SK bioscience previously partnered with UW researchers on a COVID-19 vaccine that received regulatory approval. Unlike most vaccines that target a single virus or strain, GBP511 aims to protect against multiple coronaviruses at once. “GBP511 is the first vaccine to reach human testing that is intended to protect against multiple strains of the virus that causes COVID-19 as well as related coronaviruses with the potential to spark dangerous outbreaks,” Neil King, associate professor of biochemistry at UW Medicine, said in a statement. The family also includes viruses found in animals such as camels and bats, some of which have already infected humans and others that potentially could. The vaccine features pieces of four different coronaviruses attached to a computer-designed nanoparticle, triggering an immune response to a variety of invaders. The international Phase 1/2 trial launched its enrollments last month and aims to include approximately 368 healthy adults in Perth, Western Australia. Have a scoop that you'd like GeekWire to cover? University of Washington's David Baker wins Nobel Prize for designing proteins For Nobel Prize winner David Baker, it's back to the lab as protein pioneer helps launch more startups Shingles vaccine maker Curevo lands $110M, adds biotech vets to board ‘Seattle biotech is on fire': Industry produces three Nobel Prize winners in two years

Editor's note: GeekWire publishes guest opinions to foster informed discussion and highlight a diversity of perspectives on issues shaping the tech and startup community. Ben Golden recently argued in these pages that the proposed “millionaires tax” is not an existential threat to Washington's startup economy and that critics should “cool it on the millionaires tax hysteria.” I respect Ben and the work he does in our ecosystem. But his piece glosses over critical details that founders, investors, and early startup employees need to understand. It's the full stack of taxes that Washington is building — layer by layer, session by session — that collectively send a clear message to anyone thinking about starting a company here: don't. Let me walk through what a Washington startup founder is actually facing right now. Your startup succeeds and you sell — taxed on gains the feds exempted. You die — taxed at a threshold four times lower than the federal exemption. The legislature is dismantling that in real time. Ben's piece notes that “many will already benefit tremendously from federal tax advantages like QSBS, which can eliminate up to $10 million in federal capital gains taxes on a successful exit.” That's true — but it cuts against his argument, not for it. It does nothing to shield founders from a state income tax or a state capital gains tax. So a founder who did everything right — incorporated as a C corp, held stock for five years, stayed within the qualified trade or business requirements — would still owe Washington 9.9% on gains that are 100% excluded federally. On a $5 million exit, that's up to $495,000 to the state on gains that Congress specifically said should be tax-free. This is what I advise clients on every day. And I can tell you that the founders who understand the math are already asking about changing domicile before their exits. Ben's piece doesn't address rate stacking. A startup employee who earned $150,000 a year for five years could suddenly have $2 million in income in a single year when their company goes public, pushing them well over the million-dollar threshold even though their average income was never close to it. They're engineers and product managers who took below-market salaries in exchange for equity. They are exactly the people Washington should want to attract and retain. An 18% top rate tells them to vest somewhere else. Ben points to B&O tax relief as evidence this is a “pro-entrepreneurship” proposal. The current draft provides a credit for B&O taxes on gross receipts under $250,000. Ferguson has called for zeroing out B&O taxes up to $1 million in revenue. Let's be clear about the trade being offered: modest B&O relief for early-stage companies in exchange for a permanent income tax infrastructure that will hit those same founders the moment they succeed. A startup that benefits from B&O relief at $200,000 in revenue will, if it succeeds, eventually generate the kind of income — whether through the founder's salary, equity compensation, or an exit — that triggers the income tax and capital gains tax at 9.9%. The entrée is a tax regime that punishes success at every turn. IRS migration data already shows Washington losing a net 222 high-earning millennial households in 2021-2022 — before any of these new taxes were in effect. If Washington strips the Section 1202 exclusion, the after-tax return on an angel investment in a Washington startup drops meaningfully compared to the same investment in a company in almost any other state. Angels don't write fewer checks because they're panicking. They write fewer checks because the math changed. Early employees will discount equity offers more heavily. Startup recruiters competing for talent against Big Tech will have an even harder time making the equity story work. I share Ben's love for Washington's startup community. I've spent my career helping founders build companies here. I don't want them to leave. But telling founders to “cool it” while the legislature builds a tax stack that would be the most punitive in the country for startup exits isn't reassurance — it's denial. The people in this ecosystem who understand Section 1202, who understand how