MediaTek launched the Kompanio Ultra as the company's premium Chromebook processor on Wednesday, predicting that it will easily offer the highest Minecraft performance of any Chromebook chip while bringing AI to the platform, too. Essentially, MediaTek launched the Kompanio Ultra to help answer the question: Which Chromebook should I buy? Besides Google's own Chromebook Plus brand, there aren't too many answers. Instead, the list of Chromebooks is a hodgepodge of various processors, including the Intel Celeron, Pentium, and Core processors; AMD's A-series and Ryzen chips, and Arm processors like the Qualcomm Snapdragon and the existing MediaTek Kompanio 500 and 800 series. Google launched the Chromebook Plus specification to help clarify matters, but it certainly doesn't help to differentiate the performance each chip can offer.

MSI is very aptly focusing on AI for its newest laptop lineup, unveiling a host of AI ready laptops at the Consumer Electronic Show 2024 (CES), currently underway in Las Vegas. The offering includes laptops with Intel's hotly anticipated NPU (Neural-processing unit) stacked Intel Core Ultra Processor, which has been especially optimized for sustained AI workloads. MSI laptops featuring the Intel Ultra chips will be denoted by the suffix'AI' after their name this year. As you would expect, the chips will feature in some of the company's full-power gaming laptops, like the Pulse 16 AI and 17 AI, but won't just be limited to these rigs. New MSI Cyborg 15 AI and Thin 15 AI laptops will also get Intel Ultra processors, giving mainstream gamers access to the hardware too. MSI's productivity and creator lineups also get an AI upgrade, with the company announcing the new Prestige AI Series of lightweight productivity laptops and a new AI version of the MSI Creator 16 Studio laptop – both offerings born of the need for creators and workers to better handle the increasing AI demands in an everchanging workplace, says MSI.

Intel's Core Ultra era begins now! Intel is shipping its first "Meteor Lake" 14th-gen Core Ultra chips in laptops beginning today, ushering in the new "AI PC" era -- as well as actually telling you what's in them and how fast they're expected to be. Though leaked benchmark results, we've known a bit about Intel's Core Ultra product lineup. But now it's official: Intel will offer eleven new mobile Core Ultra processors, both in the "H" high-performance segment and the low-power "U" family. Intel has disbanded the earlier "P-series" lineup.

Apple is making a small but mighty change to Siri in the new iOS 17 - users can drop the'Hey' and only need to say'Siri' to activate the virtual assistant. The change has been a sought-after feature of iOS fans, and it seems Apple has finally listened. The operating system will also see new apps geared toward your physical and mental health, along with personalized posters of a user that shows their photo or emoji to a call recipient. A live voicemail feature also transcribes messages directly on the display, allowing you to ignore or answer the call. Apple is making a small but mighty change to Siri in the new iOS 17 - users can drop the'Hey' and only need to say'Siri' to activate the virtual assistant It is only in the past 20 years that Apple has used the conference as a major launchpad for new devices, including the HomePod speaker in 2007 and the iPhone 4 in 2010.

We've tested a lot of Macs (and even iPads) running on Apple's M1 chip. But now we have the M1 Ultra and power to burn. As a quick reminder, the M1 Ultra fuses two M1 Max chips together to give you a processor with 20 CPU cores and 64 GPU cores -- yikes. That comes with up to 128GB of RAM, ensuring it's one of the fastest processors ever in Engadget's offices -- or at least WFH offices and spare rooms. Engadget's Chris Schodt, our Upscaled series host, assembled a list from readers and YouTube viewers aimed at pushing the new chip as hard as we could.