Nikon's Z5 II is the cheapest full-frame camera yet with internal RAW video
After years of lagging behind rivals when it comes to video capture (and then suddenly buying cinema camera manufacturer RED), Nikon is pushing new boundaries in that area. Its latest salvo is the 1,699 24-megapixel full-frame Z5 II, perhaps the cheapest mirrorless camera so far to support internal RAW video. It also offers improved autofocus with new AI powers, cleaner images and enhanced image stabilization. The Z5 II is a wholesale remake of the original Z5 and that starts with video. While still limited to 4K 30 fps and cropped 4K 60 fps, it can now capture those formats internally using the company's 12-bit N-RAW format with N-log, along with 10-bit H.265 and 8-bit H.264. Interestingly, it will record in N-RAW to SDXC UHS-II cards, since the camera lacks high-speed CFexpress slots.
I ditched Google Search. Now I'm saving the planet with Ecosia instead
Ecosia was founded in 2009 by Christian Kroll, who felt compelled to do something after he saw the effects of deforestation while on a trip around the world. And so Ecosia was born, a search engine that puts its advertising revenue towards tree-planting projects. Ecosia started off as a search engine, but has since expanded with a few other products that include Ecosia Browser (a Chromium-based web browser), Ecosia Chat (an AI chatbot powered by OpenAI's API), and Freetree (a browser extension that plants trees as you shop). Ecosia is a not-for-profit tech company based in Berlin, Germany, that dedicates all profits to the betterment of our planet. In addition to turning every web search into an opportunity to plant and protect trees, Ecosia invests in various initiatives that further regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, and fighting climate change.
Block-busted: why homemade Minecraft movies are the real hits
By any estimation, Minecraft is impossibly successful. The bestselling video game ever, as of last December it had 204 million monthly active players. Since it was first released in 2011, it has generated over 3bn ( 2.3bn) in revenue. What's more, its players have always been eager to demonstrate their fandom outside the boundaries of the game itself. In 2021, YouTube calculated that videos related to the game โ tutorials, walk-throughs, homages, parodies โ had collectively been viewed 1tn times. In short, it is a phenomenon.
Shenmue voted the most influential video game of all time in Bafta poll
It is a game about love and identity, but it also has forklift truck races. It is a game about bloody revenge, but while you're waiting to retaliate, you can buy lottery tickets and visit the arcade. When Bafta recently asked gamers to vote on the most influential game of all time, I'm not sure even the most ardent Sega fans would have gambled on the success of an idiosyncratic Dreamcast adventure from 1999. Yet the results, released on Thursday morning, show Shenmue at No 1, with perhaps more predictable contenders Doom and Super Mario Bros coming in second and third respectively. How has this happened, especially considering the game was considered a financial failure at the time of its release, falling short of recouping its then staggering development costs (a reported 70m, which would now get you about a third of Horizon Forbidden West or Star Wars Outlaws)?
Humanoid robot stuns with perfect side-flip acrobatics
A robotics company has advanced from a backflipping robot to a side-flipping robot. Robots aren't just efficient machines anymore, they are now agile performers that can flip and jog. Take, for instance, Unitree, a Chinese robotics company that has been making headlines with its incredible G1 humanoid robot. You might have seen it dancing alongside humans or remembered its predecessor, the H1, which stunned us with a backflip using electric motors. But now, the G1 has taken things to a whole new level.
How Afrofuturism can help us imagine futures worth living in Lonny Avi Brooks and Reynaldo Anderson
The digital age sings a seductive song of progress, yet a deliberate erasure echoes within its circuits. We stand at a crossroads, where technology, particularly the promise of artificial intelligence, threatens both to illuminate and to obliterate. Whose perspectives will shape, and whose will be erased from, the future we build? AI, in particular, has become the latest battleground in a culture war that oscillates between unchecked techno-optimism and dystopian fear. We are told, on one hand, that AI will save us โ from disease, inefficiency, ignorance โ on the other, that it will replace us, dominate us, erase us.
Want AI to work for your business? Then privacy needs to come first
Cisco has released a "2025 Data Privacy Benchmark Study" that looks at the privacy challenges companies face with the rise of artificial intelligence. It offers practical insights for businesses that want to integrate AI while keeping privacy front and center. The study gathered opinions from 2,600 privacy and security professionals across 12 countries. A key finding is that most companies (86%) support privacy laws, citing a "positive" impact on their business operations. Although compliance can be costly, 96% of organizations reported that the benefits significantly outweigh the investment.
Microsoft at 50: Its incredible rise, 15 lost years, and stunning comeback - in 4 charts
Microsoft owner and founder Bill Gates poses outdoors with Microsoft's first laptop in 1986. Microsoft is celebrating its 50th birthday this week. I've been a keenly interested observer for most of that history. I started writing about Microsoft technologies as a full-time job more than three decades ago, and I was an enthusiastic early adopter of the company's products for a decade before that. Thinking back on that history brings back a flood of memories. When one talks about Microsoft, it's tempting (and easy!) to focus on the numbers and the milestones. You will be bombarded with timelines and charts this week, I guarantee. Also: Microsoft's free AI skills training'Fest' starts soon - how to sign up Those numbers are important, of course, but for me they're mostly markers, small flags thrown down to mark the ebb and flow of a company that has genuinely changed the world as we know it.
Rethinking technology and IT's role in the era of agentic AI and digital labor
Generative AI, agentic AI, and other emerging technologies are morphing companies and driving businesses to rethink organizational structures and traditional roles. The research suggests current IT processes will not allow businesses to stay ahead of technology disruption, so even though IT continues to play a key role, advising the C-suite and guiding technology deployments across the organization, there is a need for IT to pivot away from traditional operating models towards specialized services focused on delivering value at the speed of need. A technology-first focus across the C-suite means answering the following questions: CEO -- how do I use technology to drive growth?; CIO -- how do I use technology to deliver value to the business?; CXO -- how do I use technology to make my function more productive and efficient? Also: ChatGPT's subscribers and revenue soar in 2025 - here's why Rethinking technology and the role of IT will drive a shift from the traditional model to a business technology-focused model.
'Meta has stolen books': authors to protest in London against AI trained using 'shadow library'
Novelists Kate Mosse and Tracy Chevalier as well as poet and former Royal Society of Literature chair Daljit Nagra will be among those in attendance outside the company's King's Cross office. Protesters will meet at Granary Square at 1.30pm and a letter to Meta from the Society of Authors (SoA) will be hand-delivered at 1.45pm. It will also be sent to Meta headquarters in the US. Earlier this year, a US court filing alleged that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg approved the company's use of a notorious "shadow library", LibGen, which contains more than 7.5 million books. Last month, the Atlantic republished a searchable database of the titles contained in LibGen, through which many authors discovered their works may have been used to train Meta's AI models.