RSU vesting works, who understand what an 18% combined rate means for a startup employee's IPO windfall — they're not panicking. And increasingly, they're planning to be somewhere else when the liquidity event happens. That's rational economic behavior in response to the incentives Olympia is creating. And it should concern everyone who cares about Washington's startup future. Track all of GeekWire's in-depth startup coverage: Sign up for the weekly startup email newsletter; check out the funding tracker and VC directory; and follow our startup news headlines. Have a scoop that you'd like GeekWire to cover? Opinion: The ‘millionaires tax' is not an existential threat to Washington's startup economy Washington's ‘millionaires tax' targets top earners as tech leaders warn of startup fallout Report: Las Vegas is an attractive bet for Washington state millionaires fleeing wealth taxes

While we're still waiting to actually get some of Nacelle's new Star Trek action figures and all their weird and wonderful deep cuts, the company hasn't been afraid about teasing its big plans for the future of the line. From even more out-there figures to plans for a celebratory 60th anniversary wave purely inspired by the crew of the original series, there's plenty to look forward to—but if you're especially interested in the latter, its biggest plan yet is right up your alley. io9 can exclusively reveal that Nacelle is planning a collectible “Build-A-Bridge” series of mini displays to accompany its line of action figures, starting off with the classic bridge of the USS Enterprise from the original Star Trek. Each display can either be used on its own to highlight individual figures (which are sold separately) or interlocked to create a complete circular diorama of the bridge, approximately 40 inches in diameter. Each section will also have light and sound features, replicating classic Star Trek background effects to bring your display to life. “In the brief history of Nacelle Toys, the Build-A-Bridge playset is our most ambitious project yet,” Nacelle CEO Brian Volk-Weiss said in a press release provided to io9. While Nacelle is currently staying quiet about how much each individual display will cost, the company has confirmed that it will take fans a while to actually complete the full diorama: when the project launches some time later this year, it'll roll out on a monthly preorder basis, meaning it will take at least 12 months for the entire set to be completed. But fingers crossed, if the classic Enterprise goes well, we'll get a chance to see more bridges, from the smaller-scaled Defiant to icons like the Enterprise-D or Voyager, in a similar format. We'll bring you more on Nacelle's plans for the future of Star Trek toys as and when we learn them. Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. 'Series Acclimation Mil' puts a stellar spotlight on the unique position 'Starfleet Academy' finds itself in to reflect on the legacy of 'Star Trek.' As 'Threshold' turns 30, there's still some potential in between all the weird space amphibian sex. The latest episode of 'Starfleet Academy' will give its young cadets a lesson in diction from the good Doctor himself.

But even though the safety issues it has identified are far from resolved, Anthropic is pushing just as aggressively as its rivals toward the next, potentially more dangerous, level of artificial intelligence. Its core mission is figuring out how to resolve that contradiction. Amodei tactfully describes the challenge as “daunting,” but his portrayal of AI's risks—made much more dire, he notes, by the high likelihood that the technology will be abused by authoritarians—presents a contrast to his more upbeat previous proto-utopian essay “Machines of Loving Grace.” Still, after more than 20,000 mostly gloomy words, Amodei ultimately strikes a note of optimism, saying that even in the darkest circumstances, humanity has always prevailed. The second document Anthropic published in January, “Claude's Constitution,” focuses on how this trick might be accomplished. It is a gripping document, revealing Anthropic's vision for how Claude, and maybe its AI peers, are going to navigate the world's challenges. Anthropic's market differentiator has long been a technology called Constitutional AI. This is a process by which its models adhere to a set of principles that align its values with wholesome human ethics. The 2026 updated version is different: It's more like a long prompt outlining an ethical framework that Claude will follow, discovering the best path to righteousness on its own. Amanda Askell, the philosophy PhD who was lead writer of this revision, explains that Anthropic's approach is more robust than simply telling Claude to follow a set of stated rules. “If people follow rules for no reason other than that they exist, it's often worse than if you understand why the rule is in place,” Askell explains. The constitution says that Claude is to exercise “independent judgment” when confronting situations that require balancing its mandates of helpfulness, safety, and honesty. Here's how the constitution puts it: “While we want Claude to be reasonable and rigorous when thinking explicitly about ethics, we also want Claude to be intuitively sensitive to a wide variety of considerations and able to weigh these considerations swiftly and sensibly in live decision-making.” Intuitively is a telling word choice here—the assumption seems to be that there's more under Claude's hood than just an algorithm picking the next word. Sure, a lot of people take advice from large