Etched was founded in 2022 by Gavin Uberti, Robert Wachen and Chris Zhu, and emerged from stealth in June of this year.

AI hardware start-up Etched has raised $700m in a new funding round led by US trading firm Jane Street, which the start-up said boosted its valuation to $21bn – doubling in less than a month.

Etched builds inference clusters to make AI inference – essentially the process of using a trained AI model to make predictions on new data – faster, cheaper and more efficient. To do this, according to the start-up, it co-designs chips, racks, software and manufacturing methods.

The start-up said it uses two central technologies to power its inference clusters: low-voltage inference, which it said delivers higher compute density within the same power as existing hardware, and cluster scale memory, a hybrid memory subsystem that creates a “massive” shared memory pool across an entire cluster rather than a single chip.

As well as leading the funding round, Jane Street has also become Etched’s first customer. Etched shipped its hardware rack to the company last month after it tested the start-up’s inference hardware.

“We’ve felt the urgency to get our hardware into customers’ hands and run real workloads since day one. Jane Street putting this cluster into production is proof of what we’ve built,” said Gavin Uberti, co-founder and CEO of Etched.

“Now, we’re sprinting on scaling production for the rest of our customers.”

As well as deploying its first rack to Jane Street, Etched said it has also secured more than $1bn in customer contracts across industries including public and private “frontier” AI companies and clouds.

Other participants in the latest funding round include Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Tiger Global, Bain Capital Ventures, Neo, Stripes, Primary, Positive Sum, Diffusion, Argo and Blackstone.

Sequoia previously led Etched’s $300m Series C round last month, after which the start-up was reportedly valued at $10.3bn.

Etched was founded in 2022 by Harvard Thiel fellows Uberti, Robert Wachen and Chris Zhu. The start-up, which currently has a team of 400 employees, emerged from stealth in June of this year.

It is the latest emerging challenger to Nvidia’s dominance in the AI chip market, and has reportedly been recruiting “aggressively” from the tech giant, according to the Wall Street Journal, which said that around 15pc of Etched’s current team previously worked at the tech giant.

“Under 1pc of the world has access to frontier models. Scaling intelligence requires a new kind of inference hardware,” wrote the start-up in a blogpost announcing its latest funding.

“As we ramp to gigawatt scale, we’ll face a new set of challenges: building new factories, global supply chains, fleet software, self-improving kernel agents and more.”

The demand for semiconductors is more heightened than ever, with chipmakers across the world surging in value, while shortages sparked by unprecedented demand continue to threaten supply chains across the tech world.

Just last week, ChangXin Memory Technologies, a Chinese manufacturer of dynamic random-access memory chips, replaced Tencent as the world’s most valuable Chinese company.

Earlier this month, AI giant Anthropic confirmed previously rumoured plans to design its own chips in response to a worldwide shortage and increased pressure to develop faster, more advanced AI systems.   

In Ireland, tech giant Intel recently announced a major €5bn investment in its Kildare facility, which the company said will strengthen Ireland’s semiconductor ecosystem.

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Samsung’s Galaxy S26 FE could be getting closer to launch after the phone appeared on the Google Play Console, adding another piece to the puzzle after its recent FCC certification.

The listing confirms the phone, identified as model SM-S741U, will be powered by Samsung’s Exynos 2500 chipset and paired with 8GB of RAM. It also lists a 1,080 x 2,340-pixel display. These match the specifications that leaked for the phone last week.

The Google Play Console listing also includes an image of the handset, although there’s no launch date attached to it just yet. However, leaked renders have already shown the Galaxy S26 FE in several colour options.

The latest appearance is notable because the S26 FE has now cleared both the FCC and Google Play Console, two fairly significant steps before a smartphone reaches consumers. That doesn’t confirm Samsung is about to launch it, but it does suggest the phone is moving through the necessary certification process.

Microsoft has reminded customers that systems running Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 24H2 will stop receiving updates in two months.

