AMD is finally cutting prices on its Ryzen 9000 CPUs. After teasing that its long-awaited Ryzen 7 9800X3D will arrive in November, the company revealed that it’ll be slashing prices on its existing Ryzen 9000 range by anywhere from $30 to $50. Combined with some impressive performance updates, AMD’s latest chips have a better shot at a spot among the best processors than they’ve ever had.

The company describes the price cuts as an early holiday promotion, though it hasn’t put an end date on the discounts. The flagship Ryzen 9 9950X is seeing a $50 price cut, while the remainder of the range is reduced by $30. It’s a clear stab at Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs, which go on sale later this week. Similar to the last few generations, Intel is undercutting AMD on pricing, so this promotion brings the scales back in balance.

AMD’s latest CPUs were too expensive, but the unfortunate reality for CPU pricing is that AMD’s recommended pricing has little bearing on the actual price you’ll pay. For example, the , which is exactly $50 less than its list price. The Ryzen 9 9900X, on the other hand, is , which is $70 below its list price.

Although AMD is describing these price cuts as a holiday promotion, there’s a good chance the prices will live on. We’ve already seen price cuts on Ryzen 9000 CPUs, and the processors have reportedly seen poor sales since launch. Even a small price reduction could bring them back into relevance, combined with AMD’s performance updates that can boost speeds by up to 17% in our own testing.

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More than anything, AMD’s price cuts here are a message about the upcoming competition from Intel. The upcoming Core Ultra 9 285K will arrive at $589, while the Core Ultra 5 245K is showing up at $309. At the low-end, AMD is now undercutting Intel, and at the high-end, it’s coming in $10 more expensive with the Ryzen 9 9950X. That kind of price shifting lays a foundation for a pure performance comparison when Arrow Lake reviews go live later this week.

Google started rolling out the stable version of Android 15 to its Pixel devices recently. Now reports about Android 15 bricking Pixel 6 phones have started appearing on social media platforms.

Android 15 update bricking some Pixel 6 smartphones

Google launched the Pixel 6 smartphone three years ago. It is still one of the most feature-rich smartphones that offer a pure Android experience. The entry-level Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro have worked reliably for most buyers.

Google recently released the Android 15 OS update to its Pixel smartphones. The latest update is intended for Pixel smartphones starting from the Pixel 6, and going all the way up to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Google attempted to eliminate some concerning behavior of the Pixel smartphones when they are charging, including random reboots. However, it appears the Android 15 update has started bricking the Pixel 6 smartphone.

Although the update process is smooth and uneventful, some Pixel 6 users have reportedly complained that the update bricks their devices. According to the posts on Reddit, the Pixel 6 devices bricked by the Android 15 update become completely unresponsive.

Why is the latest update causing problems for older Pixel smartphones?

It is concerning to note that this is not the first time a major Android OS update has caused problems for the Pixel 6 smartphones. Last year, the Android 14 update locked the phone’s storage for some users. Earlier this year, a simple factory reset rendered several Pixel 6 devices unresponsive.

This year, the Android 15 update is straight-up bricking some smartphones. Interestingly, there appears to be a pattern that could be avoided. Some Reddit users have mentioned their phones died after enabling the Private Space feature.

Simply put, Pixel 6 smartphone users should avoid installing the Android 15 update for a few days. Moreover, users should back up their data before updating their devices. Additionally, it would be wise to stay away from the Private Space feature, which is pretty unfortunate. This is one of the more exciting Android 15 features to launch.

Samsung fans interested in the Galaxy Z Fold series may be curious about the the (SE), which is coming out on October 25, this Friday. However, this smartphone will only reach stores in Korea and China.

The Galaxy Z Fold SE is 1.5mm thinner and three grams lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6, measuring 1.6mm thick and weighing 236 grams. The inner and outer screens are 8 and 6.5 inches, respectively. The Galaxy Z Fold 6’s screens are 7.6 and 6.3 inches, in comparison.

While the Galaxy Fold 6 has 12GB of RAM, the Galaxy Z Fold SE will have 16GB of RAM, which allows it to perform better at AI tasks courtesy of Samsung’s . These tasks include real-time conversation interpretation, image editing, summarizing audio and transcription functions. Samsung aims to help users “unleash” their creativity with these and other functions.

The final notable change is the rear camera. The Special Edition rear sensor has been upgraded to 200 megapixels from 50 on the standard model, which is sure to please smartphone photography fans.

Samsung’s suggested price for the Galaxy Z Fold SE is 2,789,600 won, which is approximately $2,025. There are currently no sources mentioning a Chinese price. The Galaxy Fold SE is fundamentally the same as the other Galaxy Z Fold models, but it’s currently the thinnest and lightest one. It’s more challenging to procure if you’re not in Korea or China, but perhaps Samsung will change that in the future.

Tropical Storm Oscar is making it harder to restore power in Cuba after a massive, prolonged power outage that preceded the storm.

The nation’s power grid failed on Friday after Cuba’s largest power plant went offline, leaving more than 10 million people without electricity. The grid reportedly collapsed four more times before Oscar made landfall as a Category 1 storm on Sunday evening.

Oscar is hitting a key region for power generation where at least two important power plants in the city of Holguín Santiago de Cuba are located. The storm creates “an additional inconvenience,” the Associated Press reports Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy saying in a news conference. The storm is still barreling through Cuba today, posing new dangers to residents and complicating efforts to get the power grid running again.

Oscar is still dangerous even though it has weakened into a tropical storm since making landfall. Heavy rainfall is expected to trigger “life-threatening flash flooding along with mudslides across portions of eastern Cuba, especially within the Sierra Maestra” through midweek, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

Authorities are working with the aim of restoring power by Tuesday, de la O Levy said. Several days without power have already taken a big toll, leaving people without running water systems (since water pumps need electricity) or refrigeration to keep food from rotting.

Even before last week’s crisis, Cuba was already teetering on an energy crisis with an aging power grid and looming fuel shortages. Officials say they’re working to get micro power grid systems running to restore electricity region by region until “greater stability” can be achieved.

A strange pattern running through the equations of physics may reveal something fundamental about the universe or could be a sign that human brains are biased to ignore more complex explanations of reality – or both.

This insight comes from a physicist’s version of Zipf’s law, an observation by linguists that the most common word in a language appears twice as often as the second most common word, three times as often as the third, and so on. In…