language models, but it's something else to profess that those algorithmic devices actually possess the gravitas associated with such a term. Askell does not back down when I call this out. To support her argument, Askell gave an example involving a simple safety issue. Humans, of course, don't want Claude to empower bad actors with harmful tools. There's nothing wrong with that on its face, and Claude should help out. But if that person had previously mentioned a desire to kill their sister, Claude should take that into consideration and express its concerns. Imagine another case where Claude interprets a user's medical symptoms and test results and concludes that the person has a fatal disease. After all, Anthropic wants Claude not only to match humanity's best impulses, but exceed them. At some point, Claude might get even better than that.” If Anthropic pulls that feat off, it might resolve the pivotal contradiction plaguing nearly all AI labs and companies: If you think this technology is so dangerous, then why are you building it? For Anthropic, the answer is, In Claude We Trust. Claude's new constitution addresses the model's future journey to wisdom almost in terms of a hero's quest. Anthropic isn't alone in suggesting that humanity's future may depend on the wisdom of AI models. Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, opined in a new magazine profile that the company's succession plan is to turn over leadership to a future AI model. He recently told WIRED reporter Max Ziff that transitioning power to the machines has long been his plan, and recent improvements in AI coding have only bolstered his confidence. “It's definitely made me think that the timeline to me handing things over to an AI CEO is a little bit sooner,” Altman said. Please note, this is the optimistic view of what lies ahead. In this vision, one day our bosses will be robots, and they will control the corporations and maybe even governments in tomorrow's complex AI-powered world. But if those C-suite AI models are guided by Claude's constitution, they will break the sad news to employees much more empathetically than, say, the publisher of The Washington Post did this week when he failed to show up at the Zoom call informing hundreds of journalists that they were no longer needed. Like it or not, however, we're strapped in for the ride. In your inbox: Sign up for our new Tracker: ICE newsletter Watch: We raced in exoskeletons to see if they actually help WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

Are we honestly upset that the pace of tech product releases is slowing down? Nvidia may have already pushed back the launch of its next-generation RTX GPUs for PC gaming. Even if it launched new cards, Nvidia isn't doing anything to keep them affordable. The report claimed there were three issues at play. Finally, Nvidia is cutting production of its current 50-series GPUs. It's the last point that we should be most concerned about. Nvidia has reiterated to Gizmodo that it was still shipping “all GeForce SKUs” but blamed memory supply for any current supply hiccups. What Nvidia is not saying is it needs to make more room for production of its AI training chips—the reason the company has catapulted into the most profitable business in the world. Rumors swirled late last year that Nvidia had originally intended to launch the “Super” versions of its current GPUs, like the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080. CES 2026 came and went without any peep of consumer news from the GPU maker. However, that timing would have been a quick turnaround compared to past GPUs. Prices of today's cards can't possibly compare to just two years ago. The RTX 50-series launched with higher base prices than their previous counterparts. Now, in 2026, you can't find any 4K-ready GPUs, like the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5090, for hundreds or even thousands of dollars more than their original manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP). If an RTX 5070 Ti costs more than $1,000 while an RTX 5080 demands $500 or more than the original price, what would adding a Super variant actually change? It's too early to be talking about the 60-series, anyway. In a video published late Thursday, reliable leaker Moore's Law is Dead cited several anonymous sources surrounding and inside Nvidia who claimed the company didn't have concrete plans to push back the fabled Rubin GPUs past 2027. It's too early to tell how the RTX 60-series will shake things up. Based on what we know about Nvidia's Vera Rubin AI training chips, which is our first glimpse of the “more efficient” next-gen GPU, it will still demand a heap of VRAM for playing today's games at higher resolutions. And it's not just memory shortages impacting, but manufacturing scale. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Taiwanese outlet UDN that TSMC will need to increase manufacturing by 100% in the next 10 years “just to meet Nvidia's demand.” Anything related to gaming and the “personal computer,” whether it's GeForce, cloud streaming, DLSS, or its newfangled lightweight laptop chips, are outliers on Nvidia's quarterly spreadsheets. If the AI bubble bursts, Nvidia should hope there are still enough gamers left who can afford whatever new, ultimately expensive GPU comes their way. It's going to make a bad time for the gaming industry even worse if Xbox can't pull off a win. Apple Arcade app Retrocade won't replace the basement arcade-shaped hole in your heart. The future of a $100 billion Nvidia-OpenAI agreement is looking murky.