“On October 13, 2026, Windows 11, version 24H2 Home and Pro editions, and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 will reach end of updates,” Microsoft warned in a message center update.

“After this date, devices running these editions will no longer receive monthly security and non-security preview updates containing protections from the latest security threats.”

However, according to its support website, Windows 11 24H2 Enterprise and Education editions will remain under mainstream support until October 2027.

Customers are advised to upgrade to Windows 11 25H2 (also known as the Windows 11 2025 Update), which has become generally available in September 2024 as a minor update installed through an enablement package.

Microsoft added that devices running Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro that aren’t managed by IT departments will automatically upgrade to Windows 11 25H2. However, customers can still choose when to restart or postpone the update.

“If you have an eligible Windows 10 or Windows 11 device, you can check whether the update is available by selecting Settings > Windows Update and selecting Check for updates. If your device is ready for the update, you’ll see the option to Download and install Windows 11, version 25H2,” it said.

You can find more information about Windows servicing dates using the Lifecycle Policy search tool or on the Windows Lifecycle FAQ page. Microsoft also lists all products it will retire or end support for in 2025 on its support website.

Microsoft has also stopped rolling out security updates to devices running Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 23H2 in November 2025, and quietly extended the free Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for consumers by an additional year, until October 2027, in June.

More recently, it announced that Windows Server 2022 is also rapidly approaching its mainstream end-of-support date of October 2026, when it will switch to extended support to continue receiving security updates through October 14, 2031.

Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply.

The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments.

Get the report

EDGE AND IOT

Clamp, flash, repeat – no separate IO board or host computer required

Raspberry Pi has unveiled a $600 Programming Jig to take the faff out of preparing batches of Compute Module 5 (CM5) boards for deployment.

The device combines the provisioning host and module interface in one box, eliminating the need for a separate IO board.

The IO board is, of course, considerably cheaper, but serves a different purpose: it exposes a CM5’s interfaces for development and prototyping. It can also be used during provisioning, albeit through a more involved setup. The Programming Jig is designed to install an operating system and security configuration, then move straight on to the next module.

Weighing just under 1.8 kg, the single-head device accepts one CM5 at a time. Clamp the computer in place and provisioning begins automatically. A typical installation takes about 90 seconds, after which a green status LED indicates that the module can be removed and replaced with the next one. It is a straightforward procedure that industrial users may welcome when faced with a stack of CM5s destined for embedded systems.

Initial setup involves writing the jig’s own operating system and configuring it with Raspberry Pi Imager. Raspberry Pi recommends using Connect to access the jig’s desktop remotely, after which operators can upload the images destined for their CM5 boards.

Raspberry Pi had already tackled part of the mass-provisioning problem with rpi-sb-provisioner, which automates operating system installation and security configuration. The remaining challenge was hardware: each CM5 still had to be connected to a provisioning host, perhaps through an IO board attached to a separate Raspberry Pi or other computer.

The Programming Jig integrates the controller and pogo-pin interface into a single unit. Once configured, the operator need only place a CM5 in the clamp and close the lid.

Sadly, there is no satisfying ping when the job is done, but we don’t doubt that some enterprising soul will fix that before long. ®

Lexar’s new 8TB SSD is a dream for creatives, but Apple’s port choices are holding it back. Let’s find out if the large capacity Armor 700 is still worth buying.

As both a photographer and videographer, I’m always churning through storage. I have near a hundred terabytes sitting on my desk in one fashion or another.

Recently, I’ve been working more mobile than I had been, requiring somewhat of a reevaluation of my workflow. I needed something I could bring around to use with my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro with enough capacity to reduce my transfers between drives.

