XGIMI has introduced two new ultra-short-throw projectors, the Aura 3 Pro and Aura 3 Max, succeeding the Aura 2 series. The new models use a triple-laser RGB light source and dual-iris light path to hit up to 5700 ISO lumens and an 8000:1 contrast ratio, more than doubling the Aura 2's brightness and contrast figures. They also support 4K output at 120Hz with 1ms latency, targeting gamers as well as home theater users.
New generations of ultra-short-throw projectors are being marketed as direct substitutes for traditional televisions, offering improved brightness, faster setup, and sleeker industrial design than earlier models. Despite these upgrades, the devices remain significantly more expensive than comparable large-screen TVs.
Microsoft will let anyone buy cloud gaming playtime hours through the Xbox Store starting in November, letting non-subscribers stream eligible owned games without Game Pass. At the same time, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will face a new monthly cap of just 15 cloud gaming hours, pushing heavy users toward buying extra hourly bundles. Microsoft is also testing a free, ad-supported cloud gaming tier for Xbox Insiders.
Microsoft will end unlimited Xbox Cloud Gaming access less than a year after introducing it, replacing it with monthly caps of 15 hours for Ultimate subscribers, 10 hours for Premium, and 5 hours for Essential. Players who exceed these limits will need to buy additional playtime bundles through the Xbox store, though unused hours can roll over. Microsoft says the change affects about 4% of Game Pass subscribers and cites rising infrastructure costs as the reason.
HTC is finally launching its Vive Eagle smart glasses outside Taiwan, expanding availability to North America, Europe, the UK and Australia a year after their original release. The hardware remains largely unchanged, featuring a Snapdragon AR Gen 1 chip, 12-megapixel camera, open-ear speakers and support for OpenAI or Gemini assistants, with US sales starting today at $499 and European shipments beginning September 21st.
Nvidia showed the first working laptop built on its RTX Spark superchip, the Lenovo Yoga 9n, a 16-inch 2-in-1 with an OLED touch display, six speakers and a 9.2-megapixel webcam. The chip pairs an Arm-based Grace CPU with up to 20 cores and a Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores in a single system-on-a-chip, letting the laptop measure just 0.69 inches thick, nearly matching the MacBook Pro. Nvidia also revealed mini desktop PCs using the same chip, aimed at running local AI workloads.
ArenaNet showed early alpha footage of Guild Wars 3, its first franchise entry built on Unreal Engine 5 and set to launch on PlayStation 5 alongside PC, marking the series' console debut. The game is set before the original Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 chronologically, meaning new players won't need prior series knowledge, and a beta is planned for late 2027.
TikTok is rolling out new comment features including voice comments up to one minute long, creator-run polls, photo carousel comments, and Live Photo comments. Voice comments will roll out globally over the next month to users 18 and older, while polls—previously limited to some creators—are now available worldwide.
TechCrunch is recruiting volunteers for its rebranded Boston event, TechCrunch Founder Summit (formerly All Stage), taking place November 4th and expecting about 1,100 attendees. Volunteers will assist with tasks like registration, speaker coordination, and event setup in exchange for event access and other perks. Applications close October 19th, with limited spots available.
Nvidia has agreed to buy open-source AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, confirming earlier reports of the deal. Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue told CNBC he personally reached out to Nvidia's Jensen Huang over the summer, saying talks moved quickly once initiated. Huang said the platform will remain open to the broader AI ecosystem while gaining more scale and infrastructure support.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ordered a one-year moratorium blocking New York City public schools from using AI tools with students from age two through eighth grade. The policy forces schools to disable more than 38 AI features in existing programs, including the Amira reading assistant, and only allows AI use starting in high school through limited 'AI literacy' courses. Exceptions exist for students with learning disabilities or those learning English, and the rules also cap daily screen time for younger grades.
Nvidia has formally agreed to buy Hugging Face, the developer platform known for hosting open-source AI models and datasets, in a deal worth close to $13 billion. Nvidia says it will keep Hugging Face's open standards intact, expanding its own push into free, customizable AI tools like its Nemotron models.
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