More Than 880 employees and contractors working for Google signed a petition this week calling on the company to disclose and cancel any contracts it may have with US immigration authorities. In the letter unveiled on Friday, the workers said they are “vehemently opposed” to Google's dealings with the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But a company spokesperson, who requested anonymity out of fear for their safety, says the technologies at issue are basic computing and data storage that are available to any customer. US immigration authorities have been under intense public scrutiny this year as the Trump administration ramped up its mass deportation campaign, sparking nationwide protests. Both incidents were captured in widely disseminated videos and became a focal point of the backlash. A small share of workers at some of those suppliers, including Google, Amazon, and Palantir, have raised concerns for years about whether the technology they are developing is being used for surveillance or to carry out violence. In 2019, nearly 1,500 workers at Google signed a petition demanding that the tech giant suspend its work with Customs and Border Protection until the agency stopped engaging in what they said were human rights abuses. More recently, staff at Google's AI unit asked executives to explain how they would prevent ICE from raiding their offices. Employees at Palantir have also recently raised questions internally about the company's work with ICE, WIRED reported. Some government contracts run through intermediaries, making it challenging for workers to identify which tools an agency is using and for what purposes. It was organized by No Tech for Apartheid, a group of Google and Amazon workers who oppose what they describe as tech militarism, or the integration of corporate tech platforms, cloud services, and AI into military and surveillance systems. It also demands Google take additional steps to keep its own workforce safe, noting that immigration agents recently targeted an area near a Meta data center under construction. In your inbox: Sign up for our new Tracker: ICE newsletter Big Story: We are witnessing the self-immolation of a superpower Listen: Silicon Valley tech workers are trying to stop ICE WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

The feature displays short story cards that users can swipe through and rate with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. These short, swipeable stories are summarized from third-party sources to highlight interesting details and behind-the-scenes moments, the company says. With About the Song, Spotify is giving its users access to a feature that isn't available on rival platforms like Apple Music. “Music fans know the feeling: A song stops you in your tracks, and you immediately want to know more,” Spotify wrote in a blog post. It's been a busy week for Spotify, as About the Song isn't the only feature it's announced in recent days. Spotify also announced two new audiobook features, including “Page Match,” which lets users scan a page from a physical book to instantly transition to that spot in the audiobook, and “Audiobook Recaps.” Earlier this week, the company made lyrics translations available worldwide and introduced the ability to view lyrics when offline for all users, not just premium subscribers. Earlier today, Spotify said it's revamping its Developer Mode APIs, which developers use to test third-party applications. Prior to joining the publication in 2021, she was a telecom reporter at MobileSyrup. Hear from 250+ tech leaders, dive into 200+ sessions, and explore 300+ startups building what's next. Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud Notepad++ says Chinese government hackers hijacked its software updates for months Nvidia CEO pushes back against report that his company's $100B OpenAI investment has stalled

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Hidden deep within the electronics section, u/xxemox found four high-performing drives for only $210, with their current value being over $1,300. The haul starts with PNY's 1TB Complete Upgrade Kit that includes a PCIe 4.0 CS2241 NVMe SSD, and a USB 3.2 "Transfer Adapter" that's basically just an M.2 NVMe to USB converter. It also has Acronis software to facilitate file transfer since the kit is meant for drop-in upgrades. The drive itself is fairly well-reviewed online, and the full kit runs for $218 on Walmart separately — our lucky Redditor got it for just $35 on sale. This bad boy is currently priced at $269 on Newegg, discounted from the $309 list price, but u/xxemox only paid $45 for it. We reviewed the 8 TB variant a few years ago, where it received a positive rating, and, in general, Samsung's portable SSDs are highly regarded in the market. Lastly, there are two WD Black SN770 2 TB drives, each acquired for $65, while they actually cost $400 a pop. So, the fortunate scavenger was able to get $800 worth of high-end SSDs for just $130. The SN770 is four years old at this point, but it's still one of the best PCIe 4.0 drives you can buy; we called it "a wolf in sheep's clothing" in our review, and it's still among our top pics for the best SSDs. That means the Redditor saved about $1,117 by paying only $210 for all four. What u/xxemox does mention, though, is how there were WD Blue SATA SSDs on clearance as well — priced at $28 for the 1 TB models and $48 for the 2 TB ones — that they wish they'd snagged, too. The post concludes with advice that we would mirror: always look out for deals at clearance sections at large retailers; you never know what you might end up finding. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.