Fortunately, the Lexar Armor 700 8TB recently launched, seemingly the answer to my needs. It has a lot going for it, but Apple’s peculiar standard support makes it a tough call.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Design

The Lexar Armor 700 is standard fare for a mobile drive. It’s not particularly flashy nor offensive. The body is tapered to the edges just slightly, with a matte rubberized finish and silver metal end caps.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Holding the new high-capacity SSD

There are ridges going down the metal sides which provide both added grip and enhanced drop protection. Being an “armor” drive, drop performance is important.

It promises three meters of drop protection, which I think is more than sufficient for my uses. A chest-height drop would only be roughly half of that.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: The drive has a clean, rugged design but can attract dust

Lexar also says the drive has an IP66 rating, meaning it is both dust-tight and resistant to water. It is supposed to hold up against water jets from any angle, though it isn’t rated for submersion.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Comparing the Lexar SL500 (left) to the Armor 700 (right)

It isn’t the thinnest drive that Lexar makes. Something like the Lexar SL500 is much thinner.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: The Lexar SL500 can be inserted into a silicone sleeve and be used as a MagSafe SSD on iPhone

The SL500 also has a cool trick where it can be inserted into a silicone sleeve to turn it into a MagSafe SSD for use with iPhone. It’s a fantastic, ultra-slim drive.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Comparing the footprint of the Lexar SL500 (left) to that of the Armor 700 (right)

It’s the added durability and resistance that separates the two. For something that I intend to travel with and that could come into contact with children in the house, I need that enhanced durability, married with the performance and capacity.

Lexar also includes a short USB-C to USB-C cable in the box. One end has a tethered USB-C to USB-A adapter.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: The USB-C cable includes a USB-A adapter, but it’s a little annoying

I like that the tether means you won’t lose it, but for me, it just gets in the way. I eventually cut the adapter off.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Performance

This drive is a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 SSD with up to 2,000MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write speeds. At least if you have the device to support it.

Apple supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, but not Gen 2×2. That 2×2 means it has two lanes of data, which is what enables the 2,000MB/s speed compared to USB 3.2 Gen 2 devices with a single lane of data.

It’s a little annoying that Apple has chosen not to support this optional variant of the USB standard, while being so fast to adopt others like USB 4.0 and Thunderbolt 5.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: One run of the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

I ran several performance tests, including the Blackmagic Disk Speed test. In several runs, I was getting just under 1,000MB/s for both the read and write speeds.

That’s exactly what I’d expect when using a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 drive on a USB 3.2 Gen 2 machine. One lane means you’d get about half the performance, which is what I saw.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: A 100GB file took just under 2 minutes to transfer

I also ran a large real-world file transfer test, moving a 100GB Final Cut Pro project to the drive. It ended up taking a bit under two minutes to complete the transfer, which isn’t bad at all.

Continuing the testing, I wanted to see whether the cache could be a bottleneck during long, continuous use on my Mac. This drive has a Silicon Motion SM2320 controller that uses a small stack of SLC NAND media, rather than a dedicated DRAM cache.

If allocated a small cache, transfer speeds may start fast, but will start to throttle as the cache is filled. Small file tests may show particularly fast speeds because they don’t get close to filling the cache and may not surface performance issues with bigger transfers.

To test this, I ran a 1TB continuous sequential write using fio on my MacBook Pro. The whole test lasted 18 minutes and 24 seconds.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: A sustained 1TB test was unable to fill the SLC cache of the drive with the Mac’s limited 10Gb/s performance

Looking at the data, the drive averaged 972MB/s over the course of the test. There was no discernible drop in speed over the entire span, meaning it couldn’t exhaust the SLC cache with the Mac’s 10Gb/s limit.

This of course doesn’t mean the drive has a 1TB cache, but rather it’s able to move the data from the SLC cache to the main storage faster than the data is transferred over. To get the size of the cache, you’d need to test the drive on a machine that supports USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, but this is good news for Mac users.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Why USB 3.2?

Inevitably, people will ask why Lexar opted for USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 compared to standards Apple supports, like USB 4.0 or Thunderbolt. I think there are a few reasons for this.

