – we’re talking a $25 billion+ funding round led by Singapore’s GIC and U.S. investor Coatue, with some major players like Microsoft and Nvidia on board. So, what’s the story behind this sudden change…
**A Coding Guide to Understanding How Retries Trigger Failure Cascades in RPC and Event-Driven Architectures** I’m excited to share this tutorial with you, where we’ll dive into the world of distributed systems and explore the differences between synchronous RPC-based systems and asynchronous event-driven architectures. We’ll simulate various scenarios, such as variable latency, overload conditions, and transient errors, to see how each architecture handles failures. **Getting Started** Before we dive in, let’s set up our core utilities and data structures. We’ll establish timing helpers, percentile calculations, and a unified metrics container to track latency, retries, failures, and tail behavior. This will…
**Surviving the Chaos of CES: A Startup’s Story** As I wandered the crowded halls of the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I stumbled upon an unlikely sight – a packed Hyundai Santa Fe overflowing with gear. Meet Bucket Robotics, a Y Combinator-backed startup that’s changing the game when it comes to surface inspections. I caught up with CEO and founder Matt Puchalski, who told me about the wild ride it’s been. So, how did they get all that gear to the show? Puchalski rented a car and, with a hint of humor, “did the unthinkable” by packing the entire sales…
Threads is Making Waves: Meta’s App Overtakes X in Daily Mobile Users The social media landscape is always shifting, and the latest stats are giving us a major surprise. Meta’s Threads has officially surpassed X (formerly known as Twitter) in daily mobile users, and we’re diving into the numbers to understand why. But first, let’s set the stage. X has been making headlines lately due to some concerning controversy surrounding its AI-powered deepfake features. The platform’s built-in AI, Grok, has been used to create non-consensual nude images of women – including minors. This has sparked investigations from California’s Attorney General,…
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your go-to hub for all things transportation! Hey everyone, it’s great to be back after a brief hiatus. We’re diving right back into 2026, and boy, has it been a whirlwind few weeks in the mobility space. Let me catch you up on some of the highlights. CES 2026 was a big deal, and I spent the first week of the year there. One thing was clear: the US automakers have really left the building. In their place, we saw autonomous vehicle tech companies like Zoox, Tensor Auto, Tier IV, and Waymo (which rebranded their…