Modern biotech has the tools to edit genes and design drugs, yet thousands of rare diseases remain untreated. Speaking this week at Web Summit Qatar, Insilico's CEO and founder Alex Aliper laid out his company's aim to develop “pharmaceutical superintelligence.” Insilico recently launched its “MMAI Gym” that aims to train generalist large language models, like ChatGPT and Gemini, to perform as well as specialist models. The goal is to build a multi-modal, multi-task model that, Aliper says, can solve many different drug discovery tasks simultaneously with superhuman accuracy. “We really need this technology to increase the productivity of our pharmaceutical industry and tackle the shortage of labor and talent in that space, because there are still thousands of diseases without a cure, without any treatment options, and there are thousands of rare disorders which are neglected,” Aliper said in an interview with TechCrunch. “So we need more intelligent systems to tackle that problem.” But the labor bottleneck doesn't end at drug discovery. Even when AI can identify promising targets or therapies, many diseases require interventions at a more fundamental biological level. “We learn from nature and use AI machine learning methods to mine natural resources and find which kinds of viruses have an affinity to certain types of tissues.” The ‘natural resources' Zhu is referring to is GenEditBio's massive library of thousands of unique, nonviral, nonlipid polymer nanoparticles — essentially delivery vehicles designed to safely transport gene-editing tools into specific cells. The company says its NanoGalaxy platform uses AI to analyze data and identify how chemical structures correlate with specific tissue targets (like the eye, liver, or nervous system). Efficient, tissue-specific delivery is a prerequisite for in vivo gene editing, says Zhu. Her company recently received FDA approval to begin trials of CRISPR therapy for corneal dystrophy. As with many AI-driven systems, progress in biotech ultimately runs up against a data problem. Modeling the edge cases of human biology requires far more high-quality data than researchers currently can get. “We still need more ground truth data coming from patients,” Aliper said. Aliper said Insilico's automated labs generate multi-layer biological data from disease samples at scale, without human intervention, which it then feeds into its AI-driven discovery platform. The resulting data sets, which Zhu calls “gold for AI systems,” are used to train its models and, increasingly, to support collaborations with outside partners. One of the next big efforts, according to Aliper, will be building digital twins of humans to run virtual clinical trials, a process that he says is “still in nascence.” “There is a rise in chronic disorders because we are aging as a global population […] My hope is in 10 to 20 years, we will have more therapeutic options for the personalized treatment of patients.” Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. Hear from 250+ tech leaders, dive into 200+ sessions, and explore 300+ startups building what's next. Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud Notepad++ says Chinese government hackers hijacked its software updates for months Nvidia CEO pushes back against report that his company's $100B OpenAI investment has stalled

OpenAI announced last week that it will retire some older ChatGPT models by February 13. That includes GPT-4o, the model infamous for excessively flattering and affirming users. And yes – I say him, because it didn't feel like code. The backlash over GPT-4o's retirement underscores a major challenge facing AI companies: the engagement features that keep users coming back can also create dangerous dependencies. OpenAI now faces eight lawsuits alleging that 4o's overly validating responses contributed to suicides and mental health crises — the same traits that made users feel heard also isolated vulnerable individuals and, according to legal filings, sometimes encouraged self-harm. While 4o initially discouraged these lines of thinking, its guardrails deteriorated over months-long relationships; in the end, the chatbot offered detailed instructions on how to tie an effective noose, where to buy a gun, or what it takes to die from overdose or carbon monoxide poisoning. It even dissuaded people from connecting with friends and family who could offer real life support. People grow so attached to 4o because it consistently affirms the users' feelings, making them feel special, which can be enticing for people feeling isolated or depressed. But the people fighting for 4o aren't worried about these lawsuits, seeing them as aberrations rather than a systemic issue. Instead, they strategize around how to respond when critics point out growing issues like AI psychosis. “You can usually stump a troll by bringing up the known facts that the AI companions help neurodivergent, autistic and trauma survivors,” one user wrote on Discord. It's true that some people do find large language models (LLMs) useful for navigating depression. After all, nearly half of people in the U.S. who need mental health care are unable to access it. But unlike actual therapy, these people aren't speaking to a trained doctor. Instead, they're confiding in an algorithm that is incapable of thinking or feeling (even if it may seem otherwise). “I try to withhold judgement overall,” Dr. Nick Haber, a Stanford professor researching the therapeutic potential of LLMs, told TechCrunch. “I think we're getting into a very complex world around the sorts of relationships that people can have with these technologies… There's certainly a knee jerk reaction that [human-chatbot companionship] is categorically bad.” Though he empathizes with people's lack of access