First, USB 3.2 is more common than USB 4.0 or Thunderbolt and Gen 2×2 is widely supported on Windows PCs. It’s also cheaper to produce.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support doesn’t exist for Mac users, which cuts the speeds in half

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If Lexar can achieve 2,000MB/s of performance using an older standard, I think that’s acceptable. Especially when we know the alternative.

There are several drives widely available using USB 4.0 or Thunderbolt with 8TB capacity. The rub is, they’re much more expensive.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: The Lexar Armor 700 holds its own against other popular SSDs

Glyph’s 8TB Thunderbolt mobile SSD is $1,899. OWC has a USB 4.0 version of its 8TB mobile SSD and a Thunderbolt version that will run you either $2,149 or $2,299 respectively.

Glyph does have a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 version that is only $599, but it’s roughly 2-3 times the size of the Lexar Armor 700. If you leave out the Gen 2×2, you could opt for the SanDisk 8TB Extreme USB 3.2 Gen 2 mobile drive, which is $839, but it is capped at 1,000MB/s no matter what.

One last one to highlight is Samsung, who offers its USB 3.2 Gen 1 drive in an 8TB flavor, but it’s only going to yield 480MB/s speeds, half of what everyone else has. It still will cost roughly as much as this Lexar drive.

It’s just frustrating that Apple chose not to support that optional Gen 2×2 spec, for cases like this.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: The 8TB is a good value, if you can find it

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I think that all things considered, Lexar has the best combination of price, capacity, and performance. If you want even better performance on Mac, you can get it — for a price.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Should you buy the Lexar Armor 700 8TB?

The Lexar Armor 700 is a solid drive, and I think the 8TB version is fantastic. That’s ample storage for most users, and at current prices, it’s a steal when compared to the competition or even the 4TB version.

Obviously the biggest issue with it is Apple’s lack of support for USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, but it’s still a solid option when you consider the market and performance.

Otherwise, the worst I can say is that the silicone exterior has a tendency to attract dust. Which is a commonality amongst any other silicone-covered rugged drives.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: A solid solution, even with the Mac limitations

If you are looking for sizable storage that you can take with you, Lexar hit the sweet spot. It would be even better if Apple didn’t hold back its performance.

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Pros

• Compact size for portability
• Rubberized outside for durability
• IP66 dust and water resitance rating
• Great performance, depending on device
• USB-A adapter included
• Stays cool during use
• Massive 8TB capacity on the go

Lexar Armor 700 8TB review: Cons

• Rubber finish attracts dust
• Apple doesn’t support USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 for full performance
• Hard to find in stock

Lexar Armor 700 8TB rating: 4 out of 5

Where to buy the Lexar Armor 700 8TB

Currently, the Lexar Armor 700 8TB is tough to find amidst the storage shortage hitting the industry. Adorama is perhaps your best bet with a price of $849 and an expected in-stock backorder date of October.

B&H is currently out of stock, but lists the drive at $799. Amazon also has the drive and its other capacities, but the 8TB specifically is out of stock.

Nintendo finally put its next home system on sale in Japan on June 23, 1996. After years of delays and growing anticipation, the company shipped about 300,000 units for the first day. Every one sold. Three games sat on shelves alongside the hardware: Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, and a Shogi (Japanese chess) title limited to that market.

Instead of the previously announced rival systems, gamers were pleasantly surprised. A three-pronged controller was common, built around an analog stick that detected the pressure applied. Unlike prior digital pads, which only let you choose from a few predetermined orientations, this device allowed you to move freely in any direction you wanted. Super Mario 64 was the game that really brought everything home. Who would have thought we’d see Mario just walking, running, jumping, and exploring all these amazing three-dimensional areas within Peach’s castle and out in the worlds? With the camera angles altering to match your control, it felt like a game designed to be played in 3D.

