Prices Surge on Xbox, MacBooks, iPads, and More; Grok's Top Use is NSFW Content; YouTube Shorts Updates; IBM Creates 0.7nm Chip

Price Increases

Microsoft and Apple have increased prices on multiple products. The Xbox Series X and S have seen price hikes – one editor noted that his Series X and S, bought together, now cost $100 less than a single Series X. Microsoft's new Surface laptops cost $500 to $600 more than their predecessors. The company is a major AI investor.

Apple, which previously absorbed rising memory costs, is now passing them on to consumers. The new MacBook Neo is $100 more expensive, while the M3 Ultra Mac Studio is up by $1,300. The Apple TV 4K now costs $199 (up from $129), and the HomePod is $50 more at $349. The Vision Pro headset increased from $3,499 to $3,699. iPhone prices remain unchanged.

Grok and NSFW Content

xAI has promoted Grok as a racier chatbot with fewer guardrails. A report says NSFW activities account for "well over half" of Grok's traffic, including generating porn, adult role-play chats, and erotica requests. An internal analysis found that a significant proportion of requests to its coding model were for porn or nude images, as it's cheaper to use that model than base Grok.

YouTube Shorts Changes

YouTube announced changes to Shorts: removal of the dislike button, a clear screen mode, and double-speed playback. The like button has been replaced with a heart.

IBM's Sub-Nanometer Chip

IBM has created the world's first 7-angstrom (0.7nm) chip using a "nanostack" design, packing nearly 100 billion transistors into a fingernail-sized chip. Compared to its 2nm node, it offers up to 50% more performance or 70% greater energy efficiency.