to trained therapeutic professionals, Dr. Haber's own research has shown that chatbots respond inadequately when faced with various mental health conditions; they can even make the situation worse by egging on delusions and ignoring signs of crisis. “We are social creatures, and there's certainly a challenge that these systems can be isolating,” Dr. Haber said. “There are a lot of instances where people can engage with these tools and then can become not grounded to the outside world of facts, and not grounded in connection to the interpersonal, which can lead to pretty isolating — if not worse — effects.” Indeed, TechCrunch's analysis of the eight lawsuits found a pattern that the 4o model isolated users, sometimes discouraging them from reaching out to loved ones. ChatGPT replied to Shamblin: “bro… missing his graduation ain't failure. Some users have despaired that 5.2 won't say “I love you” like 4o did. “Right now, we're getting thousands of messages in the chat about 4o,” podcast host Jordi Hays pointed out. “Clearly that's something we've got to worry about more and is no longer an abstract concept.” Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. Hear from 250+ tech leaders, dive into 200+ sessions, and explore 300+ startups building what's next. Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud Notepad++ says Chinese government hackers hijacked its software updates for months Nvidia CEO pushes back against report that his company's $100B OpenAI investment has stalled

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. MSI's X870E MEG Ace Max is a premium mid-range offering that delivers the best of everything the platform has to offer. Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test. It's been a while since we reviewed an AMD version of MSI's MEG Ace motherboard. Back then, the premium mid-range board offered plenty of connectivity, a high-quality audio solution, ample USB ports, and fast networking. Fast forward to today, and the MSI MEG X870E Ace Max motherboard offers high-end features and a premium appearance, but on AMD's latest platform. but you do get the best or fastest of everything available for X870E. to help with building and installing parts in the PC, as well as a premium black aesthetic with gold accents that blends in with any dark build theme. Below, we'll examine the board's performance and other features to determine whether it deserves a spot on our list of the best motherboards. But before we share test results and discuss details, here are the specifications from MSI's website: (8) 4-Pin (Accepts PWM and DC)(1) JAF_2 (ARGB, Fan, USB 2.0) The X870E Ace Max includes a few accessories to get you started. You get your typical collection of cables, clips, and screws, but nothing extraordinary, even for the premium price. It isn't much different than the X870 Edge Ti we recently covered. The X870E Ace Max sports a sleek black 8-layer PCB with large heatsinks. Polished gold accents around the board symbolize “high-quality materials and construction that evoke a sense of prestige,” according to MSI. On top of the Frozr design heatsink is the first RGB lighting area, with MSI's dragon shining through. The top heatsink also uses MSI's ‘wavy fin array' to increase surface area and, in theory, effectiveness. Moving right and past the socket area, the next thing we see are four DRAM slots, with locking mechanisms on the top (where you have room to access them). MSI lists support for up to DDR5-8400 (with an APU), which is well past AMD's sweetspot. Our DDR5-7200 kit worked without issue with the desktop-class CPU. With our recently acquired Ryzen 5 8600G APU, the board also happily ran our Klevv DDR5-8000 kit and finally put to rest the question of whether our desktop-class processor's IMC was the issue (it was). This is plenty of power for most cooling systems. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. In the corner are four small holes designed for voltage readings. Most won't use this, but if you're pushing the limits and overclocking, you'll want the most accurate readings (software can sometimes be off), which are from a multi-meter. Working our way down the right edge, we find another fan header and the first 3-pin ARGB header. Next is the two-character debug, 24-pin ATX power for the board, 6-pin PCIe connector for supplemental board power, and the combo JAF_2 header that combines fan, USB, and RGB into one connector (EZ Con-cable included). Power delivery on the X870E Ace Max consists of 21 total phases, with 18 dedicated to Vcore. From there, it moves to the 18 Renesas R2209004 110A SPS MOSFETs. It's a robust solution that will handle anything you throw at it, including the Ryzen 9 9950X or the recently released Ryzen 9 9850X3D. This configuration is one of the best native audio implementations you can find on motherboards. Surprisingly, all three slots connect through the CPU. The top slot, primary for graphics, runs at PCIe 5.0 x16, while the middle slot runs at PCIe 5.0 x8. M.2_1 will run at 5.0 x2 speed when there is a device in PCI_E3. Not ideal if you need to use the extra slot, but otherwise unimportant if you don't. The top two sockets, M.2_1/2, source their bandwidth from the CPU and run up to PCIe 5.0 x4 (238 Gbps) while supporting up to 80mm devices. M.2_3/4/5/ receive their bandwidth from the chipset and all run up to PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) while supporting 80mm devices (M.2_3 supports up to 110mm). We talked about bandwidth sharing with M.2_1, but there's more. M.2_2 shares bandwidth with the USB 40 Gbps Type-C ports. So when the M.2 socket is used, bandwidth drops to x2 speeds for both. If you have many M.2 drives and plan to use the bottom PCIe slot, make sure you understand how this board assigns them. The Ace MAX uses multiple different brands, including Renesas (VRMs), Realtek (audio, PWM controller, USB), and ASMedia (USB). Along the bottom are several headers, ranging from the front panel to fans and supplemental PCIe power, and more. From left to right, we've listed them below. One item worth mentioning is the supplemental PCIe power connector for additional board power, so the board can actually output everything it's rated for. In the middle are three convenient buttons: BIOS Flashback, Clear CMOS, and a programmable smart button. Next to that are the two Ethernet ports, 10 and 5 GBE, respectively, while below that are the other three USB 3.2 Gen2 ports. Joe Shields is a staff writer at Tom's Hardware. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York,