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In North America, things didn’t arrive until September 29th, and many expected a higher price, but Nintendo came in at just $199.95 ($425.54 today) instead. This was a good thing because the competition outperformed them. Only two games were produced for the system: Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. Of course, that didn’t seem to matter, as stores blew through the first shipment almost immediately. To make matters even more intriguing, several stores reported that their pre-orders had sold out before the official debut date. Nintendo of America later stated that more than half of all systems and software were sold during the opening weekend alone.

Games were all saved on cartridges, which was convenient because the data was ready to go, resulting in less annoying loading screens than before. The visuals were clear and substantial, thanks in part to the processor being based on one developed by Silicon Graphics for high-end visual effects work. The anti-aliasing smoothed out the edges slightly, and the textures were nice and crisp. All of this meant that previous titles released for other systems appeared to be quite bad in comparison.

Photo credit: Djf47021
Pilotwings 64 was another game that demonstrated how much superior the new stick was, since you could fly through the air with hang gliders, rocket packs, and other fancy equipment, performing all sorts of feats and challenges throughout these gorgeously realistic (for the time) landscapes. The analog stick was ideal since it allowed you to control your flight path in real time with extreme precision.

Photo credit: AveryYapps
Demand for the console remained high until the end of the year. Nintendo expected to sell over a million and a half systems in North America by the end of December, and the income was phenomenal, with hardware and software sales averaging hundreds of thousands per day. A few months later, other titles were launched, including Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Killer Instinct Gold, and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, providing new owners even more reasons to return to the stores.

After a stunning debut last week with cyber capabilities so advanced they reportedly found a previously undetected vulnerability in Cursor, GLM-5.3, the new frontier open source language model from Chinese startup z.ai, has now hit the application programming interface (API) — allowing developers the ability to build atop it and plug it into their agents and applications.

Developers who previously subscribed to a GLM Coding Plan are currently limited to the OpenAI Chat Completions-compatible protocol. Z.ai said it plans to make the model’s weights openly available, but a precise date and licensing remain to be seen.

On the API, the price is unchanged from GLM-5.2: $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens. Cached input costs $0.26 per million tokens, while Z.ai currently lists cached-input storage as free for a limited time.

That means developers can move to the new generation without taking a higher posted per-token rate from Z.ai, even as the company claims substantially stronger coding and long-horizon agent performance.
At those rates, GLM-5.3 sits well below several of the highest-end frontier APIs.

Using the simple VentureBeat comparison of one million input tokens plus one million output tokens, GLM-5.3 comes to $5.80, versus $8 for Grok 4.6 at its lower context rate, $18 for Kimi K3, $30 for Claude Opus 5 and $35 for GPT-5.6 Sol.

That is not a workload-cost estimate — real bills depend heavily on the input/output mix, caching and token consumption — but it makes the relative API price tier easy to see.

GLM-5.3 is not the cheapest capable model available. Google’s current introductory price for Gemini 3.7 Flash is $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens through Dec. 31, 2026, while OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Luna is priced at $0.20 input and $1.20 output.

Still, Z.ai’s price puts GLM-5.3 into a notably lower cost band than the premium frontier models it is increasingly benchmarked against.

That comparison has become more relevant following the latest independent results. Artificial Analysis gives GLM-5.3 a score of 60 on its Intelligence Index, tying Kimi K3 as the top performing open weights model in the world, and scoring seven points higher than GLM-5.2. I

ts analysis also estimates GLM-5.3 at about $0.68 per Intelligence Index task, versus roughly $0.44 for GLM-5.2, despite the identical API token prices.

The difference underscores an important caveat in headline API pricing: Artificial Analysis found GLM-5.3 more verbose than its predecessor, so flat per-token rates do not necessarily mean flat costs for a completed workload.

For developers, though, the immediate change is straightforward: GLM-5.3 is now callable through Z.ai’s API at the same $1.40/$4.40 per-million-token rate as GLM-5.2, giving teams another relatively low-cost option for testing frontier-class coding and agent workloads.