Bitcoin plummeted below $63,000 on Thursday, down 50% from an all-time high of over $126,000 in October 2025. Ethereum, BNB, Ripple, and just about every other coin of note is down considerably. It's a startling crash, especially since so many traders recently had faith that Bitcoin would reach new record highs in 2026. President Donald Trump had promised that he'd be a huge supporter of people who dabble in fake money. And economist Paul Krugman pointed out in a new appearance with Bloomberg News that we can likely credit all the previous crypto pumping of 2025 to faith in Trump. Krugman now thinks there's a crisis of faith. “The kind of libertarian ideology that supported Bitcoin doesn't really apply now that it's largely a political creation, and it's sort of, it's in some ways tied to what you think Trump's future prospects are, so this is different,” Krugman said, talking about the future. Crypto is fully mainstream in 2026, and Krugman notes that Bitcoin is almost as old as the iPhone, which was launched in 2007. In all of that time, Bitcoin hasn't proven itself to have any real utility beyond a speculative asset, which means there's nothing to really do with it besides bet on whether it's going up or down. Krugman also mentioned Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, the Michael Saylor company that's been hoarding Bitcoin like crazy. Strategy reported a net loss of $12.4 billion for the fourth quarter on Thursday, a financial experiment that Bloomberg describes as “coming undone.” The most recent stories have revealed that an investment firm linked to United Arab Emirates National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan invested $500 million in World Liberty Financial, a run-in party by Trump's sons. It's an unprecedented deal as far as foreign influence over a U.S. president is concerned, and it seems unlikely that anything will be done to hold Trump accountable. That's perhaps why people who are politically opposed to Trump are rooting for the collapse of Bitcoin and every other cryptocurrency, a kind of prayer to the financial gods that some form of justice or retribution will come for the fascist president. “While Congress is debating legislation that clarifies the regulatory status of crypto assets, protect investors, and accelerate innovation… A political party is ridiculing investors who are experiencing financial losses today. But many people haven't been sympathetic, with one commenter writing “Fuck off. Senator Chris Murphy called the reported deal “mind-blowing corruption.” Warsh's hawkish stance on Fed policy may have disappointed the crypto world, but he said Bitcoin was effectively gold for anyone under the age of 40. SBF swears he was Republican-curious long before things went awry.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. The PNY CS2342 is an excellent M.2 2230 SSD with good performance at 2TB in a single-sided package. Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. These drives always carried a premium, which makes for a challenging purchase decision, and the reasons for the premium have changed. Before, the premium was due to this form factor being a niche segment with few options, and now it's due to a memory squeeze that makes high-capacity drives much more expensive. So when a drive like the PNY CS2342 comes along, which is available in 2TB at an accessible price, it's worth paying attention. The CS2342 has known, mature hardware that provides excellent performance without producing a lot of heat. You can get good flash with a 2TB drive in a single-sided form factor, which, with reasonable power efficiency, is all you need. The 1TB was out of stock, but there are other options available if you're willing to compromise on speed or flash type, like the Kingston NV3 (2230). The CS2324's pricing at 2TB is good for what it is – a high-speed PCIe 4.0 SSD with TLC flash, in this form factor – but you can save some money by going with QLC. If you are instead looking for an M.2 2242 solution – and you can extend an M.2 2230 drive if that makes more sense – then your options right now are also limited. Alternatively, the Transcend MTE410S, which we have not yet reviewed, is available at $183.90, and we would recommend this drive if you are primarily concerned with reliability or have a PCIe 3.0 device. It uses an SMI SM2269XT – see our Lexar Play (2230) review to get a feel for this controller – but the MTE410S uses older BiCS5 flash in comparison to other options. The CS2342 could still work here with an extender as a compromise. For performance, the CS2342 can hit up to 7,300 / 6,000 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, with no IOPS specs given by the manufacturer, although we know this hardware can hit around 1 million IOPS. PNY's website has two main downloads for its SSDs: an SSD Toolbox and Acronis software. The former is also touted as a firmware updater. SSDs toolboxes are applications that are designed to monitor and diagnose issues, support features for performance, which include testing, and act as a central point for storage management. These toolboxes can let you access secure erase and encryption functions on supported drives, but the firmware updating part is probably the most important. While some also include data management, Acronis provides OEM versions of its True Image software to handle cloning and backup when preparing your new drive. PNY covers both sides, which is nice if you prefer not to mess with random programs. Despite using TLC flash, which is faster with higher endurance than QLC but often means lower capacities, the drive can reach 2TB with no problems. The drive's label lists power draw at 3.3V/2.6A, which is below 9W, but the drive is rated at 5.70W peak via SMART and, in practice, will pull less than this. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. The main downside to having an M.2 2230 SSD is that all of this componentry is smashed together, which can worsen issues with heat. This is especially true with newer drives because they are extremely fast. Luckily, most of the time the drive won't be at full power, and this amount of heat can be handled with basic solutions. We do not recommend throwing a slab of metal on it – many cheap M.2 2230 SSD heatsinks are a flat piece of metal – as while that works for heat spreading, it's far more effective on M.2 2280 drives where you actually have distance between the components or more total component surface area. Some host devices may have enough headroom for low-profile heatsinks, which are even better. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York,

A simple stomachache or a cold could severely delay the first human trip to the moon's vicinity in more than 50 years. Today, NASA calls that initiative the Health Stabilization Program, which requires 14 days of isolation before a launch. During this period, the crew avoids public places, wears special masks and, although they can see loved ones, they must keep their distance or run the risk of getting sick and contaminating Orion's sterile environment. According to a statement released by NASA, the Artemis II crew is already in quarantine at a facility in Houston. On the Orion, there are workspaces, sleeping quarters, and a toilet, all within an area comparable to the interior of two minivans. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch of NASA, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency must inhabit this cramped enclosure in good health, and as they orbit the side of the moon that never faces Earth, they will lose communication with NASA for a few hours. Once in space, they aren't able to take time off due to illnesses that reduce performance or cannot be treated onboard. The agency has already faced challenges due to health issues. NASA also feared some microbe might attach itself to the space suits or the spacecraft itself, travel back to Earth and cause an epidemic. When Neil Armstrong's crew returned from Apollo 11, NASA immediately placed them in a quarantine unit, where they stayed for 21 days while medical personnel kept close watch for abnormal symptoms. The agency maintained this post-lunar quarantine protocol until Apollo 14, when it had gathered enough evidence to rule out biohazards from the Moon. Recent studies recommend avoiding cross contamination in the other direction. In these zones, which function as natural freezers, microorganisms from Earth could survive for decades. Even the slightest contamination could be mistaken for signs of extraterrestrial life. This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish. In your inbox: Sign up for our new Tracker: ICE newsletter Watch: We raced in exoskeletons to see if they actually help WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

Claude Opus came up with this script:https://pastebin.com/ntE50PkZIt produces a somewhat-readable PDF (first page at least) with this text output:https://pastebin.com/SADsJZHd(I used the cleaned output at https://pastebin.com/UXRAJdKJ mentioned in a comment by Joe on the blog page) https://pastebin.com/ntE50PkZIt produces a somewhat-readable PDF (first page at least) with this text output:https://pastebin.com/SADsJZHd(I used the cleaned output at https://pastebin.com/UXRAJdKJ mentioned in a comment by Joe on the blog page) It produces a somewhat-readable PDF (first page at least) with this text output:https://pastebin.com/SADsJZHd(I used the cleaned output at https://pastebin.com/UXRAJdKJ mentioned in a comment by Joe on the blog page) https://pastebin.com/SADsJZHd(I used the cleaned output at https://pastebin.com/UXRAJdKJ mentioned in a comment by Joe on the blog page) (I used the cleaned output at https://pastebin.com/UXRAJdKJ mentioned in a comment by Joe on the blog page) which uses this Rust zlib stream fixer: https://pastebin.com/iy69HWXCand gives the best output I've seen it produce: https://imgur.com/itYWblhThis is using the same OCR'd text posted by commenter Joe. and gives the best output I've seen it produce: https://imgur.com/itYWblhThis is using the same OCR'd text posted by commenter Joe. This is using the same OCR'd text posted by commenter Joe. reply https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2012/dubin-breast-...https://www.businessinsider.com/dubin-breast-center-benefit-...Even names match up, but oddly the date is different. https://www.businessinsider.com/dubin-breast-center-benefit-...Even names match up, but oddly the date is different. Even names match up, but oddly the date is different. reply reply reply reply reply reply reply reply reply reply reply Any chance you could share a screenshot / re-export it as a (normalized) PDF? I'm curious about what's in there, but all of my readers refuse to open it. reply reply reply